Page 86 of Fierce

All over now, because I was here. Warm, and naked, and in a pretty terrific shower that wasn’t a hose attached to the bathtub in my kitchen, and thinking about Hemi.

I turned, welcoming the gentle cascade on my breasts, a warm caress as soothing as a lover’s hand, as gentle as a kiss. Trickling down my belly, pooling between my thighs. Touching me everyplace I needed it, everyplace that ached.

It had been almost a week since I’d last made love with Hemi, and I’d...well, you could say I’d missed him. He’d been right, too. I did share a bed with Karen, and it was a very small apartment, and a tub in the kitchen wasn’t much privacy at all. And sometimes, that caught up with me. Times like this.

I reached for the bar of delicately perfumed soap, slid it slowly over my shoulders, my arms, and then, delaying the moment, because I wanted to savor this, down my breasts. Over one nipple, which hardened at the contact and asked for more. Just that easily, just that quickly, because every inch of my body was sensitized these days. Hemi’s and my once-a-week restriction, instead of calming those feelings, had only intensified them. At times, when my defenses were down, it felt as if I were nothing but anticipation, nothing but need, nothing but a body waiting and yearning to be touched.

And since tonight was my night, just for me...I obliged myself. I slid my hand up, down, around both breasts, played with them without shame, closed my eyes, and pretended it was Hemi’s hand. Hemi’s mouth.

It felt so good, I got bolder. My soapy hand crept downward, slicked across my skin as I thought about him. His hard body, heavy with muscle, the ferocious display of all that tattoo over the dips and bulges of forearms, biceps and triceps and shoulders, the hard slab of pectoral. The final spiral culminating in a flat brown nipple, and how he’d draw in his breath when I licked him there. What happened when I closed my teeth gently over it, giving him back a little bit of what he gave me. The way he looked when he was over me, how his arms felt when I had my hands wrapped around his heavy biceps, holding on for dear life as his muscles flexed under my fingers. The intensity of his expression then, like this was all there was, like being inside my body was everything he needed.

The way he’d looked, especially, the last time we’d been together, when he’d been holding me over him, letting me rock him sweet and easy. And then, when he’d had enough, had rolled so he was on top of me. When he’d murmured in my ear that this was an easy night, but that next time...next time, he had other plans.

I shivered at the memory, and the soap was slick between my fingers, and my fingers were slick, too, because next time was here. The anticipation alone was so good, and I had all the time in the world to indulge in it. No rush tonight to finish, to be quiet, to get done. I could take it slowly, could linger over every sensitive spot, could experiment and tease and build the anticipation into a sweet, delicious ache before I allowed myself to satisfy it. Hemi wouldn’t be back for another hour, and I couldn’t wait an hour.

I had my back against the tiled wall, my eyes closed, and I was panting a little now. So close, but wanting to hold back, to make myself wait for it. And then I heard the shower curtain being yanked back with a rasp of rings, and my eyes flew open.

He was still dressed. White shirt, black slacks, hard gaze.

“You did get started without me,” he told me. “Now, did I say you could do that? But since you did...you’d better go on. Show me some more. You need to warm me up, get me in the right frame of mind to teach you something new. Because tonight? Tonight, you’re going to find out what happens to naughty girls who touch themselves in the shower.”

I’d cut my dinner meeting short yet again, and that wasn’t like me. Lack of discipline wasn’t something I tolerated, least of all in myself. And yet I’d found myself doing it all the same. I’d thought about Hope being in my suite when I got there, and I hadn’t been able to wait.

I hadn’t been counting on what I found, but that didn’t mean I was disappointed. Not exactly.

She was staring at me, those big blue-green eyes wide with shock, her soft pink mouth open a bit. Her hair lying wet around her shoulders, water cascading over the gentle swell of her pretty little breasts, down the curve of her hips. No coy smile on that face, not ever. Nothing but pink color rising in her cheeks, a trace of alarm in her eyes.

“Tell you what,” I told her. “I’ll leave for a minute, give you some privacy to get back in the mood. But when I come back...you’d better be ready to show me again.”

“Or what?” she asked, and her shoulders had gone back, her head up, challenge evident in every line of that innocent face and tight little body.

“Oh, sweetheart,” I said, “I think you know the answer to that. In fact, I may just do it anyway. Call it a preemptive lesson.”

I could see her throat move as she swallowed, and I smiled at her. “Two minutes,” I said softly. “And I’ll be back.”

It took me less time than that to get naked and ready, to be standing outside the tub again and looking at her. To see that she hadn’t started.

“You know you’re just making it harder on yourself, don’t you?” I asked.

That saucy tilt of her head again. “Who says I don’t want it hard?”

I was the one swallowing now, and she saw it. She got her back up against the tile again, took the soap in her hand, and started over. And this time, she was looking me in the eye.

Her hand moved over one breast, then the other. Stroking. Teasing. And the other...the other was sliding over her flat little belly. Holding a bar of soap, playing with it. Giving me a teasing glimpse of playing, probing fingers, of a bar of hotel soap going places it hadn’t been intended for. In and out in a mesmerizing rhythm while her knuckles applied the pressure she needed, and she was breathing harder now. The other hand stayed at her breast, teasing that hard pink point.

“Look at how clean I am for you, Hemi,” she told me. “Do you want this?”

“Yeh,” I said through a mouth that had gone dry. She was getting closer, I could tell. Breathing harder, her hand moving faster.

“Then,” she said, “why don’t you come and take it?”

No choice at all. I stepped into the tub, reached around her, and turned off the water. It was steamy in the bathroom already, and it was about to get steamier.

“Turn around,” I told her. “Hands on the faucet.”

Her mouth opened again, from shock this time. And then, because she was Hope...she turned around and did it. I heard her faint whimper as I wrapped the ribbon around her wrists and tied it off, and then I’d picked up the soap and was taking the path her own hands had traveled. Not as gently, not as slowly. Harder, more demanding, because that was what she needed right now, and just like that, she leaned over farther, rested the crown of her head against the tile, and backed into me, and I needed to be there. Right now.

It wasn’t gentle, it wasn’t slow, and it wasn’t easy. The blood was roaring in my head, and I had one hand around her hips, holding her in place for me, the other one around her, stroking her fast. I was moving hard, and she was giving it right back, giving me everything she had.

I needed to get her there, needed to feel her interior muscles clenching tight around me. I needed her to take me in. I needed her to take me over.

And that’s exactly what I got.

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