Chapter 20 #2
To a problem she has, and the fact that she has chosen me to fix it.
“Hey, I hope this is okay. I don’t really love undressing in front of strangers, which is dumb considering she had to get out that catheter. But…”
I cross to the bathroom, grab a large towel from the rail, and am back at her side in an instant.
“I don’t know if that’s necessary,” she says, continuing her rambling. “I mean, you’re going to see me naked anyway.”
“No,” I say. “Not before you want me to.”
Her gaze softens, full of trust, and she reaches for her shirt’s hem. I help her ease it up over her head, then tuck the towel securely around her before helping her to her feet.
She sways a little, but I’m ready, my arm already around her to keep her steady.
“Thanks.”
“I’ll always have you,” I say quietly.
“I know.” Lennon looks up at me with that same soft smile. “I trust you, Paul.”
My heart flutters, pleasure zipping through me at the trust she’s given me. The control, too, as I guide her into the bathroom.
“I actually feel good,” she tells me, sounding almost surprised. “Which is funny. Like, too good. Only a little wobbly, but I feel like I had a really, really good nap. The nurse said that’s probably your doing.” She scrunches her nose a little. “She said you argued with the doctor on my behalf.”
“Only where it mattered.” I keep one arm around her as I lean into the shower and turn on the water.
“What mattered?”
“Vitamin D, your hormone treatment, and a few deficiencies they hadn’t ruled out. Especially iron. I did some reading and apparently iron deficiency makes the fatigue worse. I wanted to rule out anything that was making this harder on you than it already is.”
She goes quiet for a second, and when she speaks again, her voice is smaller. “You did?”
I draw her into my arms as the room fills with steam. “Mm-hmm.”
She presses her forehead into my sternum. “Nobody ever… not anyone.”
She laughs softly, but it wobbles around the edges.
I kiss the top of her head before I guide her into the stall. “You have no idea how important you and your well-being are to me, Lennon.”
Ridge’s shower is large, with a built-in bench that I guide her to, keeping her out of the spray for now.
“I’ll be right back.”
She watches me with tired blue eyes while I strip down to my boxers. There’s no point in soaking an entire set of clothes. I fold my shirt, then my sweatpants, placing them neatly on the counter, then step back into the shower in front of her again.
“Can I?” I hold out a hand for the towel.
She nods, and I take it.
For a brief second, I forget how breathing works. She is the most beautiful thing I have ever stood in front of.
I’ve spent an embarrassing portion of my adult life under the impression that I’d made peace with beauty, and I could appreciate it from an appropriate distance and move on. This turns out to have been a remarkably arrogant assumption.
But it’s not only her physical beauty. It’s who she is.
Lennon sits on the bench, looking tired, vulnerable, and entirely too brave about it. There are faint marks from the hospital equipment, a slight paleness that wasn’t there before. Evidence of everything she’s been through.
“You’re the most beautiful person I have ever known.”
A blush creeps onto her cheeks at my words, and she averts her gaze to her fingers that are curling nervously against her knees.
“Hey,” I prompt, and her light blue eyes lift to mine again. “You’re okay.”
The tension in her shoulders eases, and she takes a moment to study my face. “So are you.”
I chuckle, smoothing my hand over her face. “I am now.”
That earns me the smile I was aiming for.
Much better.
I put the towel away, then reach for the shampoo.
Without looking, I am aware of the interested glance she casts over my chest and lower. I don’t draw attention to it because I can’t do anything about it right now, and we both know it.
Except now I’m standing here, she’s seated on the bench, and the geometry of the situation puts her face directly at eye level with a problem I have no intention of discussing before breakfast.
I move back half a step before I embarrass us both.
My glasses fog almost immediately. Normally, this would irritate me. At the moment, it feels less like a problem and more like a courtesy.
“That okay?” I ask, reaching for her hand and letting the water flow over the back of it.
“Perfect.” She smiles up at me, and my heart does the thing again as I let the water cascade over her shoulders. She tilts her head back under the spray, eyes half closed.
Don’t lick your way down to her nipples, Paul.
Instead, I start with my hands on her shoulders, gliding my soapy palms down her wet upper arms in slow strokes, and this part is manageable. This part I can do standing at a respectable distance.
Then I have to wash her legs.
