4. Mika #4
The realization made me suddenly aware of his state of undress.
He looked away as if afraid I might read something into his expression.
It was the first time I’d really seen how his body looked, and I couldn’t help but search his frame.
My previous assessment had been right; he had been keeping up at the gym.
He was bigger, not a lot bigger, but he had filled out with muscle in the intervening years.
Dark hair speckled his chest in thick wisps, like I remembered, and it seemed he had stopped trimming his stomach hair to a single strip and had kept it as the ‘treasure meadow’ he’d jokingly called it.
Except unlike back then, his stomach didn’t have a slight pouch but was flat and faintly defined.
I snapped my head back to the locker and realized it was empty because I hadn’t dumped my clothes in because the wet, dirty things were still on me.
And they were on me because I was suddenly aware of the fact that I would have to strip and shower around my ex-boyfriend, and I still wasn’t totally clear on how I felt about him.
He might have been thinking the same, considering how wary he was being.
He broke the awkward silence. “You can go first.”
“You can go; you’re the one who needs to rest your ankle, remember?” I said, pulling out my phone and pretending to read the screen so I didn’t make it more obvious than it already was that I was unsure what to do next.
“Most of what I said to Colin was to make him feel better,” he said, and I could see him shrug out of the corner of my eye.
The movement was almost enough to make me turn around, but I thought better of it.
Whether my awkwardness was because it felt weird to think we could be so comfortable as to be naked around each other without second thoughts or because there was still lingering attraction that needed to be dealt with, I didn’t know.
“The ankle is fine. I’ll pop the pills and probably end up sitting around.
I’ve got some writing to do; it’s not going to kill me to stand on it for a bit longer while I wait. ”
“Or you could just shower now since you’re already halfway there,” I pointed out, finally meeting his eyes and definitely not looking anywhere else.
“Yeah, I guess,” he grunted, shifting and knocking over the pile of clothes he’d left on the bench. “You also don’t like to linger in showers like I do.”
“I mean,” I began, but stopped when he grunted in annoyance and bent down to scoop up the clothes.
It meant I was accidentally given a free show as the fabric of his underwear stretched over his ass.
Which is when I remembered how he had always been dismissive of his ass when we’d been younger, stating that there was nothing impressive there even when I couldn’t keep my hands off it…
when I was allowed to, anyway. He clearly had taken his self-criticism to heart, though, because his ass had definitely grown, and I wondered how I hadn’t noticed before.
Then again, he hadn’t bent over and drawn my attention to it before. I had been busy trying to keep from looking him over, so of course I stared, realizing his ass was still as nice as it had been, just a lot more obvious.
Okay, so it wasn’t just lingering awkwardness from being exes; there was some lingering…
or maybe not so lingering, attraction there.
His body was still his body, and it was as attractive to me as ever, except now it was a body he had put work into and on top of the attraction I clearly had, there was a new appreciation for the work he’d put in.
When he stood up, I snapped back around, and I almost sighed when I heard his hesitant, “You good?”
“Marvelous,” I said dryly. “You?”
“Fine,” he said and cleared his throat. “Look, we’re both adults. We don’t have to make this weird. Let’s just…both take a shower and call it a day, alright? I’ll face the wall.”
It felt patronizing, but I bit back the annoyance as I yanked at my shirt. “Fine, whatever. You’re right, we’re adults.”
I listened to his footsteps as he walked into the shower room and turned on one of the showerheads.
He was the one who’d had intimacy issues in our relationship.
He might as well not have had a sex drive since he could rarely follow through on the moments he was attracted to me.
Maybe time apart had brought some spark back, but I doubted it was going to go any further than that.
Which meant I only had to worry about myself, and self-control had never been a problem for me, so I marched into the shower to flip on my own showerhead and took a moment to soak under the warm spray.
I heard a bottle open and a clean but neutral smell hit the air.
I looked over to see him shampooing his hair with deep strokes of his fingers.
My gaze lingered, safe from being caught as he kept his eyes closed.
It was a stupid, idiotic thing to do. I had no shame in checking out another guy if the chance presented itself, just so long as I wasn’t a creep about it.
Except he wasn’t just a guy; he was Aidan.
The fact that he was my ex-boyfriend was a big reason to behave myself because feeding the fire of attraction I had for him was the first step on a long path to disaster.
Our relationship had been…well, it hadn’t been the worst I’d had, but I couldn’t call it amazing either.
We both kept too much from other, withheld certain problems and thoughts, and for all his failings, I had been the one to end things in a way that was unforgivable for most people, including myself.
Well, and again, my physical attraction would go unreciprocated anyway.
Irritated that I needed to remind myself more than once, I went back to focusing on showering.
I was still distracted by the sounds from his end of the room, but I kept my eyes and most of my attention on what I was supposed to be doing.
Which proved easier with each second that I behaved myself, and I only broke focus when I heard the water stop.
I glanced over and caught Aidan as he walked out of the shower.
I’d expected him to be gone by the time I looked, considering how long it had taken me to realize he’d turned his shower off.
Except he hadn’t left right away, and I tensed in surprise to see he had lingered in the doorway.
He flinched guiltily and darted out before I could say anything.
He hadn’t been fast enough for me to miss the fact that I hadn’t been the only one looking. It wasn’t that he’d been staring that gave it away, because anyone could be caught looking at someone seeming suspicious.
No, the evidence that he had done more than glance was the fact that I caught sight of his dick before he darted out.
He had been almost completely hard, and I had watched it bounce as he’d made his hasty escape.
The mere thought was enough to make my dick stir to life, and I sighed softly, sticking my head back under the water and tempting myself by cranking the hot water all the way off.
I needed to remind myself that it wasn’t just a bad idea; it was a pointless one.
And that was all I needed to know…and what I was going to keep telling myself.