7. Alison #5
He starts with my hair. He works shampoo through it slowly, fingers careful at my scalp, like he’s afraid of pulling even a little.
Suds slide down my back. I keep my eyes closed and let him do it.
His hands are bigger than Victor’s. Warmer.
They don’t take. They wait for permission even after I’ve already given it.
“Tilt your head back for me, baby."
He rinses until the water runs clear, then does conditioner the same way — methodical, quiet, one section at a time. When he finishes he presses a kiss to my wet shoulder.
Then he lathers the soap between his hands and starts on my body. My throat first. Gentle. His thumbs stroke along the sides of my neck where Victor’s mouth never quite reached but still felt too close. He washes my shoulders next, then down my arms.
He finds the bruises immediately. His hands go still for half a second. Then they change. The pressure disappears. He washes around the fingerprints instead of over them, soap sliding past the dark marks Roman left when he decided I know wasn’t enough.
He washes the rest of my arm like I’m made of something that can break. Then the other one. Same care. Same attention. When he reaches my wrists he turns my hands over in his and washes my palms, my knuckles, the places Victor kept kissing like they already belonged to him.
I swallow.
He moves to my chest next, soaping over my collarbones, down between my breasts, careful and unhurried.
Just thorough. Like he’s erasing a map someone else tried to draw on me.
When his hands reach my waist they pause again, then settle over the small, barely-there swell of our baby.
He washes there last. Soft circles. Both palms. Water and soap and the heat of him standing behind me while steam fills the glass.
“Him too,” he says against my wet hair. “He doesn’t get near either of you.”
I nod, because if I speak I might cry, and I don’t want to cry in here.
Ryan keeps going — hips, the outsides of my thighs, down to my knees where Victor’s hand sat through half of lunch. He washes those twice. Then he stops, soap still in his hands, and waits.
I stay quiet for a long time. Water drums against the tile. Steam thickens until the glass is nothing but blur. Ryan doesn’t move. He just stands behind me with soap still on his hands and waits like he always does — like rushing me would be the same as taking something I didn’t offer.
My voice comes out small. “Please, Ryan.” His breath changes against my wet hair. “Touch me.”
He sets the soap down. Then his hands find my waist, and he turns me under the spray until I’m facing him. Water sheets down both of us. His hair is darker like this.
His eyes are darker too. “Okay,” he says softly. “I’ve got you.”
He starts at my face. Both hands cup my jaw, thumbs brushing water off my cheekbones, careful of the side Roman hit. He kisses my forehead first. Then the place between my brows. Then each closed eyelid. Then the corner of my mouth that isn’t quite a kiss yet.
“You’re so pretty like this,” he murmurs. “All mine. No one else in here. Just you.”
His mouth finds mine. Slow. Wet. The kind of kiss that doesn’t ask for more than this second. I open for him and he takes it gently, one hand sliding back into my soaked hair, the other staying light at my waist so he doesn’t crowd the bruises.
When he pulls away he kisses down my throat. “I love this spot.” A kiss just under my ear. “I love how you tip your head when I do that.” Another, lower. “I love that you asked me. That you wanted me to touch you after today.”
His hands skim down my arms, avoiding the fingerprints, and he lifts one of my hands to his mouth. Kisses my palm. My wrist. The inside of my elbow.
“These hands,” he says against my skin. “Writing hands. Tobias hands. My hands. Not his.”
I shiver even under the hot water.
He drops to his knees on the tile. Water hits his shoulders and runs down his back. He looks up at me first — checking — then leans in and kisses the small curve of my stomach. Once. Twice. Soft, open-mouthed, like he’s greeting both of us.
He kisses lower. My hip bone. The soft inside of my thigh. Then back up, mapping me with his mouth while the shower beats around us.
“I love your body,” he says between kisses.
“I love how it’s changing. I love that you’re letting me see it.
I love that you still want me after a day like that.
” His hands stroke up the backs of my thighs, careful, unhurried.
He kisses the underside of one breast, then the other, then the center of my chest over my heart.
“I love you,” he says there, simple and wrecked.
“Mind. Body. This stubborn, brave, exhausted heart. All of it. You’re it for me, Ally. You have been.”
He stands again and kisses my mouth, deeper now, and I make a quiet sound into it. Ryan smiles against my lips.
