by Jo Leigh
“Good. I believe we have a date with a hydra-headed shower?”
“Okay, first, I find it incredibly hot that you called the shower hydra.” He narrowed his gaze as he pushed off the door. “I’d heard about English teachers being hot, but I never imagined you. Hydra-headed shower, indeed.”
By the time he reached her, his eyes had darkened and his robe had opened completely, the tie dragging behind him. “May I take you on a tour of the facilities?”
“Yes,” she said. “Please do.”
He leaned in, but didn’t kiss her until he’d undone her robe so they were flashing each other shamelessly. This was very high on her scale of erotic moments. The kiss, when it came, made her toes curl while he made sure all their visible naked parts touched.
Somehow, without seeming to look up, he led her through the bathroom. The whole time his fingers ran through her hair just the way she liked it. He kissed her until she could scarcely breathe. And the way he used his tongue to tease and tempt, she became wet without touching water.
Magic.
Behind her, she heard music, soothing spa sounds, as well as the sound of gentle rain. They broke the kiss a few seconds later, and Rick pulled his cell phone out of his robe pocket.
“Are you really going to take another call now?”
“That would be very difficult,” he said, “since this is a remote control.”
“Oh. For the shower?”
“Come on. I’ll show you.”
The shower in this bathroom wasn’t like the one in the second bedroom, which was all kinds of awesome in its own right. This one, though, was luxury to the max.
There was no door. Instead, there was a gorgeous curved tile entry. The tile changed from sea-green to teal in the outer edges, where they hung up their robes, to a beautiful lavender and pink as they walked through to the shower itself.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, spotting the rows of jets coming from three directions, the music getting a bit louder the closer they got to the heart of the system.
“Is the temperature all right for you? We can change it in a heartbeat.”
She stuck her hand under the waterfall. “Perfect so far.”
“Don’t be shy.” He pointed to a digital keypad next to a single sprayer that reminded her of a car wash. “You can change the temp or the flow to whatever suits you.”
There was no way to tell but to dive in. She moved to the center, where every jet hit her, and it was so glorious she wanted to stay right there until school started on Monday. Maybe longer. Closing her eyes made it easier to immerse herself in the sensations. When she opened her eyes again they were no longer in the bathroom.
It was a jungle.
Everywhere she looked the jungle surrounded them, crawled up the walls to the canopy on the ceiling. She could barely make out the many showerheads, but Rick was perfectly clear.
With his hair wet and his body glistening, he approached her slowly. “Look at that smile. I think I’m jealous.”
“Of a shower?” Jenna laughed. “I’m a water baby, that’s all. I would swim every day if I could, then sit in a hot tub every night. At home, I spent a lot on an oxygenated showerhead. But this, holy cow, this is the mother ship.”
Grinning, he inclined his head. “Check out the amenities.”
She hadn’t even noticed the shelves filled with all manner of wonders. Everything from body scrubs to shampoos.
“I’ve never heard of any of them,” he said. “But then, I’m not a spa kind of guy.”
The first thing she picked up from the shelf was a body wash by Hermès. The next was Guerlain. “Uh, won’t your friend be pissed if we use these? I know they cost a fortune.”
“It’s okay. Promise.” He took a bottle off another shelf, poured what looked like liquid gold into his hands, and then walked behind her. Seconds later, he was washing her back, soaping her up with what felt like wet silk. When she had abandoned herself completely to pleasure, wet and warm as could be, he pressed his front against her back. Then he began at her neck and moved his large hands down.
She dropped her chin when he started on her breasts. Reaching behind her, she caught the back of his head and brought it to her shoulder. “I want to wash you,” she said.
“I’ll let you.”
“Okay, but I don’t want to make love in here. I want to wait until we go back to bed.”
“I’m good with that.”
“Excellent,” she said, then let him go. He moved down her abdomen, guiding her this way and that so he wasn’t competing with the jets.
When he arrived at her landing strip he soaped that slowly, moving down farther until his fingers were inside her.
It didn’t take but a minute for him to put his index finger on her now ripe clit.
“Remember,” she said, turning her head so she’d hear him. “Not till we get to bed.”
“I think you’re forgetting that you, Ms. Jenna, don’t have much of a refractory period at all.”
“Oh, right,” she said, nodding. “Go for it.”
His chest shook with a laugh but not for long. Her hands were on his arms, lightly holding him, loving the feel of his muscles as he worked her into her own private lather.
Behind her, she could feel him. He was very hard, and very clever as long as he didn’t take it too far. He thrust his soapy cock between her buttocks. She’d never been big on frottage before, but this was sexy as all get out. The jungle was alive around them, the rain full of tricks. But now all she could think of was his fingers, and how her body was tightening, preparing to blind her with a whole body orgasm. It was there. Rising, pulsing. “I’m close,” she said.
“Good.”
“Rick!”
“I’m here,” he said. “Let go. I’ve got you.”