There is no version of washing someone’s legs that doesn’t involve getting low enough to reach them, and the second I crouch down in front of her, my face level with her knees and thighs, I understand exactly what kind of mistake I’ve made.
I pull my fogged, wet glasses off and set them down beside me before I run soapy palms down her calf, over her ankle, a task like any other task, except her hand finds my shoulder, and her thumb moves once against my collarbone.
Every rational thought I own leaves the building at once.
I let my hand drift back up, thumb tracing the curve of her knee, then down again, memorizing how the droplets cling to her.
She shivers, and I lean in, because I’m apparently no longer capable of making good decisions at this range, and press a kiss to the inside of her knee before I decide to.
I straighten fast, cover it with a kiss to her temple and cheek, lingering enough to breathe her in and pretend that was always the plan.
“So damn beautiful,” I murmur absentmindedly while my fingers glide over the trail of soap as it runs down the valley between her breasts.
The soft weight of them as I carefully wash beneath.
The curve of her stomach, the flare of her hips, the place between her thighs I remember being so hot and tight around my fingers.
I want to taste her. I want to press my face to those beautiful breasts, this time without fabric between us.
I want to suck on those perfect nipples.
My cock throbs painfully in my wet boxers, and my hands tremble with restraint as I glide them over her once more. I breathe through it, then cup more water and rinse her.
Lennon’s hand on my chest traces water over my skin in return. “You really think so?”
The question startles me out of my lusty haze. “What?”
“You think I am, even in harsh light and…”
“Lennon.” I press my forehead to her collarbone for a moment, long enough to not say anything clever.
“I’m trying really hard not to look or touch you inappropriately because you just woke up from trauma and were out for seven days.
But every rational thought I have keeps losing to the urge to put my mouth on you.
” My thumb glides down the side of her neck, and I appreciate the shiver she gives me in response.
I follow it with a soft kiss below her ear.
“I’ve spent the last minutes trying very hard not to prove exactly how much I think that. I want you. Considerably.”
Her breath catches, and the soft sound goes straight through me. For a moment, the water, steam, and the whole world narrows to her fingers pressing against my chest.
“You’re celibate and… shit, I was out so long.”
“Seven days, but my celibacy is over when you’re ready. When you’re back on your feet, and you want it. Then my celibacy ends. However long that takes.”
I watch the soap run down her body in slow rivulets again, and the fabric of my boxers clings to my cock when it jumps against my stomach.
Fuck.
She spreads her fingers slowly over my sternum and watches as her fingernails slide through my chest hair, the scrape of them making me shudder.
“What if I want it now?” she whispers, searching my face with those impossible blue eyes, waiting.
Waiting for me to say yes.
God.
My hand closes over hers where it’s resting against me. I can feel the warmth of her palm, and my heartbeat beneath it, embarrassingly eager to betray me.
“Darling,” I say quietly. “You have no idea how difficult you’re making this.”
A tiny smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “That is not a no.”
I laugh under my breath. “No,” I admit. “It’s very much not a no.”
She reaches her other hand toward my crotch, but I catch her wrist quickly and brush my thumb across her knuckles before bringing her hand to my lips instead, pressing a kiss to the center of her palm.
“It’s a not today.”
Her expression falls a little. “Oh, you don’t want to?”
“I want you so much that I don’t trust myself enough with it.” I lower her hand again, then kiss a trail up the side of her head.
“Very noble,” she quips.
“Not noble.” I smile into her wet hair. “Mostly terrified. How about we get some food into you?”
She leans back to smile at me, but then her stomach growls. Loudly. And she closes her eyes. “Oh my God.”
I lose the battle and laugh.
She’s adorable.
Her eyes snap open. “You didn’t hear that.”
“I absolutely heard that.”
“You didn’t.”
“I think Ridge and Nevan heard it from the kitchen.”
“Paul.”
“Darling.”
She glares at me, and it’s significantly less threatening than she intends because she’s currently sitting naked and wet on a shower bench, looking exhausted.
I nudge her chin up and kiss her lips. “Food.”
Her expression softens before she agrees. “Fine.”
“Good girl,” I praise, cutting off the water and grabbing the towel for her.
“But don’t think I forgot what you said,” she adds very quietly.
I am completely doomed.