Chapter 366: Under the Water.

I turned the soap in my hand until the lather finally took — thick, grey-white, sliding between my fingers.

She stayed under the spray with her head tipped back and her eyes half-closed, the water sheeting off her face and throat and over the pale wet slopes of her breasts in continuous bright lines that caught on her tight nipples and dripped.

I started at her shoulders.

The soap ran under my palms in thin grey-white trails. Her skin was hotter than the water — smooth, tight over the muscle at first, then softer as I worked down the upper arms, the flesh giving under the pressure of my hands.

She breathed in when my hands first properly closed on her and didn’t breathe out again for a second too long. Her ribs stayed expanded against me.

That’s it.

That’s it.

Don’t react. Don’t—

A small sound escaped her anyway — low, caught in her throat. She turned it into a shift of weight, practical, as if she were only making room for me to reach her better. Her hip pressed harder against the length of my cock.

"Your arms," I said.

"I know."

I washed them. Wrist to shoulder. The soft inside of her elbow. The water took the soap away as fast as I put it down, leaving her skin slick and shining. She watched my hands when she could see them and stared past my shoulder when she couldn’t, her short white hair plastered flat to her skull.

He’s being thorough.

His cock is still against me. He hasn’t softened at all.

I moved to her collarbones. The hollow of her throat. My fingers spread across the top of her chest and stopped just short of the swell of her breasts, and I felt her lean forward a fraction — not enough to call it leaning, enough that the full soft weight of her filled the gap I had left, the undersides of her breasts brushing the backs of my hands.

Please.

Just do it.

I did it.

Both hands, full, the soft heavy flesh pressing up into my palms as I washed her. Soap. Water. The slow circular motion of someone cleaning skin. My thumbs passed over her nipples and felt them tighten further under the contact, the pink peaks hard against the pads of my fingers.

She made another sound, lower, and her forehead dropped against my shoulder for a second before she put it back up again. Her mouth was open against my skin.

God.

God, his hands—

That’s not washing. He can call it washing. That is not—

My thumbs tracked the valley between her breasts, working the lather down the dark line of the tattoo. The letters sat raised under the soap, small and precise. I could feel them better than I could read them — each stroke of the ink standing out against the soft skin.

"What’s this say?"

She glanced down at my hands, then away into the spray. Water ran into her eyes.

"Nothing important."

"That’s not what I asked."

A short laugh came out of her — thin, not quite steady. "It’s just words, Bram. They don’t mean anything."

Don’t ask again.

Please don’t ask again. Not with your hands there.

"Yeah," I said.

I spread the lather lower, over the soft plane of her stomach. The water took it immediately, running it down her hips in thin white trails that disappeared between her thighs.

"Turn around."

The words came out gentler than I’d meant them to.

She didn’t move at once. Her weight shifted from one foot to the other. A breath went in and held. For a second I thought she was going to refuse — or say something that would break the last of the pretence — and then she turned, slow, and put her palms flat on the tile in front of her. Her back arched slightly under the spray.

Keep going.

The spray hit her back and ran down the long clean line of her spine in a single sheet. I worked the soap across her shoulder blades, down the length of her spine, over the small of her back where the dress had pulled tight in the corridor. The muscle there jumped under my hands.

My hands settled on the full curve of her ass and washed there too — firm, deliberate, the motion still the motion of bathing, the pressure not. My fingers spread, lifting the soft weight of her, soap running down the cleft between. The heat of her was stronger here.

She braced harder on the tile. Her head hung forward. Water ran off the ends of her short hair in a broken string. Her thighs trembled once.

I’m going to fall over.

I’m going to fall over and he’s going to keep washing me like nothing is happening.

I turned her back to face me. Her eyes were darker. The flush had spread down her chest, colour high across the upper slopes of her breasts. Her mouth was open, breathing through it now.

My cock was trapped between us again, hard along the soft wet line of her stomach, the head of me sliding against her navel with every small movement. Every shift of either of us stroked the full length of it against her without either of us needing to name it. The precum mixed with the water and the soap.

I soaped my hands again. Started lower.

The soft plane of her stomach. The tattoo under my fingers once more — still unread, only felt, the raised letters sliding under my thumbs. Her navel. The hinge of her hips. She was breathing through her mouth now. Short. Controlled. Her stomach tensed under every pass of my hands.

Lower.

You know where. You know exactly where.

If he stops at my hips I am going to kill him.

I didn’t stop at her hips.

My hand slid down between her legs from the front, soap still on the fingers, the motion continuous with everything that had come before it — the same pace, the same practical pressure of a man washing a body in a shared shower so the water wouldn’t run cold.

The outer lips parted under my fingers at once. Heat. Wetness that had nothing to do with the spray — thick, slick, coating my skin immediately.

I ran two fingers along the soft inner flesh as if I were cleaning her, slow, thorough, spreading her open under the falling water, and felt her whole body tighten around the contact. The swollen peak of her clit was already hard under the pad of my finger.

That’s—

That’s not—

Her hand found my wrist. Not stopping me. Holding on. Fingers digging in.

I pressed a little more deliberately. Still the shape of washing — a slow pass, a return, the pad of my finger finding the swollen peak of her and circling it once, twice, the way you work soap into skin that needs it.

Her knees bent. Her breath broke into a short, broken sound. The hand on my wrist clenched hard enough to hurt.

I can’t.

I can’t do this anymore.

Fuck — Bram — fuck—

She gave up.

The composure left her face in one go. She pitched forward into me, then past me, and her shoulders met the tile hard enough to make a wet sound. Her back arched. Her hips pushed forward into my hand.

The spray hit the side of her head and ran into her open mouth. Her legs had opened without her deciding to open them — thighs parting wide under the water, giving me everything.

My hand was still between them, fingers slick with her, no longer pretending as carefully, the pressure steady on the exact place that made her hips push back into my palm in short, helpless rolls.

She pulled my face down to hers.

The kiss was not careful. Wet from the shower, open, her teeth catching my lower lip hard enough to sting, a raw sound going from her throat straight into mine. Her tongue met mine. Her free hand fisted in my hair.

My fingers slid lower and pressed into her — slow, deep enough to feel the heat close around them, the tight slick walls of her gripping as I pushed in to the second knuckle.

Her head tipped back against the tile with a soft knock, mouth breaking from mine just long enough to breathe a broken sound into the spray, then finding me again while the water fell on both of us from above and her thoughts finally stopped making sentences at all — only raw heat and yes and more and the desperate push of her hips onto my hand.