Give It All by Cara McKenna

back through the room, meeting Duncan’s eyes through the gap in the door.
    “What the hell are you playing at?”
    “You get extra British when you’re angry.”
    “Tell me.”
    “I just wanted to know why it smells like bleach in here.” And to check for stray conquests and whips and so forth.
    “Let me in my room or I’ll call the police.”
    “Say please.”
    His head cocked. “Fuck you.”
    She nearly giggled at that, giddy to have roused such crassness in this man. She shut the door and undid the chain. He was inside a moment later, the anger draining from him. He was gathering his self-control, shrugging back into that invisible suit of civility. He glanced around the room, expression mellowing. She’d bet Duncan was stingy with his anger, gifting it only when someone absolutely deserved it. She wondered what she’d do next to earn the honor.
    “You know,” he said mildly, “I’ve had fantasies about you turning up unexpected in my room. But it never looked like this.”
    She shot him a look, feeling surprised and a bit warm to hear one of them finally admit it—that this attraction went beyond some chiding game. Or perhaps he was just using that little flirtatious ploy to steal the power back from her.
    “It never smelled like this in
my
fantasies.” She turned her attention to his outfit. “And you’re underdressed.”
    “I’m cleaning.”
    “So I saw. Why? I can see you being dissatisfied with the job housekeeping does, but to do the work yourself . . . ?”
    Duncan walked to the bathroom and Raina followed. He flipped on the light and fan, illuminating gleaming plastic and porcelain and grout, a red bucket on the floor by the wall, blue sponge perched on the tub’s ledge. His arm brushed hers as he leaned to toss the gloves over the bucket’s rim.
    “Seriously,” she said, “what’s the deal? Why bother?”
    “I have my reasons.”
    Confusion sent wild images flashing across her imagination—of Duncan cleaning blood off a hacksaw or something, disinfecting evidence, complicit all along. “What reasons?”
    “A trillion invisible offenses, ones that no one but I would ever waste half a breath worrying about.” He edged past her to rinse his hands in the sink, drying them primly and refolding the hand towel.
    Raina turned and wandered back into the main room with suspicions nagging. The cat shot off across the bed as she neared. She pulled open the top dresser drawer—crisp shirts, folded with military precision in flush rows, gradating from white to cream to pale gray to charcoal. Ditto his pants in the drawer below. Perhaps a dozen pairs of identical shorts, tidily rolled beside as many pairs of socks. Gleaming shoes stood at attention by the wall beside a pair of stylish sneakers, arranged so neatly they could’ve been occupied by invisible soldiers. Duncan had followed, and he watched, saying nothing. There was a slick laptop charging, its brushed aluminum corner nested perfectly with that of the desktop. Phone set precisely parallel.
    What the frigging frack?
    She stared at him. “You OCD or something?”
    He swallowed. “Yes. I am. Are you really so surprised?”
    She considered it. Maybe twenty-four hours ago, before she’d seen him shaking in the bar, yes, she’d have been surprised. But after last night?
    “I dunno,” she said. “You seem so in control. Isn’t OCD all about being powerless?”
    His expression was impossible to interpret. “Power is nothing if not mercurial.”
    “You don’t seem like a germophobe.” Fussy sometimes, but he’d watched her make his sandwich and eaten it without any obvious distress. Then again, he’d been medicated.
    “I’m not offended by germs so much as I am imperfection.”
    “How often do you need to do that kind of stuff?” she asked.
    He considered it. “With some things I have to arrange them every day, before I can leave the room. Make the bed just so, set the toiletries in their correct places, organize the