Pride and Pancakes

by Ellen Mint

  Slowly, she glanced to the man who’d entered behind her. He moved to close the door before they both winced at the puny light coming off the lantern. “Probably best if I…” Tristan jerked his head to the door that let the few gray cloud-rays pierce into the darkened bathroom.

  Was he nervous? Was she?

  Catching the trembling in her fingers as they kept tugging on her blouse, she nodded. Yes, fine. She was incredibly nervous. Screwing her eyes shut, Beth undid the buttons that’d put in far too much work these past few days. When the blouse hit the tile, she glanced over her shoulder to find him staring longingly down the swoop of her back.

  A thrill rode up her spine, bringing with it a smile. Tristan raised a shoulder as if in a toast and, grabbing the collar of his shirt, hoisted it off his body. Oh, God! The blush threatened to consume her whole when her plan fully hit her. Share a shower. Just jump right from a foolish little kiss to naked bodies pressed together under steaming water, as if that might…

  The tell-tale zipper-pull sound silenced her brain entirely. Beth remained turned away, but she risked a sneaky peek in the mirror. If men were horses, Tristan Harty would be a thoroughbred. Sleek and wiry, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. His muscles were trim and tight with a hint of veins rising off his biceps as he worried out of his jeans. A neat pile of hair formed at the middle of his stark, flat pecs. It vanished down the center of his body but picked up around the belly button. Beth flexed her fingers, wondering how soft its dark waves had to be.

  “So this shower idea…” He spoke, causing her to whip her head away as if she hadn’t been dissecting every inch of available skin.

  “Uh-huh,” Beth mumbled, finally unbuttoning her own slacks and slipping them off. She stood in her bra and panties, neither particularly fancy lingerie, in a dark bathroom with a man she had met three days ago.

  Should she take more off? Beth brushed her hand over her hip, toying with the strap of the bikini cut underwear while facing Tristan Harty. No doubt he’d been with models and actresses in the past, women whose job was to keep as thin and acceptably in shape as possible. Every cruel cut to her self-esteem, every braying advertisement to get her to buy their product, every swallowed hatred at her eyes, her breasts, her legs, her thighs came screaming at her at once.

  She watched his jaw drop.

  “Do we, do you want, should I?” That cocksure, patrician mask cracked, leaving Tristan babbling. He rustled through his hair as if that’d save him, his other hand tugging on the band of his underwear.

  Okay. That might be a step too far.

  “I’ll start the water,” Beth announced as if he had no idea how a shower worked. The nod she received seemed both grateful that she planned to shower in her underwear, and perhaps a touch rueful as well.

  Fumbling due to the overwhelming shadows, she patted along the wall until finding the silver handle and twisting it far to the left. Moment of truth. Water spurted out, cold drops landing on her shoulders and arm. Beth shrieked, a laugh bubbling up as she tried to dash away from the freezing onslaught. But in doing so, she nearly ran over the man who’d slipped in behind. Tristan placed a comforting palm to her back, and she fell into those blue eyes laughing at her reaction.

  “It’s cold,” she needlessly explained.

  “That’s to be expected.” He shrugged as if unsurprised by anything, but then he paused and impishly stared down at her. Water spurted out of the showerhead, picking up steam as it bounded about in their cozy tiled grotto. Beth’s shoulder took some of the brunt, her poor arm serving as the thermometer, but a few of the drops beaded up on his face. The stern expression softened, the tension across his cheeks and forehead fading to a surprising tenderness in the hot steam.

  “Ah,” she called, having to drag herself away from tasting the dew on his lips. “It’s getting warmer.” Walking forward, her hands extended until the palms pressed to the wall, she gave in to the siren’s call of the shower. All the sweat and fear from the ice skating debacle washed down the drain. Her skin—frozen by the lake and the terror of shattering through ice—heated as the water kissed her body.

  Beth rolled her hands back across her face, dousing her hair in the shower’s stream when she heard a choking sound. She found Tristan paralyzed where he stood. While the water beaded up across every curve of her exposed skin and saturated her bra and panties, only a few drops struck his underwear. And…he was certainly not lacking in the shorts-filling department. Giddiness surged through her veins and Beth snapped her sight to his feet.