In the dead center of what had to be a wet dream, she came apart. The only thing keeping her from turning into a quivering puddle was his arms. Lights flashed behind her eyelids and the room spun. She was gulping air, somehow not drowning. Probably because Rick was there, strong and steady, with his wicked fingers slipping away seconds before she became too sensitive.
Finally, after who knew how long, she stood on her own, anxious to feel his body under her own soapy hands. Instead of the Guerlain, she went to the men’s shelf where... “Oh, my God, you have to see this.”
He gave her a quizzical look, but his eyebrows rose when he read the label of the shower gel. It was called Bond No. 9.
“Do you like the scent?”
He uncapped the bottle, sniffed, and then handed it to her.
She inhaled deeply. “Mmm, I do,” she said. It smelled of ginger and leather and something darker but also citrusy. It didn’t matter, as long as he liked it. “Okay?”
“As a very good friend of mine once said, go for it.”
She lathered up, and went to town. It was more amazing than she’d imagined. Especially because the whole time she was caressing every part she could reach, he was shampooing her hair.
Magic. Again.
Not the jungle, not the luxurious products, not any of it.
Just him.
Just Rick.
* * *
THEY’D ALMOST made it. Almost.
He thought he had better control of himself, but when she started to wash him below the belt, so to speak, the switch got flipped and he was a goner. She’d barely touched his cock with her handful of shower gel and he’d popped like a champagne cork.
It didn’t matter. They had all night.
But for now, they were happily drained, done in by an overdose of pleasure. It was remarkably difficult to get dry despite the warm towels, then to make it all the way to the bed. He’d been worried about being away from his gym routine, but the hell with that. All he wanted was
lying next to him, her hair dried and gorgeous, spread over his shoulder. They’d exchanged maybe ten words since leaving the shower.
He was glad for Sam, because this place just kept getting better, but unlike the superrich would-be clients, Rick had to go back to his apartment shower after this.
He’d always bought serviceable crap for the bathroom. He wasn’t a pig or anything, but he bought his things from the neighborhood drugstore. He was tempted to go online right now and order some of that Bond stuff, but no. He’d do it later, when he wasn’t so perfectly at peace.
He felt pretty certain that every time he used the gel it would remind him of Jenna. Of how lucky they’d been to meet each other, let alone to spend this kind of time together. To remember this New Year’s Eve as the one where he’d met her instead of the one where he’d almost made a huge mistake with Faith was pretty great.
The walls had been changing colors ever since they’d slid between the sheets. They were soft, like the color of the wheat fields he’d walked past on his way to school when he was a boy, and the pale blue of the cloudless skies of summer. Odd. He hadn’t thought about his hometown in ages, and he wasn’t sure why he was now.
He ran his hand down the downy soft skin of her back. “I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I had to change my flight plans. I’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning. It’s probably our only chance to get out before the really big storms come through.”
“Oh. That’s awful. I was hoping we’d get to stay until Sunday,” she said.
“Me, too. But I have to get back to work. This is a very unusual winter. I usually hate the idea of being stuck inside for any length of time. I pretty much build my life around outdoor sports. But with you...”
“I wouldn’t mind being trapped here.” Jenna shifted a bit until she was able to meet his gaze.
“No. If I had my way, I’d keep us here through here through Monday. Just think. Two more nights...enough food for an army. That shower.”
She moaned, and he felt himself react as if he hadn’t just come thirty minutes ago. “I noticed the tubs are pretty spectacular. The one in my bathroom is a whirlpool. I’ve never seen one with more jets.”
“Big enough for two?”
“Definitely. But I don’t see how we’ll ever get to use it.” She ran her hand over his chest. “I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m more comfortable with you than I am with people I’ve known for years.”
“Think it’s shared trauma?” he asked, then wanted to bite his tongue for the mistake. Things had been nice and easy. The last thing he wanted to talk about was Payton or Faith.
“Some of it,” she said, “sure. For all intents and purposes, we were in the same train wreck.”
“Which doesn’t quite explain that first kiss.”
Her hand stopped. A few seconds later, she was playing with the sparse hair on his chest again. “Or the one from ten minutes ago,” she said, making it sound almost like a question.
But when he thought about it... “You’re right. I don’t think I’ve—I don’t know, everything feels different.”
“It’ll probably fade. We’ll get back to our real lives, and then all the stuff that we’ve locked out will come crashing down around us.”
He nodded. “I’ve got to find a new apartment.”
“Ugh,” she said. “I don’t envy you that. I hate apartment shopping.”
“Especially after staying here.”
They both laughed a little, but feeling her against him was like a drug. “What about you?”
“You mean when I get back? Well, I’ve got school, of course, but at least I won’t need to scramble. I prepared a week’s worth of lesson plans right after Christmas. But it’s always weird on the first day back after a long break. The kids will be humming with energy. Missing the freedom of Christmas vacation.”
Everything about her in his arms was perfect. He had no reason at all to move a muscle, and yet he had no choice but to move them both until he could look her in the eyes.
“Hey,” she murmured. “I was enjoying that.”
He smiled. “I don’t think you’ll mind. At least, I hope not,” he said, lowering his head so he could kiss her.
