The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

me started.” They’d slept alone last night for no good reason she could think of, and she’d missed him today.

He wore a pair of tattered jeans with knees slashed out and a faded gray T-shirt that was washed shapeless. It still managed to show off his chest through the crossed-armed nonchalance he had going on as he leaned on the doorjamb.

The way he watched her wasn’t indifferent. Steamy enough to rival the tub.

“That smells nice,” he said.

“Not too girly?”

“Why are things that smell nice considered girly?”

“Good point.”

“What’s the bubble bath etiquette?”

“Strip, soak, relax, cuddle, if all goes well fool around. Rinse. Repeat.”

“I’m going to add a step.” If it was undress her with his eyes, touch, hug, kiss, she was all for a rigorous black-belt-level process management. “I need to rinse off first.”

She reached out to turn the taps off—the bath would overfill—and he stopped her hand. He hadn’t shaved for two days and the scruff was deeply sexy. His breath over her cheek made her shiver. “Why don’t you get in and wait for me?”

Now there was a lovely idea. From the bath, she could watch him in the shower. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen him gloriously naked many times now, but they’d been busy, he’d made her close her eyes a lot and then sleep like the dead. She’d not had her fill of simply looking at him. She’d loved watching him stride around the forest—he’d been fully dressed and still it’d done it for her. Tom naked in the shower would be a veritable porn-star performance. How did he not know that?

There was an efficiency about the way they stripped, nothing erotic in it, more get-it-over-with so they could get to the main event. It wasn’t a huge bathroom, so they kept bumping into each other. She backed into Tom taking off her shorts, he knocked her with his elbow pulling his boot off. She got him back with a jab to the chest while she piled her hair up on her head.

She had less to ditch and went to get into the bath while he was still undressing. She gasped as the hot water bit into her toes, stood there on one leg, suspended over the tub, wondering if she’d made it too hot. On a second trial, that shock of the heat was gone and she put her whole foot in, and sighed as she eased into the fragrant froth.

“I should’ve used the tub more,” he said.

He was down to his jeans, the zipper open to show the trail of soft dark hair that dipped into his navy briefs. He had his hands clasped in front of his ribs and it popped the muscles of his arms and chest into relief. The candlelight did stupendously wonderful things as it licked over his body. This was such a lucky coupon. She was a lucky, lucky girl to have thought it up.

She pouted at him. “I just did a ridiculous little dance all bent over and worried about third-degree burns and you’re laughing at me.”

“All I saw was a beautiful naked woman get in a hot bath.”

Oh please, please choose the lingerie-shopping coupon.

“And I’ve just realized you’re going to watch me shower. I wasn’t thinking.”

She was completely submerged and covered by bubbles, the curved end of the bath at her back. “Nothing wrong with that from where I’m sitting.”

He grunted in disagreement and shucked his jeans and briefs in one move. She did try not to make him feel self-conscious for about fifteen seconds, but it wasn’t like she’d tricked him into this and he was a big boy, oh, yes, he was, and he could take a little lechery between friends. The thing was, could she?

Tom moving around naked was a quality night’s entertainment. He tried to ignore her in her bed of heat and foam. Good thing he couldn’t hear her moans of appreciation over the shower water. The glass screen fogged a little, but her view was otherwise all wet, well-formed man. He kept his back to her and that was no hardship. She’d had her fingernails in those tight buns. She’d had her legs wrapped around his narrow waist, and drummed her heels on his thick thighs. The channel of his spine was a sinuous curve, made for her lips to explore and just everything, everything about him turned her on.

He soaped up and she let her fingers slide over her hip and tease her opening. He rubbed his jaw and glanced back at her. There was no way he could see her hand, but she stilled anyway. He shaved. She took that as a good sign she wouldn’t have to sleep alone tonight.

The shave was a special act all in itself. He used soap and a razor, angling his face, this way and that, exposing his throat, working fast, with smooth, practiced strokes, his razor-free hand checking, smoothing. She’d like to lay him in a big old barbershop chair and dress up in a man’s suit pants and waistcoat and do that for him, watch his eyes flare when she put the blade to his skin.

Nice fantasy—she’d probably cut him to ribbons.

The real fantasy was now standing over the tub, not able to hide his erection. “Show’s over.” Oh, it wasn’t even intermission. “How do we do this?”

She slid forward and curled over, he stepped in behind her and sat with his knees up, raising the water level.

He put a wet hand on her shoulder. “You’re going to have to come back here.”

With pleasure. She wiggled until her back was snug against his chest, his dick against her sacrum, his legs either side of hers. He lay his arms along the top of the tub, but the walls were high enough he could rest his head on the sloping side.