21. Anthony
twenty-one
anthony
This is not what I intended when I offered to wash her hair. I did that because she’s hurting and she’s down, and she deserves for someone to take care of her.
I did it because I love her.
And now, she’s standing in front of me with suds sliding down her rose gold curves, asking me to follow her into the shower, to stare at her naked body longer? If not for all of those other reasons, I’d do it just to memorize her like this. My eyes can’t rove like they want to—because she’s watching, but also because I don’t think I’d have enough time to take in every perfect thing about her.
That night on the beach, we’d at least kept one law in tact by keeping our clothes on—aside from when she’d bent over my lap and took me to the back of her throat. I’ve dreamt about this body—both consciously and unconsciously—for two years now. I didn’t even come close. Penelope has curves. She’s something to hold onto, something malleable and pliable that I want to spend hours— years— molding to my touch.
“I…”
Can’t make words work, apparently .
She bites that lip again, and it takes everything in me not to tug it free, not to bite it myself.
“You said it was okay to ask for help. Right?”
You sure did, you big dummy .
I nod. Grunt. Effectively turn into a caveman.
She steps into the shower, and I have to physically turn and look away from the bend and jiggle of her ass with the movements. She starts the shower, and I strip out of my outer layer, leaving me in my boxer briefs and undershirt.
It’s just a shower, it’s just a shower, you’re helping her rinse off the bubbles, the bubbles that are covering the nipples you only played with through her shirt ? —
“It’s warm enough.”
I know her well enough that I can pull apart the two different parts to that tone: Quiet shyness, and a devilish siren.
I grunt again. Shake my head. Duck into the shower and take the detachable showerhead from its magnetic hold. I point it at the ground so I don’t get her bag-wrapped cast wet, and focus on my task. If I just think about bland, terrible things, I won’t be able to focus on her naked body.
The tiles in this shower need to be scrubbed. The Bruins can’t make it out of the first round of the playoffs. Penelope’s nipples are now totally free of bubble bath .
Eh. Well. It was a valiant effort.
And fuck is she perfect. Her tits are bigger than average, more than a handful when I’d squeezed them over her clothes on that beach. Her nipples are rosy and pointed, and absolutely begging for my touch, my tongue, something . I rake my gaze over her, take in every single detail, and then trace those mounds up the slope of her neck. Her blue eyes are the calm before the storm, but the center is dilating by the second, like all she needed was my gaze on hers to push her over the line. Her lips part, and I swear there’s a little sigh just waiting in the back of her throat, waiting for me to give her the go-ahead.
Instead, I panic, and squirt her breasts with the showerhead. Her eyes go wide and meet my gaze like a mirror. She shakes her head and turns around, and I run my hand through my hair because I’m a big fat failure.
In the words of How I Met Your Mother, that was the sign .
I can’t. I cannot put my hands on her again when we’ve barely just scratched the surface of apologizing and getting past what happened between us.
I watch as the water drips down her back, cascading over the curves that felt heavenly when I’d gripped her to grind over my lap. The curves I’d smoothed over when she’d been laying in my arms after. My erection pulls against the wet, tight fabric of my underwear, so hard that the band is tugged away from my skin.
The bruise on her ass is still an angry color. I want to bend down and kiss it, massage over it with my fingertips. Instead, I watch the path of the bubbles as it winds down the back of her leg, then to the inside and to her front again. Stepping forward, I curve my arm around her to rinse off the serpent of bubbles. That’s when she finally lets it escape. The little moan. The sound of Please, more . Her head tilts back, and that little sound goes straight to my cock. It’s then that I realize the stream of water is pulsing against her bare pussy.
Whoops .
But she moans. Steps into it. I surely can’t leave her like this.
Tentatively, my free hand cups her waist. She leans in almost immediately, and I squeeze.
Heaven. Home. Her .
I close the distance so only centimeters remain and trace my nose up the side of her neck, breathing in that conditioner and the sweet smell of coconuts and her. When I tug the showerhead slightly off center, she whines in protest.
“When you said it was hard to do things by yourself, that you’ve been frustrated this week, did that involve touching yourself?” I ask, my voice thick and deep. I can’t help it.
“I always use my left hand, so it hasn’t been the same.”
I did not expect her to be this forward.
“You mean to tell me you’ve been making yourself come with me in the house before this?
“Mhm.”
“What has you so worked up?”
“You being in the house.”
That’s all it takes for me to close the gap, to press the head of my angry erection into her lower back.
Stroking the water stream up and down her inner thigh, I grunt, “It’s okay to ask for help, Pen.”
Her good hand wraps around my wrist as she wines, “I need help. Make me come, Ant. Please .”
I band my free hand over her waist, holding her to me, as my thumb fiddles with the waterflow to make it a direct, pulsing stream. I move it right over her needy clit. She yelps, but it turns into a moan as her hips immediately start pumping back and forth. She’s riding my cock without even meaning to. I have to stop it before I embarrass myself. This is about her .
