CHAPTER 29 #2
For one second, he went still again, but this time it wasn’t discomfort. It was almost like recalibration. Then his mouth moved against mine.
His hand slid to my lower back, pulling me closer. My wet skin met his, heat under heat, water running between us. I tasted steam and him and the leftover edge of the day. His other hand came to the side of my neck, thumb resting just beneath my jaw like he wanted to hold me in place.
My back hit the tile, and the cold shock of it made me gasp into his mouth.
He pulled back immediately. “Too cold?”
I stared at him.
Naked. Wet. Concerned about tile temperature.
I was in hell.
A very specific, extremely attractive hell.
“I’m fine,” I said.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“I’m actually fine,” I added. “Not fake fine. Real fine. Wet tile fine.”
His thumb moved once along my jaw. “That’s not a category.”
“It is now.”
My shoulder throbbed.
Right.
The reason I had initiated this disaster in the first place.
I put both hands on his chest and pushed gently.
He let me.
“Okay,” I said, breathing a little too hard. “As much as I appreciate your interest, I dragged you in here for manual labor.”
He blinked once. “You kissed me.”
“You were standing there naked and emotionally available. I panicked.”
A small, unguarded smile softened his mouth.
Before I could do something else reckless, I turned and faced away from him. The movement made my shoulder pull again, and I groaned.
His hands left my waist immediately. “Where?”
I pointed. “There.”
His fingers found the knot with infuriating accuracy. “Trapezius.”
“Do not flirt with me in Latin.”
His thumb pressed lightly into my skin. “That wasn’t Latin.”
“It sounded medical. Same category.”
He started at the base of my neck, thumbs pressing along the corded muscle before moving outward. The first pass hurt enough that I almost pulled away.
“Too much?” he asked.
“Maybe a little.”
His pressure eased immediately.
Water slid down my chest and stomach, warm enough to make my skin feel loose, but his hands were the thing my body followed. He worked methodically, testing each spot before applying pressure, learning the difference between pain that helped and pain that made my muscles defend themselves.
My eyes closed and my head tipped forward.
“There,” I said before I could stop myself. The sound that left me was not dignified, and his hands stopped. “You good? You went statue.”
“I was adjusting,” he said.
“To what?” I shifted back half an inch on purpose and felt exactly what he was adjusting.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one having a reaction to this extremely professional medical intervention.
“Jameson,” I said.
A low sound came from him, not quite a question. “Hmm?”
“If you make this weird, I’m leaving the shower.”
He could have laughed. He could have turned it into a line. He could have stepped back and made the whole thing safe again.
Instead, his hand slid from my shoulder, down my ribs, then lower over my stomach. Slow enough that I could have stopped him.
I didn’t.
His mouth brushed the wet hair near my temple. “You asked for manual labor.”
My breath caught.
His other hand settled at my hip, holding me against him while the hand on my stomach slipped lower. The care in it made my throat tighten before it made anything else ache.
His fingers brushed between my thighs. I gripped his forearm, not to stop him, just to have something solid while the rest of me started to forget the order of things.
His body was hard behind mine, but he didn’t move against me. Didn’t ask. Didn’t take the opening I could feel waiting between us.
He only touched me.
Like this was the thing I had asked for.
Like this counted as care.
“Jameson,” I whispered.
His voice stayed low near my ear. “I have you.”
That was all he said.
No filthy promise. No demand. Just Jameson, rough-voiced and steady, holding me up while his fingers moved with enough precision to make every breath feel stolen.
The pressure built by degrees, which somehow made it worse. My body kept waiting for him to rush, to turn it into something frantic, to take the control back from me.
He didn’t.
Every time I tensed, he eased. Every time my breath hitched, he listened. Every time my hand tightened on his arm, his mouth brushed my hair like he was reminding me I was still there.
So I let go.
Not all at once, and not dramatically.
A slow, trembling break moved through me in waves, stealing the strength from my legs and the last of the jokes from my mouth. My head tipped back against his shoulder, and he held me through it, his touch never changing until the last shiver faded under the water.
I could feel his heartbeat against my back, fast and not as controlled as he probably wanted it to be.
That made something tender and dangerous open behind my ribs.
He eased his hand away and rested it against my stomach again, like he was giving me time to come back to myself.
His mouth brushed my temple. “You need bed.”
I turned my face toward his shoulder. “You’re coming with me, right?”
His eyes searched mine, like he was checking the sentence for hidden meanings. “Do you want me to?”
I nodded against him. “Yes.”
A breath left him slowly. “Then I’m coming with you.”