Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Georgie
The hot water streaming down my body feels so good that I have to bite back a moan, or else people in the house will wonder what’s wrong with me.
I hear a voice on the other side of the bathroom door that startles me at first, until I remember that Jefferson said he was going to find me some clean clothes to wear.
“What?” I call out.
His muffled response is inaudible.
“Jefferson, I can’t hear you!”
He opens the door at the same time as I lean out of the shower.
“I brought you some…oh god, sorry!”
He looks away and sets down a stack of clean clothes on top of the toilet seat.
“You can look,” I say.
It is perhaps the most brazen thing I’ve ever said aloud.
Jefferson turns hesitantly toward me.
I push the shower curtain open further.
He rakes his eyes over my body, making me shiver.
“I need you to show me which shampoo I can use. Can you help me?”
I know. I’m so transparent.
But I trust this man completely.
He tugs off his leather jacket, followed by his tee shirt. The muscles of his shoulders bunch as he moves, tossing his things to the floor. I take my first look at him shirtless, and there’s just so much to look at. He’s so much man in this tiny, steamy bathroom, overwhelming the space with its chipped tile and peeling paint.
“You’d better hurry before we lose hot water,” I tease.
Jefferson instantly loses his jeans and boxers and kicks them to the side. His rigid length stands at attention, thick and red, and I can’t take my eyes off it.
All of him takes my breath away.
He climbs into the tub and backs me against the tile wall, shoving the curtain closed behind him.
He reaches behind me and picks up a green bottle. “This okay?”
I look away from his deliciously broad chest and read the bottle of combination shampoo and conditioner.I nod shyly.
“Turn around,” he says.
I lift my eyebrows as I watch him squirt a healthy amount of shampoo into his palm. “Are you sure? It’s a lot of hair.”
“I’m sure.”
Feeling giddy, I turn around and surrender to the moment.
He smooths the shampoo through every strand with his big hands, wetting all of it through from my scalp down to the ends. I would fall asleep from the sensation if I weren’t standing up.
The scalp massage sends tingles down my spine. I don’t care if he doesn’t wash everything perfectly. I also don’t care that a combo shampoo and conditioner never works on my hair, nor that my hair will end up a frizzy mess in the morning.
It’s the best shower of my life.
Those big hands sluice water through my hair, rinsing it as carefully as he washed it. He carefully wrings the water out, section by section. I can’t get enough of him babying me.
“Thank you, Jefferson,” I say, resting my head against the tile, feeling half-drunk with all of his attentions.
Soft hair tickles my back as his chest covers me. Luscious lips graze over the back of my neck, making me ache.
His hard length pushes into my lower back.
I reach behind me, fumbling around for a moment until I have it.
Jefferson sucks in a breath. “Shit, I wasn’t expecting that,” he rasps.
“Show me what to do.”
He rests his forehead on the tile above my head and plants his hands on either side of us. I am fenced in. The way he towers over me is delightfully protective.
“Baby, you just do whatever you want with it.”
“Really?”
“Really. Just don’t use your nails.”
I move my palm up and down his shaft. He jerks under the pressure as I work my slick hand up the underside, marveling at every ridge. Up and down I stroke, fascinated at the new experience, and gratified at knowing I could ever exert control over this powerful man.
“That’s it. That’s it, Georgie. You’re so fucking perfect.”
Up and down. Squeezing. Tugging. Making him twitch around me. Making him gasp for breath.
Suddenly, his release takes hold. His seed paints my lower back in hot, pulsing streams. His towering body tenses as he thrusts hard into my hand. A low growl echoes off the tile.
I keep on kneading him until he buries his face in my shoulder and groans.
Turning toward him, I search for his mouth in the steamy shower, needing to feel his lips once more.
He pulls me against him and claims my mouth.
The perfect moment is lost when I shriek at the abruptly cold water hitting me in the middle of my back.
Jefferson laughs and lets out a curse, slamming the knobs into the off position.
I barely have time to shiver before I’m wrapped in a towel.
He apologizes for not having a bonus towel for my hair, but I tell him I don’t mind. I blot it dry and twist it up in a bun. I’ll deal with the frizz tomorrow.
“I could look for a hairbrush,” he says, clearly concerned at the amount of tangles in my hair. It is a lot. “I think Joaquin has one around here somewhere.”
I laugh weakly. “Honestly, brushing it takes forever, and all I want to do now is sleep. I know it’s early, but I haven’t slept well in a month.”
Jefferson helps me step into a pair of borrowed boxers. I don’t even care whose these belong to, as long as I never see those bib overalls again. “You ready to tell me what they did to you?”
“Nope.”
“Thought so.”
“I thought you were joking about sleeping in a closet,” I say when I see Jefferson’s “room.”
Dressed in one of his sweatshirts along with his boxers, I stand in the doorway, staring in surprise.
The room is about ten feet deep and five feet across. A mattress takes up much of the floor. In the far corner is a duffel, and on the wall by the head of the bed is a wall calendar with a sexy blonde model wearing nothing but a bikini. The model is draped over the engine of an old-timey car. I try not to take it personally, but a part of me wonders if blondes with bikini bodies are his actual type.
“Technically, it’s a storage room,” he says.
I nod and try not to freak out at the idea of sleeping in such a small space.
Sensing my hesitation, Jefferson says, “I’ll sleep on the magic couch.”
I grab his arm. “No! I can’t sleep in here alone.”
“The mattress isn’t big enough for the both of us.”
I don’t like to talk about the fact that my uncle once locked me in a closet for eight hours, and I’ve been freaked out by tight spaces ever since. On top of that, now I have extra isolation trauma to deal with.
“Could you humor me without asking any questions? Just for tonight. Tomorrow night, I might feel more secure being in here alone,” I say, knowing that is not the case.
Jefferson dips his head down and presses a sweet kiss to my forehead. “We’ll figure it out,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“First things first.”
I smile when he goes to the far wall and rips down the calendar with the bikini model.
“You didn’t have to do that for my comfort,” I say, sliding my legs under the surprisingly comfy blankets.
“Does it make you more comfortable?”
I yawn the world’s biggest yawn, stretching my arms so wide my knuckles hit the walls on either side of me. “Yes.”
“Good.”
I lie down and close my eyes, trying not to think about the small space. Jefferson spoons me from behind.
“Do you need quiet or do you need a bedtime story to go to sleep.”
“Hmm,” I say, half asleep and hunkering down into the pillow. “I think I’d like a bedtime story regardless.”
This hulking man who barely fits on this mattress on his own, let alone with a partner, slides his arm under my head, effectively forcing me to use his bicep as a pillow.
“Let’s see if I can remember a good one,” he says, kissing my damp neck.
“Tell me why it’s called the magic couch.”
He chuckles softly. “It’s not all that interesting. That sofa came with the house. It’s so ugly that it disappears against the industrial green walls. The clients who visit the office are usually here for Joaquin, and they are not exactly in a position to be picky about decor.”
I yawn again. “What does he do?”
“Not real sure. Like I said, I don’t ask him a lot of questions. My guess is either an international spy or loan shark.”
“Hmm.”
“Anyway, that couch is where we go when we need to think and figure out what to do when we’re stuck on a problem. It has magical powers.”
“Sure.”
“You’re too tired to argue with that, right?”
“Yep.”