She moaned, and it was one of the good ones. He pulled her body close, the softness of the clean sheets yet another great sensation that couldn’t top the feel of her skin, the flesh against flesh. Her foot rubbed up the front of his calf. His hand found the sweet spot on her scalp that made her sigh. They didn’t speak, not for a long while.
“You seem to have found your second wind,” Jenna said, as she ran her palm over the underside of his thickened cock.
“I don’t know what’s in the water in this place, but I haven’t been this quick on the draw since my early twenties.”
“What do you mean the water? I’m a little insulted. Here I was thinking it was me that made all the difference.”
He stopped moving, stopped breathing for a moment as he realized she was right. “My mistake,” he said. Then he turned over until he was almost covering her with his body. He met her gaze, trying hard to remember that moment in the hotel, the feel of her lips under his. How it had been a shock to his system. And when she’d parted her lips to let him inside?
He kissed her. And it happened again. Like a moment trapped in time. That same shock ran down his body, settled in an ache that only one thing could possibly assuage.
When he finally pulled back, it was light enough in the room for him to see into the mesmerizing dark of her eyes.
“You’ve still got it,” she whispered.
“So have you,” he whispered back.
10
RICK HAD JUST awoken at a god-awful hour and was buck-naked on his way to the kitchen for coffee when Antwan called to Skype. He thought about putting on a shirt and eyed the camera over the fireplace. With that wide angle he’d have to put on jeans, too. Instead, he grabbed the robe he’d left over the back of the couch when Jenna had lured him to the bedroom last night.
While he waited for Antwan’s upper half to appear on the TV screen on the wall, Rick cleared the sleep from his voice and pushed a hand through his rumpled hair.
“I would have called you before now,” Antwan said as he popped up, “but the bastard I work with ditched me for a woman.”
It was only January 2. How had so much happened in the four days since Rick and Faith had left for Boston? “Well...”
“No.” Antwan shook his head, which looked very large on the wall screen. For all the fierce weather they’d been having, the picture was crystal clear.
Rick could even see his desk in the background, which had unsurprisingly sprouted a large stack of files. “No...what?”
“I don’t want to hear about how great everything is. Shit, man, look at you, more relaxed than I’ve ever seen you. But I suppose that’ll happen after so many nights of shagging.” Antwan’s head jerked back. “Dude!”
Behind him, Rick heard a little squeak. He whipped around to see Jenna wearing one of his shirts, unbuttoned, and a mortified look on her face, backing out of the living room and disappearing with a soft whimper. So much for springing the news of his failed proposal slowly.
“That wasn’t—” Antwan looked behind him, then leaned closer to his computer camera. “I can’t wait to hear this story, man.”
“I didn’t propose,” Rick said.
“Damn. I had it the other way ’round.”
“I was going to ask her at the stroke of midnight— Wait, what did you mean, you had it the other way around?”
“You proposed, she laughed. You know, for the office pool. I think Wexler won.”
“So everyone in my workplace, my home away from home, was betting that I’d make a fool of myself?”
“No. Not everyone,” Antwan s
aid with his big white grin. “Sorry, bredda, I wouldn’t be joking but I can see you’re not too broken up about it.”
Rick sighed, not because of the pool. How could he when he’d won money on a few himself? But because in hindsight, he would’ve bet against himself, too. Shit.
“Go on. Tell me about it.”
“Nothing to tell,” Rick said. “Look, I know you aren’t surprised. And frankly, I’m not, either. You were right all along. Faith and I are better friends than anything else.”
“Hey...” Antwan shook his head. “I don’t mean to rub it in. I shouldn’t have mentioned the office pool.”
Rick laughed. He wasn’t offended. “How much did you lose?”
“I can still pay this month’s rent.” Antwan grinned and glanced toward the hall where Jenna had disappeared. “So, who’s the hottie you been shagging?”
Rick stiffened, not liking the reference one bit. “Her name’s Jenna,” he said evenly, knowing his friend didn’t mean anything. “And we’ve spent a very nice couple of days...well, nights together. This apartment is so dope, man, I can’t even explain it.”
Antwan read him loud and clear and just nodded. “You’ll have to tell me about it when you get back. Actually, that’s why I’m calling. Forget about your morning flight. The snow was a little bigger than we predicted.”
Rick smiled, which he probably shouldn’t have. He’d be missing a major change in the weather patterns.
“But Lester’s pretty sure you’ll be able to get out tonight. ”
“How thoughtful of him,” Rick said and Antwan laughed. Their boss was an okay guy most of the time, but he could also be a pain.
“I can tell him I never reached you if you want to stay longer.”
“That’s okay. I’ve been checking myself.” Rick glanced over at the weather feed showing on the other side of the fireplace. “You’re talking about the red-eye.”
“Yep,” Antwan said, “or a crowded flight tomorrow afternoon. You’re not the only one stuck in that storm, my friend. But we can pull some strings.”
“I’d rather leave tomorrow, but I need to talk to Jenna. Make sure she can get home before I leave.”
