Chapter 20 #3
Stop it, she urges herself, wondering if all the supposed comfort she has in her new body is just when no one else is looking at it.
Nick gets to his knees on the bathroom rug, unbuttoning his shirt to reveal a heather navy tee underneath. It looks soft. Worn. Loved. Jesus, she needs to get ahold of herself if she’s fantasizing about T-shirts. Then he shucks off the overshirt altogether, exposing those forearms and toned biceps.
“How’s that?” he asks when he turns on the water, testing the temperature with his palm.
“Warmer,” she says, because suddenly her teeth are chattering, her arms tight around her midsection.
He reaches up to the clip in her hair. “Can I—” On her nod, he releases it, and they both seem to exhale at the same time. “When you wear it up, I forget how much of it you have,” he says, and this makes her laugh. Helps her relax.
“I know, sometimes I do too. I think most of my vanity is wrapped up in my hair.”
“It’s good hair.”
She lets out a faint mmm of pleasure as he turns the showerhead on her, the warm water soaking her hair. It’s extremely cute, the way he tries his best to keep water out of her face, using his hand on her forehead to cage it in.
“Okay,” she says. “This was a really good idea. When you suggested it, I had visions of you hosing me down like a dirty car, but this is much better.”
A laugh startles out of him. “Specifically a 2005 Toyota Prius?”
“Don’t act like it doesn’t need it!”
Once her hair is fully wet, she points to the rose-pink bottle of peach shampoo, and he has to whack it against his palm to get it to come out. And…oh. She feels that motion right between her legs.
When his fingers touch her scalp for the first time, she has to swallow back a moan. He moves them in slow circles, like he wants to be sure he’s shampooing every inch. Heavenly.
Suddenly she doesn’t feel like joking around anymore.
With how attentive he is, she remembers how his hand trailed up her leg beneath her skirt.
How he rocked her against his jeans until she fell apart in his arms. She’s replayed it in her head every night before falling asleep, pretending her fingers are his.
God, he made her feel so, so good, and she’s desperate to be able to do the same for him.
She wants him needy, blushing, wrecked with his own pleasure.
Swearing her name. Begging for air. Until he’s sinking teeth into the back of her hand, unable to hold out any longer.
This man deserves to feel good things. In every sense of the word.
His fingers rub a little harder, working the shampoo into a lather, and she can’t help it—this time, the moan slips out.
For a moment his hands still in her hair. She hears his rough exhale, commits it to memory before he starts back up again. If she weren’t sick, if this weren’t forbidden, she might drag him into the bathtub with her. Put her mouth on every inch of his bare skin.
“Tip your head back,” he says when it’s time to rinse, and she instantly misses the pressure of his touch.
When she catches a glimpse of the two of them in the mirror, she expects them to look ridiculous.
But it’s undeniably sweet, the way he’s tilting the stream of water through her hair, lifting up heavy strands of it.
As focused as if he were grading a paper.
He’s beautiful from every angle, especially with water flecked onto his chest and dotting the lenses of his glasses.
With everything he does, he treats her like someone worthy of care.
Then she makes the mistake of looking down—at the way her belly folds over the bikini bottom.
The bulge of her thighs. She’d been so relaxed, and now she can’t help wondering what he sees when he looks at her.
After all, he just watched her concert. He’s probably comparing her to that girl on his TV screen.
When she lets out a shuddery breath, his hands pause as he’s smoothing conditioner through her hair. “Is everything okay? Am I doing something wrong?”
“No. No, you’re amazing. It’s just—I haven’t had my clothes off in front of someone in a while,” she says.
“I know you’re just washing my hair. And I’m not naked.
But…the tabloids all said I got fat. After I retired.
The way they wrote about it, it was like it was the worst thing that could happen, the worst thing they could say about me.
” A firm shake of her head. “My body was starved. I was miserable. And they all thought I looked so much better than I do now.”
“Ramona,” he says softly, and there’s her first name again. Has she never noticed the way he says it? Like he’s savoring it, holding each syllable between his lips.
“I know it’s fucked. It shouldn’t bother me. And most days, it doesn’t. I don’t even know why I feel the need to explain it to you, just…”
She turns to face him, because she wants to be brave. In the past few hours, he’s already seen so much of her that no one ever has.
Nick swallows hard. The next time he speaks, there’s a tremor in his voice. “I think you look perfect.”