17. Victoria
VICTORIA
It was a tight squeeze, even in the handicapped shower of the locker room.
And yet, that didn’t stop Rhett from squeezing right in and pressing those warm, delectable muscles against me.
My curves against his muscles, separated only by the softest layer of padding that blanketed the hard peaks of his biggest ones.
Water dribbled down his body in rivulets, tracing the lines of his muscles that he managed to keep up with despite the pizza and beer I’m sure he still guzzled down at his age.
I couldn’t help myself as I threaded my arms around his waist.
“Come here,” he muttered into the top of my head.
He started with my back. As I nuzzled my face into the hair of his chest, I felt the soapy expanse touch down against my back. He massaged me softly, rolling the soapy washcloth in long, languid circles against my skin.
And before I knew it, he had me back beneath the hot water.
“Close your eyes, beautiful,” he beckoned softly.
I allowed them to close as he tilted my head back beneath the water. His fingertips massaged through my hair, working up a nice lather with whatever shampoo he used. I was going to have opinions about that later. For now I let it go. I melted into his touch. I let myself be weak with him.
And when I did, a tear rolled effortlessly down my cheek.
I felt him kiss the trail away.
I hadn’t been washed by another person since Ryan.
That was the thought that came in uninvited, the way grief always did.
Not with a knock. Not with any warning whatsoever.
Just a sudden presence in the middle of a handicapped shower in a hockey locker room at seven o’clock on a Tuesday evening, arriving on the back of a soapy washcloth moving in slow circles across my shoulder blades.
Ryan used to do this after bad days.
Not often. We were not people who made a habit of vulnerability.
Neither of us were built that way. But after particularly bad ones, when I’d come home from a board meeting that had gone sideways or the anniversary of something difficult, he’d run the shower hot and take the washcloth from my hands without a word.
He never asked if I was okay. He already knew the answer.
He just washed my back in long slow circles until my shoulders came down from wherever they’d gone, and then we’d stand under the water together in the easy silence of two people who had run out of things to need to say.
I hadn’t let anyone do this since.
Fourteen years. Every shower since then had been a functional thing.
Something to get through. Shampoo and conditioner and a washcloth and twelve minutes because I had places to be and things to run and a franchise that didn’t manage itself.
I’d gotten very good at efficient grieving.
At keeping it contained to specific hours of specific days when I had scheduled the time for it, which I understood was not normal but which had kept me upright for fourteen years so I wasn’t inclined to argue with the methodology.
And then Rhett Calloway put a soapy washcloth against my back and my entire carefully maintained system fell apart in approximately forty-five seconds.
The tear surprised me. I didn’t plan for it. I didn’t feel it coming the way you sometimes did, no tightening in the throat, no burning behind the eyes. It just fell. One tear, tracking down my cheek and disappearing into the hot water, quiet and without permission.
Ryan.
Not with pain. Not even entirely with sadness.
Just his name, the way it lived in the back of my mind.
Always present, always there, the frequency of a person who had been so thoroughly woven into the fabric of your life that even after fourteen years the absence of them still registered as a sound you couldn’t quite hear.
I let the tear fall.
I let Rhett kiss the trail it left.
And I stood very still in the steam and the heat and let myself feel two things at once for the first time in longer than I could remember, the weight of what I’d lost and the tentative, terrifying warmth of what might be in front of me, without trying to resolve them into something tidier.
Ryan would have told me to stop being an idiot about it.
He was always better at the forward motion than I was.
“Rhett,” I started, “I can—”
“Let me do this, Victoria,” he said.
It ripped my gaze up to his, the way he said my name like that. All soft and low. Seductive but defined. Like he already made his decision.
Decision on what?
“Rhett,” I whispered.
He used the washcloth to wipe my face, washing my cheeks. My forehead. My nose. My chin.
His eyes found mine once more. “Just let me take care of you, Victoria. Just let me do it. All you need to do is stand here. I promise, that’s all that’s required.”
If only he knew how hard that was for me.
And yet, I did as he asked. I stood there, spreading my legs and lifting my arms whenever he asked.
That washcloth roamed along my body until every inch of me was soaped up.
He took great care with my breasts, lifting their heaviness away from my chest as he washed beneath them.
He rushed the washcloth through the grooves of my pussy, washing away the evidence of our debauchery still slipping down my thighs.
Over and over and over again, the washcloth passed along my body until I was certain he washed me down at least twice.
I wiggled my way around to face him and took the washcloth from his grasp.
“Your turn,” I said with a nod of my head. “Turn around for me.”
“Victoria, you don’t—”
I shot him a look and put on my best voice, mocking the tone of his. “Let me do this, Rhett.”
A grin spread across his face. “I don’t sound like that.”
