Chapter 8
Hank
I almost havea heart attack when Chastity screams. But I’m pretty sure I do suffer an actual coronary when I yank back the shower curtain and see her standing there in all her delicious and curvy glory, water sluicing down over naked flesh and dropping off of her nipples.
Before I can speak, which frankly is a fucking challenge right now with all the blood rushing away from my brain to fill my cock, she leaps into my embrace.
“There’s a roach!” she yells. “Let me out, let me out.”
For a second, I don’t even process the words. I’m too focused on the feel of her damp, warm skin and the press of her chest against mine. If I shift my hands just a bit, I can be squeezing her ass with both palms and pulling her pussy right up against me.
But she is shoving me with a strength she did not display when I was paddling that kayak upstream. It’s pretty apparent now that she was letting me pull the load, which is fine. She deserves to relax on her day off. At the moment, though, she’s going to knock us both over. I shift her around to my side so that we don’t stumble over the toilet in her mad dash to escape.
“Where is it?” I ask, scanning the shower.
My apartment is in an old building, and this isn’t the first squatter I’ve spotted. It’s just a part of living in a humid climate.
I have my arm out, blocking her from shower re-entry, as if she’s ever going to step foot in there again. But it’s just instinct. It’s not like it’s necessary to protect her from a two-inch bug.
“On the wall!”
“Which wall? There’s three of them.”
“The back one. Did it escape?” she gasps, hiding behind my back, gripping both of my biceps. “This isn’t good.”
“It’s fine.” I see him in the corner. “I’ve got a location. But you need to let go of my arm so I can snag him.”
“You mean kill him.”
“I don’t really find it necessary to kill him. I’ll just relocate him.”
“I don’t like that.”
“And I don’t like that you’re rubbing up on me naked and I can’t even enjoy it, but we don’t always get what we want,” I tell her, amused.
“Oh! Sorry.” She steps back from me.
The back of my shirt is damp from her wet skin. Keeping an eye on the roach, who is just chilling in the corner, I reach for a plastic cup I use for cleaning the shower and capture the bug in it. I use a sponge to cover the opening. When I turn, I almost find religion at the sight of Chastity bouncing on the balls of her feet, shaking her hands out.
Holy. Shit.
“It’s going to get loose,” she says.
I don’t even know what she’s talking about. My brain is frozen.
“Why are you just standing there?”
“Why do you think?” I ask. She has full hips that make me want to grip them as I go down on my knees and bury my tongue inside her pussy. “I want to lick you, Chastity.”
It’s at that moment she seems to realize she’s naked. Her eyes widen. She yanks the towel off of the counter and puts it over her, but it”s still folded, so it only covers the bottom of her breasts, her stomach, and the top of her pelvis. I can still see her nipples and most of her soft folds.
“Take that cup outside!” she squawks, gesturing wildly.
Right. The cockroach.
I ease past her, careful not to touch her with any part of me, for fear I’ll just toss the cup over my shoulder and her onto the countertop.
I don’t have to worry about it. She runs away from me and the cup and drops the towel as she gets back in the shower. The curtain jerks shut.
“Can you believe that?” I ask the roach as I exit the bathroom, lifting the sponge to make sure he’s still in there. He seems to know his fate. He’s not even trying to climb the side of the cup. “Maybe I need to accept my fate,” I tell him.
He doesn’t seem to care. I roll my eyes as I go through my apartment. I’m talking to a cockroach. That isn’t normal, but Chastity makes me crazy.
It only takes a minute or two to rehome the roach out in the back parking lot, but when I get back, Chastity is in the living room. She has the towel wrapped around her like a sarong, my sweatshirt back on.
“Is it gone?” she asks, eyeing the empty cup in my hand with a hearty dose of suspicion.
“It’s gone.”
Her shoulders slump in relief. “I can’t believe you have a soft spot for bugs,” she says.
“And I can’t believe your compassion for humans doesn’t extend to insects.”
She shudders. “I just can’t with all the legs and the antennas. So gross.”
“Let me get you some pants.” I need her in pants. It’s the only way to survive.
Only my pants are too long for Chastity. She emerges from my bedroom as I come out of the bathroom post-shower. She has the sweats rolled up so that they have thick bands at the bottom. At the same time, they’re straining across her ass. Her body is all woman, that’s for damn sure. The sweatshirt was too hot for the weather, so I gave her a T-shirt, and she fills that out in ways that make my mouth water. It’s white, which was both calculating on my part and masochistic. I can’t see through it, but it feels like I can because it’s pulling tight across her breasts. The outline of her chest is clearly visible.
She crosses her arms over her chest, covering herself. “Do you have a dryer? I should throw my clothes in. I can’t exactly go home wearing your clothes.”
“Of course.” I collect her clothes and toss them in the dryer that’s in a rickety and dark shed room off the back of the building.
“This looks like a murder room,” she says from the doorway behind me.
“Don’t be ridiculous. This is just where I keep the bodies afterward,” I joke. “Don’t look in the freezer.”
“Is this a double-dog dare to actually look? Or a general warning?”
“If you want to see a bunch of chicken stock, go for it. Otherwise, it’s not that exciting.” I close the dryer door and turn it on. “What time do you need to be home?”
“I should probably go in an hour. I don’t want to take too much advantage of Nevaeh.”
“Sounds good. Are you hungry?” Cooking always soothes me, and I could use a distraction.
“Sure, I could eat.”
“Something light? Or more satisfying?” I know, I know. That’s a leading question. I can’t help myself. I’m like a little kid, thinking if he just asks over and over, he’ll get the cookie.
Chastity isn’t inclined to give me her cookie. She squeezes her arms tighter across her chest. “Light is good.”
“I’ll make a goat cheese salad then.”
“Don’t go to a lot of trouble.”
“It’s not a big deal. Just some greens thrown in a bowl. Shredded carrots, some cranberries, maybe pickled onions. Though I might fry the goat cheese to make it more exciting.”
“You can fry goat cheese?”
“You can fry anything, honey.”
“Really? Anything?”
“Anything. I could fry the lint on this shirt, and it would taste amazing.” I reach out and pluck an errant fuzzy off of the sleeve of the shirt.
Chastity jumps and jerks back.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought you were a bug brushing me.”
But she’s lying, and we both know it.