I inhale as she ordered, a smile pulling at my lips at the mystified look in her eyes.
“There’s lavender… in the towel,” she says, as if it’s the greatest discovery in mankind’s history.
“Yes, goddess. As the instructor said, cold lavender towels,” I remind her.
She shakes her head. “Yeah, but I thought she meant like… the towel would be lavender.” She holds it up in front of my face for me to get a good look at it. “It’s not.” She shakes her head again. “It’s white. And it smells like lavender!”
“Try putting it on the back of your neck,” the woman who was next to her in the studio suggests, and Astrid lifts a brow to add to her wide eyes before doing just that.
“Oh… ma… goy-d,” she states dramatically, her eyes rolling back in her head, and when the other woman chuckles and walks off, Astrid turns to me. “I think that lady just fixed me, because I’m pretty sure I just came.”
I can’t help it. It comes so out of nowhere that I throw my head back and laugh so loud it echoes around the room. I hear someone’s angry “Shhh!” and I look over to see the instructor glaring at me as she reaches out to close the door, and I stage-whisper a “Sorry!” before it shuts.
I face Astrid. “You got me in trouble.” I grin.
“Worth it.” She giggles. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh like that.” She wipes the cold cloth over her shoulders and down her arms as her eyes twinkle up at me.
“I don’t remember the last time I did,” I confess, and then I tilt my head to the side and lift a brow at her. “I don’t think you’re supposed to bathe with it, my love. Everyone else is using it like a compress.”
“Everyone else can eat a dick,” she replies. “This shit feels way too good. In fact, I’mma break the rules and get another one.” I pull my lips between my teeth to keep from bursting out laughing again as she spins to bend down to the freezer and take out another one of the rolled-up washcloths. When she cracks it open and wipes it down between her tits inside her sports bra, she crosses her eyes and groans. “Aaaand… I just had my first multiple. Sorry, Viking, a cold lavender towel beat you to it.” She says it breathily, like the towel itself is a sexy beefcake on one of her books, but it’s the use of my Astrid-given nickname that puts me in motion.
I snatch her up by her waist and throw her over my shoulder, swatting her on the ass while I’m at it, since she didn’t mind it the first time I fucked up and did it.
She squeals. “Sweaty and gross!”
But I shake my head. “Not after you just bathed right here in front of me with your new boyfriend,” I tell her and start out the door.
She starts to giggle uncontrollably, but she manages to get out “My shoes!”
I spin around and follow her pointed finger to the cubby she left her stuff in then head back out the door, the whole time her laugh becoming more and more breathless. It does something to my heart, healing cracks in it I didn’t realize were still there after all these years. Hearing Astrid laugh like this, after all she’s been through, and being the one who made her do it, is like a balm to my soul. It feels like everything I’ve worked toward my whole life, helping those who had their power taken from them unwillingly, avenging the ones who didn’t survive, was worth every second, because it all prepared me for and led me to this woman. Who is now banging on my back with her tiny ineffectual fists as I carry her through the gym and over to the weight benches.
I pull her back off my shoulder and plop her down on one of the padded benches, handing over her shoes. “You came without me,” I tell her, and she looks up at me as she sets the washcloths on the floor then pulls her socks out of her sneakers.
“No, I came before you. I was already on my way when you texted you’d be later, so I figured I’d just do a class to kill time until you got here,” she replies.
“You never texted to let me know you were here,” I counter, crossing my arms over my chest and looking over at the men working out nearby who are grunting and growling with each rep, and I narrow my eyes. Fuck Seth for putting that image in my head of my woman getting hit on at the gym while I’m not here.
She’s tying her second shoe when I look back down at her, and when she puts her foot down on the floor, she hops up and crosses her own arms, popping her hip and putting on her sassy face. “I didn’t want to interrupt some poor therapy patient’s session that you were supposed to be paying attention to,” she argues haughtily.