Page 48 of Peaches

When I work the shirt off of him, I reach for his pants. The silver of his eyes darkens to near black, a heated counterpart to the ice I saw out in the living room. “Sometimes I feel like the world is pressing down against me,” I tell him softly. “I’ve always tried to figure out where that feeling comes from. Maybe it’s the expectation for how the rest of my life is supposed to look? Pressure to make sure my mom knows how thankful I am for everything she’s given me? I’m never really sure . . . but it makes me feel heavy, like gravity’s pulling me into the floor and I can’t stand straight or breathe fully.” I give him a half-hearted smile. “I learned a long time ago that baths help. The warm water—it feels like a hug. Like an assurance, you know?”

It takes a bit of effort to push his jeans down the thick muscle of his thighs, the weight of his stare burning the crown of my head. When I’ve got them wrapped around his ankles, he lifts each foot, one at a time, and lets me pull them completely off. I stand again, reaching for the hem of his boxers. “Is this okay?” I ask.

He swallows, the apple of his throat dipping. Nods.

I take them off quickly, fighting the rush of heat that I know snakes up my chest and neck. “Get in,” I say when he’s bare, nodding toward the tub.

“Will you join me?” he asks, voice rough.

My belly swoops as heat sinks inside of me, a throbbing ache I feel everywhere. “Okay.”

Rhett steps into the tub, carefully lowering himself into the water with a low groan as I slip out of the sweats and T-shirt I have on. He holds out a hand for me when I step toward the tub and I take it, letting him ease me in with him. I settle between his long legs, resting my back against his chest as the water rises around us from the space our bodies create.

I tryreallyhard not to take inventory of all the places our skin touches, especially not after he wraps his arms around me to pull me closer to his body, the tops of his arms skating under the swell of my breasts. “Tell me something real,” I murmur, desperate to keep him with me, to not lose him to the dark corners of whatever’s going on in his mind. It’s obvious something is looming over him, a storm cloud threatening to burst, and if he tells me what it is, I might be able to help.

I feel the way his shoulders slump. The way his body seems to sink further into the water. “Sometimes,” he says, so quietly it’s almost a whisper, “I just don’t know what the point of anything is.”

“What happened?” I ask more forcefully.

He sighs. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not right now.”

Disappointment spears through me, but I push it aside. “Okay,” I say. “Would you rather I distract you?”

His grip around me tightens. “How do you plan on doing that?”

I hike my shoulders in a shrug. “Maybe you can tell me how you learned to . . . do what we did.”

He stills for a moment and then he lifts his arm to trace warm, wet fingers along my skin. The scratch of his chin grazes the nape of my neck. “What we did?”

“You know what I mean.”

He smiles inside the crook of my neck and it feels like the first taste of relief. “Some experience,” he admits, voice thick like honey. “Paying attention when I try something new. Not being afraid to try in the first place.”

“Hm,” I hum, mind spinning at the easy confidence he exudes.

Be brave, he wrote to me only days ago. That small piece of paper I now covet.

“Tell me what to do,” I whisper. “Tell me how to help, how I can do things the way you like.”

A long moment stretches out around us and I begin to think he’s going to pretend the words didn’t leave my mouth. That he might go back to hiding in his own head. But then?—

“Touch me,” he murmurs, his breath heating the skin of my neck before his hot mouth presses to my temple. “I want you to touch me, peaches.”

I squeeze my eyes shut as goosebumps race across my skin. “How?”

His chuckle is dark and gritty. “However you want to. You can’t possibly go wrong.”

I lean forward, turning to face him as water sloshes back and forth between us. Even through the clouds of bubbles that ripple along the surface, I see the expanse of skin and long, muscled limbs beneath. He watches me with only half the grin I know he can produce, his eyes pure smoke, and yet . . . there’s still a void that sings along my senses.

I think back to our conversation on the water tower, to all he’s endured, carrying so much of the weight of his family’s struggles. Holding space for all the hate and vitriol everyone spews at them in a fight that he never belonged to in the first place. I’m not sure when, exactly, it happened, but I want him to know that Iseehim. And not just the version he shows the rest of the world, but the shades that lie within that are honest and careful and kind.

I watch his gaze move down my face, to my neck, my chest. His eyes linger there for a while, and my heart gallops with the strength of a full stampede with every second that passes. Reaching through the water, I lightly wrap my hands around his legs at a spot just above both knees, easing them higher with a pressure soft and teasing. He lets out a sharp exhale as the pads of my fingers whisper along his skin.

His eyelids fall, dark lashes fanning across a sun-kissed face. And I think I might remember him, picture him like this, for the rest of my life.

It’s the heat of the water and the sparking energy between us that sends a tentative hand between his legs, where he’s already hard. I trace the length of him, watching as his jaw clenches and brows knit. When I wrap a firm hand around him and tug, he hisses out a low “Fuck” as his eyes open, catching mine.

“Does that feel good?” I ask, tongue dry as I tug again.

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