Page 57 of One More Chapter
“Why not, when it’s the truth? I didn’t even want to come. Why do you think I woke up at the crack of dawn to go on a boat ride? I heardyouwould be there. I haven’t been myself in a while. I haven’t felt more at ease, or sure of what I should do next, than when I’m looking at you.”
“I was in a rough way on that trip, Pen. But every moment I spent with you started to patch me back together. Even now, in the middle of our fight, in the middle of this uncanny situation, I haven’t felt more at ease, or sure of what I should do next, than when I’m looking at you.”
He remembers, too, then. He thinks about it too.
I have to get out of here. Have to remove myself from his soft hands and his deep, syrupy voice, and those words that don’t quite match the puzzle pieces of what he did after.
Of course, I don’t think things through, when I stand in the middle of the tub, fully naked. I freeze beneath his gaze. Beneath hungry eyes that widen, then darken, immediately. God, the way his chest collapses with an exhale makes me immediately wet.
I don’t bother to cover myself—the bubbles are doing a pretty good job. That’s when I realize just how sudsy I am. I break his hungry stare and realize that I can’t rinse off in this tub. And because my heart and body just can’t help themselves, I bite my bottom lip, and ask, “Would you help me rinse off?”
twenty-one
anthony
This isnotwhat I intended when I offered to wash her hair. I did that because she’s hurting and she’s down, and she deserves for someone to take care of her.
I did it because I love her.
And now, she’s standing in front of me with suds sliding down her rose gold curves, asking me to follow her into the shower, to stare at her naked bodylonger?If not for all of those other reasons, I’d do it just to memorize her like this. My eyes can’t rove like they want to—because she’s watching, but also because I don’t think I’d have enough time to take in every perfect thing about her.
That night on the beach, we’d at least keptonelaw in tact by keeping our clothes on—aside from when she’d bent over my lap and took me to the back of her throat. I’ve dreamt about this body—both consciously and unconsciously—for two years now. I didn’t even come close. Penelope has curves. She’s something to hold onto, something malleable and pliable that I want to spend hours—years—molding to my touch.
“I…”
Can’t make words work, apparently.
She bites that lip again, and it takes everything in me not to tug it free, not to bite it myself.
“You said it was okay to ask for help. Right?”
You sure did, you big dummy.
I nod. Grunt. Effectively turn into a caveman.
She steps into the shower, and I have to physically turn and look away from the bend and jiggle of her ass with the movements. She starts the shower, and I strip out of my outer layer, leaving me in my boxer briefs and undershirt.
It’s just a shower, it’s just a shower, you’re helping her rinse off the bubbles, the bubbles that are covering the nipples you only played with through her shirt?—
“It’s warm enough.”
I know her well enough that I can pull apart the two different parts to that tone: Quiet shyness, and a devilish siren.
I grunt again. Shake my head. Duck into the shower and take the detachable showerhead from its magnetic hold. I point it at the ground so I don’t get her bag-wrapped cast wet, and focus on my task. If I just think about bland, terrible things, I won’t be able to focus on her naked body.
The tiles in this shower need to be scrubbed. The Bruins can’t make it out of the first round of the playoffs. Penelope’s nipples are now totally free of bubble bath.
Eh. Well. It was a valiant effort.
Andfuckis she perfect. Her tits are bigger than average, more than a handful when I’d squeezed them over her clothes on that beach. Her nipples are rosy and pointed, and absolutely begging for my touch, my tongue,something. I rake my gaze over her, take in every single detail, and then trace those mounds up the slope of her neck. Her blue eyes are the calm before the storm, but the center is dilating by the second, like all she needed was my gaze on hers to push her over the line. Her lipspart, and I swear there’s a little sigh just waiting in the back of her throat, waiting for me to give her the go-ahead.
Instead, I panic, and squirt her breasts with the showerhead. Her eyes go wide and meet my gaze like a mirror. She shakes her head and turns around, and I run my hand through my hair because I’m a big fat failure.
In the words ofHow I Met Your Mother,that wasthesign.
I can’t. Icannotput my hands on her again when we’ve barely just scratched the surface of apologizing and getting past what happened between us.
I watch as the water drips down her back, cascading over the curves that felt heavenly when I’d gripped her to grind over my lap. The curves I’d smoothed over when she’d been laying in my arms after. My erection pulls against the wet, tight fabric of my underwear, so hard that the band is tugged away from my skin.