Without warning, he emerges from the bath.
I gasp. Even his perfectly shaped ass is muscled.
He turns and sinks back into the water.
My cheeks heat. He enjoys flaunting his masculinity, doesn’t he? But then if I had a cock that size when limp and a crazy art history major bathing me on a whim, I would too.
I’m tired of defending my major. No matter how beautiful and enlightening, twisted and depraved, or shy yet adventurous, art reflects true humanity. It validates the lightness and darkness, and all the shades of grey between. It reminds me I’m not the only person with a beautifully warped and dirty mindset.
“You study the sick fuck who cut off his ear, and then mailed it to his brother?”
The loofah escapes my grasp and tumbles into the water. Wait, he’s interested? “Van Gogh?” I exclaim. “Yes. I studied him briefly. But I prefer the work of Italian artists, like Caravaggio and Botticelli.”
“Leonardo di Vinci.”
“Yes.” I blink in surprise. Not because he named off arguably the most important artist in history but that he named a Renaissance artist, which is my area of expertise. “And Michelangelo.”
He leans back, places his arms on the tub rim, and cocks a knee.
My throat goes dry. When the bathwater stills, I’ll see his cock. Someone should sculpt this brazen beast. Part man, part bull.
Lord have mercy.
His lips curl, as if he’s daring me to look.
Nope. Not while you’re watching me so closely.
After a long minute, he switches up the game. “I’d like another cigar.” He nods to the box on the stool beside the tub. A half-empty whiskey canister, his cell phone, and an ashtray containing a cigar stub are beside it. I quickly do his bidding, withdrawing a fresh cigar and leaning over to hand it to him.
“Stand at the foot of the tub, put it between your lips, and light it for me. The lighter is on the floor.”
Speechless, I do as he asks, retrieving the lighter before facing him, the cigar pinched between my lips. Not a smoker, it takes me three tries to light it. I offer him the cigar, but he shakes his head. “First, I want to watch you smoke it.”
Confused, I resume my position at the foot of the tub, and scissoring my fingers around the cigar, slide the tip between my lips.
“Good girl.”
His praise rolls over me like a warm blanket.
“Art history, huh?”
I nod.
“My father took me to Rome when I was ten,” he tells me. “I killed time inside a chapel while he surprised a few enemies. I always remember what a contradiction it was, me inside a church and him as close to hell as any man gets.”
I inhale, then cough as cigar smoke burns my lungs.
“Look at me as you suck in your next hit.”
Our eyes lock.
I draw in the smoke in a slow, controlled inhalation.
His nostrils flare as he softly curses, “Cazzo.”
I softly smile, and he immediately reacts, shifting, bending his other leg, and bringing both knees out of the water.
I choke so hard my eyes water.