My hands finally move. I slide them up his chest first — warm, wet skin, the beat of his heart under my palm — then higher, around the back of his neck. I pull him down into another kiss. This one is hungrier. Not rushed. Just wanting. “Ryan.”
“Yeah, baby.”
“I need you to actually touch me.”
His mouth curves against mine. “I am touching you.”
“You know what I mean.”
He kisses the corner of my mouth. “Use your words, Ally."
Heat crawls up my throat. “Please. Your fingers. I want your fingers.”
“There she is.” His voice goes low and pleased. “So pretty when you ask.”
One hand stays in my hair. The other slides down my stomach, slow, over the small swell, then lower. He doesn’t rush the last inch. He just watches my face while his fingers trace through the slick heat of me. I gasp into his mouth.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Tell me if anything doesn’t feel good.”
“It feels good.” My forehead drops to his. “Don’t stop.”
He kisses me while he strokes — light at first, just enough to make my hips twitch, circling my clit with the pad of two fingers.
Water runs between us. My nails press into his shoulders.
“You’re already so wet,” he says against my lips.
“Was that from me washing you, or from asking me to touch you?”
“Both.” It comes out shaky. “Please don’t tease.”
“I’m not teasing.” He slides one finger inside me, slow, careful.
“I’m taking my time with my girl.” My breath breaks.
He adds a second when I rock into his hand, curling them just right, thumb still working that same unhurried circle.
Every stroke is measured. Every kiss lands between them — my mouth, my jaw, the wet skin of my throat.
“Look at you,” he whispers. “Holding onto me in my shower. Asking so nicely. Taking my fingers like you were made for them.”
“Ryan—“
“I know.” He kisses me again, deeper. “You feel perfect. Soft. Warm. Mine.”
I get a hand between us and wrap it around him. He’s hard, heavy in my palm, and the sound he makes is quiet and wrecked. “Ally.”
“I wanted to touch you too.” I stroke him slowly, matching the pace he’s using on me. “Is this okay?”
“Yes.” His forehead drops to mine. “Fuck. Yes. That’s — god, your hand.”
We stay like that under the water. Kissing. His fingers working inside me, thumb on my clit. My hand moving on him. Neither of us chasing it. Just building.
“More,” I whisper. “Please. Just — more of that.”
“Anything.” He curls his fingers deeper and I moan into his mouth. “That’s my girl. So pretty when you let me take care of you.” The pressure gathers, slow and thick, and I tighten around his fingers. He feels it and eases off just enough that it doesn’t tip over.
He doesn’t make me wait long. Ryan kisses me again and gives me back the pressure he took away.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against my mouth. “I felt you almost go. Let me have it this time.”
“Ryan—“
“Come on, baby. Come on my fingers.” My hand falters on him.
I have to grab his shoulder instead. He doesn’t complain.
He just adjusts his angle, finds that spot again, and stays on it.
“Look at me.” His eyes are dark and focused and soft all at once.
“You’re so beautiful like this,” he says.
“Wet. Shaking. Trusting me after the day you had. Come for me, Ally”
It hits quiet and huge. I break with a broken sound against his mouth, forehead pressed to his, body locking around his fingers while the orgasm rolls through me in long, deep pulses.
He works me through every one of them — no rushing, no pulling away — thumb easing only when I twitch too hard, fingers still stroking me down from it.
“That’s my girl.” Kiss to my temple. “Let it happen.”
I come until my legs feel unreliable and the only thing holding me up is him.
He slides his fingers out slowly and wraps that arm around my waist, keeping me against his chest under the spray while I shake.
He kisses my wet hair. Doesn’t ask for anything else yet.
Just holds me there, breathing with me, while the water keeps running.
Then his hands slide down to my hips. “Can you stand?”
“If you hold me.”
“Always.” He hikes my right leg up, hooking it around his hip, and the tile is slick under my other foot.
His arm locks around my back. I wrap both of mine around his neck and hold on.
He reaches between us and lines himself up.
The head of him presses against me — hot, blunt, already slick from my orgasm and the water — and he goes still again.
“Eyes on me.” I look at him. “You sure?”
“Yes. Please. I want you inside me.”
Something in his face goes tight and tender at the same time. He pushes in slow. The stretch is different like this. Standing. One leg up. Water running down both of us. I feel every inch as he fills me, and a broken little sound leaves my throat when he bottoms out.