  Oh, come on, stop blushing and darting your gaze away. When are you ever going to see him again? That fact drew a sour turn to her stomach, but she couldn’t run from the logic either.

  “Here.” Beth reached out to pick up his hand and tugged him closer. Tristan skidded on his toes as if he really expected to just stand inside with her without getting wet. In pulling him closer to the shower, Beth forgot to step away. Tristan smacked his right palm into the wall, his body pinning hers directly under the fall of water.

  Bending his head to become her personal umbrella, he took the brunt of the spray to his back. Rivulets streamed from his scalp down the sides of his face as he stared, eye to eye with her. So close, her skin warmed from him and not the last vestiges of the hot water. His forehead nearly crested against hers, Tristan pressed his free hand between their bodies as Beth let it go.

  “You are…” Tristan grappled for words, his breaths scrambling like a man straining off a cliff’s edge. Raising his fallen palm, he hovered it less than a centimeter above her drenched body. As he skirted around her hip and trailed deeper to her waist, she shivered at the electricity sparking between them. He didn’t touch her, but the heat of his body, the rising scent of his masculine form, the beading of water against their skin set her off.

  Panting and shivering, Beth clenched her toes in anticipation of his palm touching her. Of it parting through the fall of rain to grip her arm, the hand tugging her to his lips. But Tristan held off, his gaze never leaving hers, and she returned the laser focus as he circled up around the edge of her bust.

  “I can’t stop,” he whispered, ignoring the nipple straining through her waterlogged bra. Swerving along her shoulder, he slowly walked the tip of his fore and index fingers across her narrow collarbone, every touch of his finger matching her rising heartbeat.

  At the hollow of her throat, he rested his fingers before they began to ascend her jaw. From the tip of her wide chin, he glided the back of his forefinger, slicing off every water droplet on the way. “Tell me to stop.” His paused his finger. “And I will.”

  Launching on her tiptoes, Beth circled both her arms around the back of his neck. “I can’t do that,” she said just before guiding his lips to hers. This was no sweet and uncertain kiss. Tongues spun in time with one another, lips sucked upon lips, and they drank of each other as they abandoned all pretense of civility.

  Tristan surged forward. With the imaginary forcefield broken by her consent, he wrapped his hand around her hip. Where on the ice it’d been cautious and chaste, now it was a lascivious massage. He pulsed his fingers deep into the side of her buttock while his thumb wrapped the band of her panties around itself.

  God! When he tugged on that elastic, Beth gasped into his mouth. Water struck the intimate skin exposed to the world, sending her heart racing. He paused, darting his gaze to her out of concern, but she knotted her hands through his hair and tugged him tighter to her. They slipped in the rising water but landed against the shower’s wall. Tristan spun with her, placing them both on equal footing into the water’s path. When Beth’s back bounced against the shower’s tile with no faucets in the way, Tristan’s hands landed on either side of her head for balance.

  Both pulled in a cleansing breath, only the sound of their panting and the soothing fall of rain filling the bathroom. Tristan was vulnerable, all his weight in the palms spread across the tile. Most was in the left hand to protect his poor damaged right palm. The one he’
d cut in saving her.

  Water pulsed against Beth’s side, the steaming heat drenching her hair and his. It pressed flat to his forehead like dark copper ribbons, rivulets of water streaming down his cheeks. Tristan’s mouth fell agape to aid him in breathing air instead of water. Every gasp and sputter puffed against Beth’s cheeks, her body delighting in the sounds of the man turning primal.

  Slowly, she reached out to place her palm on the pale chest before her. Hotter than the hearth, the heat radiated up her arm and straight down to her thighs. With Tristan running his forehead against hers, she drew her fingers downward. They tumbled in and out of the ribs, his spry body revealed in its near fullness to her. Almost no fat touched his midsection, the abs of a naturally skinny four-pack.

  Tristan gulped when she circled her finger around his belly button, Beth finding delight in the downy treasure trail. Hungry for more, she drew the tip of her finger clear across the straights of his waistband. At the sharp hipbone, she knotted the elastic in her hand and tugged it down. Not far—only an inch of stark white skin was revealed—but Tristan moaned.