“That’s what you needed, huh? Your poor pussy needs to be played with?”
I swirl the water stream in a circular motion, earning another of those sweet sounds. It’s a gasp, followed by a loud, Ohh! and her fingernails digging into my skin.
I look down over her shoulder. Watching her fuck the water stream, her chest heaving up and down, has me desperate to touch her. I curl my other hand up and grasp her breast, squeezing roughly.
“I’ve dreamt about these tits, Pen,” I grunt, widening my fingers to capture her swollen nipple between two. She gasps, then tilts her hips backwards, rutting up and down on my dick.
“I’m close,” she gasps. “I…”
“Ask me for it. Ask me for what you need and I’ll give it to you.”
She takes my hand off her breast and brings it between her legs.
“Inside, inside me please ,” and I’d have to be struck down by lightning to even consider telling her no.
The moment I slip my two middle fingers inside her and begin to pump, her good hand goes to her nipple and takes over, pinching and pulling. I guide the stream back to her clit and run my nose up and down her throat, preening when she tilts her head for better access. I purse my lips over her pulse and kiss her there chastely. Her pussy starts to pulse faster, starts to grip me tighter, and I can’t not watch.
“That’s my girl. Come for me, Pen, give it to me.”
“Fuck, fuckfuckfuck, Ant, gah! ”
She trembles in my hands, skyrocketing like her body doesn’t quite know which way to go. Her ass circles in haphazard patterns, her upper body squirming. I keep going, keep the pressure on her clit, keep milking her with my fingers until her breaths stutter and she starts to pull away.
But I don’t. I can’t . She’s quivering on my hand, wetness still seeping out, and I want to stay here as long as I can, because I have this feeling that I’m going to lose her as soon as she comes out of her haze.
She turns around though, releasing my fingers as she does. Cradling her bum hand away from her, she takes the shower head from me. The next words out of her mouth nearly make me come in my shorts.
“Can I watch?”
It takes all of thirty seconds. I don’t even push my underwear past my thighs, just barely enough to let my cock and balls hang past. The head is swollen, leaking precum, and the shaft is an angry red. I grip myself tight, stroking in short, quick motions. All the while, I’m looking at her.
Her flushed skin, her dark eyes, the way her breasts heave with her quick, short breaths. The moment I feel that pinching in my spine, my other hand grips my balls and tugs, and I come with a force onto the shower floor. Penelope directs the showerhead over my lower body, then at the shower floor, before shutting it off and hanging it back on the wall.
When we’re standing there, naked, in the middle of the shower, our gazes click like gears in a lock. They seem to say a lot—not all the things we need to say—but I wonder if we’ve finally come to an understanding.
A chill rushes over her as the air kicks on. She giggles in this awkwardly cute way. She folds her arms over her chest, then steps around me to get out of the shower. A moment later, she comes back with a towel wrapped around her chest, and one outstretched for me.
I take my time, showering off in my own bathroom, changing into shorts and a T-shirt. I don’t expect to see her when I come back into the main living area. But there she is, cuddled up in her spot on the couch, a bowl of popcorn sitting on the middle cushion.
A peace offering?
I take “my spot” on the couch, settle in, and exhale before I look over to her.
She looks… More relaxed than she has as of late. Her hair hangs in loose, damp waves over one shoulder, and her cheeks are a warm, glowy pink. The lines that marred her forehead since the start of this week—hell, since the day I moved in—are less defined. I tilt my head toward the bowl and purse my lips in question, and she nods, her smile bunched in a shy, mischievous button.
As I’m finishing my handful of popcorn, she bites her bottom lip and says, “Thanks for the hand.”
Popping the popcorn into my mouth, I grin widely.
“ Technically it was a shower head.”
She tosses a throw pillow at me, and it knocks the bell to the ground in the process. We both laugh. I hold the pillow tightly to my chest, and pick up the knocked over bell.
“You know, if you were having a frustrating time with that thing…” I indicate to her cast, then ring the bell between us. “You could’ve just rang.”
I smirk and wag my brows in her direction, and Penelope rolls her eyes but fails to hide her smile, no matter how hard she tries to scrunch it away.
She snags the bell and rolls it back and forth in her palm, the deadened tinkling sound echoing like ellipses between us.
“I’ll consider it.”
The sultry, rich timbre of those three words makes my heart beat like a hummingbird’s.
“Really?”
“ Psht . In your dreams, Ant.”
I fall, over-dramatically, into the couch cushion, and direct my puppy pout to her.
“ Thud. ”
“Shots fired.”
Pen puts her head in both hands as she laughs. Quiet, but free. When she stops, she tilts her head and peeks at me through her spread fingers.
And that’s how we end our night. One couch cushion away, and a weight lifted off my chest.