“Yes, you do.”
He scoffed as he turned his back to me. “Okay, maybe I do a bit.”
I giggled as I soaped up the washcloth and pressed it to his back. His head bent forward as I reached up, washing the nape of his neck. If I was going to wash his hair, he’d have to bend down. If I was in my heels, I would’ve been able to reach his head. But without them?
I didn’t have a fucking prayer of reaching the top of him.
All along his body, the soapy water dripped. I took my time with him, just as he did with me. And as I sank to my knees, washing the tree trunks that were his thighs, I realized something.
I didn’t hate this.
Not that I hated it to begin with, but there was a natural disdain in my life for anything even remotely related to love.
Not that I didn’t love, but losing someone the way I lost my husband?
It left a mark on a person. It changed the outlook of one’s life.
I threw myself into raising my daughter; into finding a career for myself after being out of the workforce for so many fucking years.
But Brynn was grown now. Gone with a relationship and a life all her own.
I had to stop neglecting mine.
I lifted his cock and washed its length.
I enjoyed the way it pulsed in my hand. I had half a mind to lean forward just to take him in my mouth just to see if there was any trace of our intermingled tastes.
I resisted the urge, however. He was kind to my body.
Respected my boundaries. And so my horny ass would do the same with him.
Jesus, he unlocked something within me that laid dormant for quite some time.
I washed his balls and relished his groans. Watching him lean back against the tiled shower in the locker room as I rushed back up his body pushed a heat through my pelvis that I tried to tamper down. And at that moment, crooked my finger to get him to lean down for his hair, and made my decision.
Despite our age difference, there was definitely something worth exploring here.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed in that shower together. I wasn’t sure how much time we wasted just standing there, holding one another beneath the hot stream. But when I felt the temperature shifting in the water, Rhett turned it off before I could say anything.
“Stay here, I know where the clean towels are,” he muttered.
I snickered. “So do I, silly.”
He grinned. “Just stay here, Victoria, and quit being so stubborn.”
I tossed him a wink. “Never.”
He chuckled as he slipped out of the shower, and within seconds, he was back with a couple of towels.
Part of me wanted to dry him off just so he’d dry me off, but the other part of me knew we’d only fuck ourselves into another shower if we were to do that.
So we stole glances and smiles at one another as we dried off.
I didn’t like watching him cover his body with clothing.
I wanted him on display more often.
“You hungry?” Rhett asked.
His voice ripped me out of my trance as I sat down to slip into my heels. “Starving.”
He crouched down in front of me, supporting my ankle with one hand before helping me slip my still-damp foot into my stilettos.
I watched as he bent forward, kissing my ankle before picking up my other heel and moving to my foot.
He slipped my feet so effortlessly into those shoes, punctuating his efforts with a kiss.
I watched in awe as he stood before he offered me his hand. “Any cravings for what you might wanna eat? My treat. We can pick it up before heading back to Victoria’s estate.”
I slipped my hand into his and let him help me up. I grew unsteady on my feet, though. Even though I had walked in heels for the majority of my adult life, I tripped myself up in them.
Crashing straight into Rhett.
He caught me as if I weighed nothing.
His chuckle was dark. “You okay, Miss C?”
I pressed a palm flat against my stomach and somehow got my feet beneath me. “Sorry, yes. Goodness, I haven’t eaten in hours.”
I hated how breathless my voice came out.
I also hated that cheeky little smirk on Rhett’s face.
No, you don’t.
I also hated it when that fucking voice in my head called me out.
Yes, you do.
“You good, Victoria?” Rhett asked as he steadied me with his grip on my upper arms.
Always, somehow, when you’re around. “Yeah, yeah. Just… maybe a bit more ready for food than I realized.”
He caged his arm around my lower back and held me to him. “Well, we did cycle through our workout routine.”
I snorted. “Oh, so that’s what we’re going to call it? Exercise?”
A look of wonder crossed his face. “You snort.”
I paused. “Yes.”
He tilted his head. “Like, you actually snort.”
My cheeks flushed. “Yeah. It’s… kind of inescap—mm!”
He crashed his lips to mine. Engulfed me in a kiss that took my legs right out from underneath me. My knees buckled. My body folded like a fucking lawn chair. And as his tongue pushed its way through my lips, I gripped his shirt, winding my fist into it.
I sought purchase as he hoisted me against his body in the most passionate kiss I’d experienced in my adult life.
“Goddamn it, you’re adorable,” he whispered against my lips when our lungs forced us to come up for air.
I panted as his forehead fell to mine. “I’m feeling pasta, how about you?”
He nuzzled his nose against mine before planting one more chaste kiss to my lips. “Anything for you.”
I almost hated the fact that we had to exit that locker room and head back out into the real world.