  As he pressed his hips closer, the engorging bulge glanced against her belly as he tipped her head back. Water tried to leech into her mouth, but he cut it off with his lips. Rolling his hands around the back of her chest, he grabbed the fussy bra band. The pads of his hands dug into her spine as he fought against the insipid thing. When the taut elastic gave, Tristan released a small whoop of triumph and he tugged the freed bra off.

  Water beaded up her small bust, the falling shower quickly finding the skin freed to the world. Beth pulled in a breath, well aware of what she lacked up top or below. As Tristan tossed the unwanted bra to the bathroom floor, she stared down at her empty cleavage, every mole and freckle amplified by the droplets.

  This is me. Do you accept it?

  Beth gazed up at him and he cupped both palms over her tiny breasts. When he suckered his lips to her neck, Beth gasped as every tender flutter and nip of his teeth drove straight to her core. When his gentle kneading of her breasts became a stroking of her nipples, she moaned in his ear.

  Tristan shuddered, no doubt overwhelmed by her accidental shouting, but he smiled. “Good?”

  “Beyond,” she gasped, uncertain if full sentences were possible.

  Every slick of his fingers against her soaked skin ignited her desire. Tristan’s wry lips, once so solemn and curt, softened. Climbing up her neck with his kisses, he worked his way to her ear. All the while, he drew unending pleasure from her breasts with his hands.

  Beth’s toes curled, her breath trapped in her lungs as she ached for his touch. He found his way to her earlobe with his lips, and, as he pulled it in between his teeth, he rolled both her nipples between his fingers.

  “Holy shit,” she gasped. Both her hands launched out to grab on to a lifeline as her body revved up from his expert ministrations. It wasn’t the screw-cap approach of a young man, but the graceful strokes of a maestro. A whimper rising up her throat, Beth ached for him to never stop, while simultaneously fearing she could take no more. She curled her hands around his back, at his boxer-briefs’ waistband, and dug them deep.

  Tristan’s tight control snapped, incoherent gasps sputtering into her ear. While he prayed for salvation, Beth kneaded against the taut butt cheeks below her palms. Each reach slid his underwear lower and lower. With every stretch of her toes, her belly bounded into the powerful instrument concealed below his soaked gray briefs.

  “Please,” the once-taciturn man begged her, “take them off.”

  Smiling from her lips clear down to the center of her being, Beth tugged the clingy underwear down. The boxer-briefs didn’t fall far, but they didn’t have to. In an instant, his dick was freed. It surged out of the gate fully cocked, but quickly nestled safely against her lower belly. When the head and half of the shaft glided across her water-soaked skin, Beth gulped. How fantastic would that feel where it belonged?

  Tristan shook down the errant boxer-briefs, leaving them to float on the rising shower water. Grabbing her hips, he tugged her to him, Beth shocked at the hunger and force. “Your turn,” he growled, the look in his eyes telling her he’d shred her panties with his fingernails if he could.

  Nodding vehemently that he’d best get to it, Beth placed her hands on his shoulders as Tristan pulled her drenched panties off. He kept one palm on her hip, flexing his pad against the curve, while the other tugged the clingy cotton down.

  Slowly, he dipped to one knee while pulling on her underwear. His gaze never leaving hers, Tristan placed tender kisses first between her breasts, then down her midsection.

  “God,” Beth gasped, flexing her palms through his hair. She rustled the damp locks apart, prepared to guide the man at her feet when he reached the edge of her pubic hair.

  The kisses pausing, Beth gulped at the realization. Was he put off by her not shaving? Should she have told him to keep the underwear on and shove them aside?

  He planted his chin into the sparse but coarse black hair and beamed up at her. Like the fairytale of Cinderella, Tristan helped to lift her foot, freeing her of the drudgery of underwear.

  “That,” Beth gulped, wiping off her face, “that’s both of…”

  Tristan launched to his feet, grabbing her ass, hefting Beth clean off the tile. She yelped in shock, slotting her legs around his thin hips as he took her in his arms. When her back splattered against the wall for leverage, he plunged his lips to hers, scattering kisses across her mouth. Beth’s mind fogged as she savored his cock passing against her stretching opening. He didn’t force himself in, nor was she in a position to guide, but that hot, smooth crown kept gliding against her lower lips. Every pass drove her wild, her hips straining to try and extend her legs as far as possible.

