Page 37 of Virago

The bathroom in her castoff shed was small, and it had been awkward navigating two people around a toilet and sink, but the step-in shower wasn’t a bad size. About half again as big as a standard square shower. Cozy for two, but not absurdly cramped. There was room to move limbs, switch positions, possibly even more.

Currently, Gia was too sore for more, but it was nice to know it was possible.

Zaxx took the one step back he had room to take, clearing the center position, directly under the spray, for Gia. She stepped in and turned her face up to the water. The parts of her body that had been scraped over the rug sparked uncomfortably, but the water felt too good to care about those minor stings. She closed her eyes and let the heat and calm flow over her, leaching away the ache and scuff of the most intense, athletic sexual experience of her life to date. Ducking her head forward, she let the water run through her hair, over her neck and shoulders, and couldn’t help but moan.

She felt Zaxx’s hands on her shoulders, kneading gently, and she moaned again, more loudly, and put her hands on the shower wall to help her stay upright. He massaged her whole back, her shoulders, her arms, leaning in frequently to press his mouth to her skin and suck. Then, briefly, his touch was gone. Before she could do more than realize it, he was back, this time with a firm new bar of soap in his hand. The familiar scent of her family’s favorite soap wafted through the steam—a goatmilk blend of cedar and citrus handmade by Signal Bend local Abigail Freeman.

Starting at her shoulders, Zaxx washed her, with long, kneading strokes along her arms, up and down her back, swirling over her ass, around to her belly, up to her chest, lingering with soft, plucking strokes of her breasts, then down over her belly again, to her legs, down the outsides of her thighs and calves, all the way to her ankles, and then back up along the insides, up as far as he could go.

Gia leaned on the shower wall, her eyes closed, shower spray running over the back of her head, and quivered with the sensual delight of being cared for like this. Another thing that had never happened in her life to date.

He paused at the topmost point of her inner thighs and whispered in her ear, “I want to soothe you, not get you going. And I don’t want the soap to hurt. Should I stop here?”

She let those words meander into her ear and seek sense in her brain. When they did, Gia understood that she wasn’t aroused—well, she was definitely stimulated, absolutely in bliss, but it wasn’t the same needy, almost selfish feeling of sexual need. She didn’t want to come. She simply wanted to be close with him, to feel his touch. To be soothed.

“Yeah, stop there.”

He did. He put the soap away, and Gia thought it was over. But he came back with shampoo. He lathered her hair, massaging her scalp with every stroke, then eased her around to face him so he could rinse the shampoo away.

When it was finally over, Gia was shaken to her core.

She blinked the water from her eyes and saw Zaxx. The faintest glimmer of a smile danced over his mouth, but his eyes, those vibrant orbs, icy blue and yet so warm, were wide and serious. Maybe it was simply projection, finding herself reflected in him, but she thought he might have been shaken by this quiet, almost-chaste moment himself.

She slid her hands up his spectacular chest, his neck, to his cheeks. Pushing her fingers into his hair, she pulled him down for a kiss. Slow and soft, light but deep. She felt his sigh as he pulled her close and settled in.

When the kiss was over, she turned them around in the shower, putting Zaxx under the spray, and returned every delight he’d bestowed on her.

Chapter Eleven

Zaxx woke to a room awash in fresh morning light. The skylight in Gia’s peaked roof was big enough to make the space feel like it was outdoors. A glance at his watch showed him it was just past seven. He had shit to do today, but it was Sunday, so he was in no rush.

He lay on his side, facing Gia, who lay mostly on her belly, her head turned toward him. Crackers slept in a curl on her pillow, like a cat hat.

She was completely, deeply asleep, and he’d never seen her so relaxed. He’d seen a vast range of expressions on her face last night, from anger to ecstasy, but never complete peace, not even in the shower, when they’d been slow and gentle and sex-free. He figured her mind moved too fast and too constantly for peace to be possible when she was conscious.

Wanting to relive every moment of last night, from their first kiss in the bar to their absolutely Olympic fucking on the floor, and then their shower after, each washing the other, and finally curling up together here in her bed and falling asleep, Zaxx started to roll to his back. He got about halfway before he felt something thick beneath him and heard a feline squawk.

“Oops, sorry,” he muttered quietly and reached for the cat snugged against his back. It was the big, orange one. He set him on his chest. “Hey, Mr. Cheese,” he whispered. “Or can I call you Cheddar?”

“Only the government calls him Cheddar,” Gia mumbled sleepily. “Friends call him Cheese. Family calls him Cheesy. Or Cheesecake. Cheesy Biscuits. Cheez-Its. Cheese-Boy-Ar-Dee.” She picked up Crackers from her pillow and added, “And this guy is Cracker Barrel, Crackhead, Croaker, Crackle, and Crackamunga.”

Laughing, Zaxx put Cheese off his chest and nudged him off the bed. When the cat was away, he turned back to face Gia. “Quality nicknames all.”

She sent Crackers to follow his brother, then settled in again on her pillow, smiling with the light of an angel. Her makeup had smeared from last night’s femme-fatale sleekness to a post-sex, post-shower, post-sleep emo smudge, and her lips were swollen and a little bit chapped around the edges. She was absolutely perfect.

He brushed a finger over her lips, whisper-light. “Morning, virago.”

Her smile went wide beneath his touch. “Morning.” Her hand snaked out from under the comforter and went to his chest.

Zaxx sucked in a slow breath as the feel of her fingers dancing in his chest hair stirred his body to life. “I like that.”

Her fingertips walked upward, over his Adam’s apple, along his jawline, and down again. He felt her trace the simple bit of ink, his first, that sat at the base of his neck, on the left side.

“Sagittarius,” she observed correctly, because that piece was the zodiacal symbol for his birth sign. “Are you into astrology?”

She had no way of knowing that her question was more complex than she’d probably expected.

He caught her hand and brought it his mouth. As he kissed each finger, he answered, “Yes and no. My mom is really into it, astrology, the occult, the whole Wicca package. It was the closest thing to a religion I had growing up. I know more about it than most, probably, but I don’t believe in it like that. I did when I was a kid, though. When I got older and understood the difference between astrology and astronomy, I went for the science. That I am definitely into.” He pressed a lingering kiss to her palm. “So, Gia Lunden, virago extraordinaire, what’s your sign?”

---