Page 27 of Loving Wild
My fluffy, rainbow-coloured cloud sprinkled with pink and silver glitter, I’m floating on is burst when I walk into the bathroom and find Gabe, not in the bath waiting for me, but sitting on the toilet, jocks around his ankles, door wide open.
“Seriously?” I come to a stop and question.
Something I’ve learned about Gabe, he has no issues with bodily functions and will walk in, hold a conversation with me and take a piss, all while I’m standing at the sink putting my makeup on.
Me? I’m grateful that Gabe’s ensuite toilet has a door, so I can at least have a little privacy and have a wee when he’s around, but anything else, I either wait till he’s out of the house or have the music blaring, and every door between where he is, and where I am firmly closed!
“What?” he responds with his own question.
“I thought I was taking a bath to unwind and relax? I won’t be doing that with the smell of your arse wafting around me.”
“Man’s gotta shit, Lauren. My arse smells like roses so it won’t fucking kill you.”
That earns him an eye roll.
“To you maybe. At least shut the door while you wipe. Avon Arse or not, I might love you, but no one needs to see that. And do it properly, and then you can shower before you get in the bath with me.”
“Woman,” he calls out from behind the door he closed as I was talking.
“And don’t call me woman,” I order as I climb into the bath.
The door opens, and he’s standing there staring, and I’m not sure what to make of the way he’s looking at me.
“What?” I question. “Shut the door behind you.”
Stepping forward, he closes the door as he continues to stare.
“You just told me you loved me while I was sitting on the toilet.”
“You noticed that, did ya? Well, you told me while I was sitting on the table leaking jizz. Now we’re even.”
“You mean it?”
“No.”
“Liar,” he says with a smile and a shake of his head before heading to the sink and washing his hands. I look on as he then goes to the shower and washes himself . . . everywhere. Turning off the shower, his body glistening with water, I watch as he walks to the bath I’m submerged in and slides in behind me.
Kissing my shoulder, the curve of my neck, then behind my ear, his breath heats my skin as he says quietly, “I don’t know if today’s been the best or most fucked up of my life.”
“It’s just us, Wild. It’s just us doing us, and doing it our way,” I say as I lean my head back against his shoulder and his arms slide around me to rest on my belly.
“Let’s not ever stop that, doing us our way.”
“Works for me,” I tell him as I close my eyes and do exactly what we came here for, chill and relax.
* * *
Wrapped in a warm towel,I watch as he wraps his own towel around his hips, then turns and starts lifting the pump dispensers I have sitting on the side of the sink and smelling them.
“Which one’s the stuff you rub in, the one that makes you smell nice?” he looks over his shoulder and questions me.
“In my drawer under the sink. That one’s hand lotion, you want the body lotion. What do you need it for?”
Ignoring me, he opens the drawer containing my makeup and toiletries, then pulls out and inspects the bottle of Molton Brown Jo had brought round to cheer me up a few weeks back. The orange and bergamot is my absolute favourite and not easy to find in Australia, but she’d somehow managed to source a bottle.
“This is the stuff. It smells fucking gorgeous on you,” he says as he turns to face me.
“Thatstuffcosts fifty bucks a bottle,” I inform him. “Why’d you need it?” I ask again.