  God, she wanted him in her.

  “Are you…?” Tristan gasped, his forehead crashing to hers as he steadied himself.

  Was she what? Ready? Yes! Wanting him? Fuck yes!

  Oh. Birth control. Right. The commonsense fairy tried to bean Beth in the head. She swallowed, her flushed lips opening to tell him when icy rain sizzled down her breasts. Gasping at the intrusion, Beth flinched as the freezing water fell from the shower head. Whatever last dregs of heat they’d had had been long stolen by the blackout, leaving them twisting to avoid the assault.

  Her feet slipped from his hips, splashing the lukewarm water up their bodies as both Beth and Tristan reached to shut off the jet. They haphazardly slapped at the dial, one of them finally silencing the freezing attack. Drenched, panting for breath, and naked, they stared first at the dribbling shower head and slowly turned to each other.

  What am I thinking?

  What’s he thinking?

  We shouldn’t do this.

  We can’t do this?

  Both of them leaped together. Tristan’s lips found hers at the same moment as Beth moved to him. He tumbled his wet and cooling hands around her waist, trying to pull her body flush to his. She scrabbled onto her toes, attempting to keep the hot kisses coursing down her body while also moving with him.

  They slipped out of the shower’s standing water into the dry bathroom. Beth’s toes tangled in that workhorse pink blouse while Tristan kicked into his jeans. She heard the jangling sound of keys not needed in the past three days, and he broke from their kiss.

  With a smirk, he bent over and fished around in the pocket of his pants. Beth quirked her head, watching at first in curiosity, but then the light striking his body drew her in. Those strong thighs hardened to granite as he squatted, his pale skin shining like diamonds from the lingering shower. After securing something in his palm, Tristan beamed up at her and rose to his towering height.

  Kissing Beth with a volcano’s worth of heat, he grabbed her hand with his free one and led them into the bedroom. The chill tried to strike her wet skin, but Tristan wouldn’t hear of it. His body enveloped hers even as they stumbled backward through the open bedroom door. He swept an arm over the small of her ba
ck, pinning her chest to his while he pivoted.

  Their lips wouldn’t break, both kissing as if fearing what stopping could cause. Questions. Discussions. A long litany of reasons why this couldn’t proceed.

  “Gah!” he gasped, his shock at running the bottom edge of his ass into the bed sputtering against Beth’s tender lips. She snorted a laugh at both the surprise in his voice and the rising smile as he too realized his error.

  “We…” Tristan drew his palm to her cheek, the same one he’d sliced apart in saving her. She winced at the vengeful line of red but curled into his sweet hold. “We could stop.”

  “I suppose so.” Her voice was devoid of all emotion, Beth draining it for fear of the vulgar want rampaging through her body. She breathed in the scent of the man wrapped around her. Beyond the soapy sandalwood and nervous coffee was a musk so delectable she could almost taste it beading on her skin. Desire.

  “Do you want to stop?” he asked, his words calm and collected even as his engorged dick pulsed against her belly.

  Pulling in a slow breath, Beth tried to weigh every possibility, to stare into the future as if she was some goddess gifted with prophecy. There weren’t many roads leading to this being wise. Almost none, she’d guess. Agree to end it. To walk away with a nervous jitter to your legs, a pounding ache in your loins, and questions of what might have been. That would be best.

  Smirking, she stared through the gray-white shadows of the darkened bedroom, directly into Tristan’s deep blues. “No,” Beth declared, diving for his lips.

  Tristan clamped onto her ass, clinging tight to the flesh and lifting her higher and higher into the air. Reaching out, Beth was about to hook a knee to the bed when Tristan spun fully in place.

  She twisted through the air, revolving until she was the one with her back to the bed. Opening his hands, Beth fell to the raised mattress, her body bouncing along with her laugh. “You gave me an axel,” she giggled.

  It took a moment for the reference to strike through Tristan’s hunger, but he too smiled. “And it’s much easier to do in the bedroom than on the ice.” He burrowed his hands into the mattress beside her hips, pushing Beth’s forehead back with his to accommodate his feverish kisses.