“I hope you plan to eat,” she says, a slight smile playing on her lips. “Something other than me, I mean.”
I laugh self-deprecatingly, diffusing some of the tension I don’t even understand that has crept up between us. “I’m hovering, huh?”
“You are. You don’t have to worry that I’ll pass out in the tub and drown.” She says it like I’m some nursemaid instead of her man who can barely restrain himself from fucking her in that bathtub.
“I’ve just missed you,” I say. “And it feels like you . . . have you been avoiding me?”
The laughter fades and she lowers her eyes to the marble floor. “No, of course not. We’ve been busy.”
“Not that busy.”
“I’ve been tired.” She raises defiant eyes like she’s daring me to question if she’s been too tired to spend time with me. Of course, I can’t.
“Then I’m glad we have this weekend,” I say, instead of calling her out on what I suspect is an excuse. I just can’t figure out why she’s been avoiding me.
“Me, too.” She glances at me surreptitiously before dropping the bathrobe and nearly diving into the tub before I can see much. She’s a blur of coppery legs and berry-tipped breasts. If I’d blinked I would have missed it, but it was enough to make my dick hard. I shift, crossing my legs at the ankle in hopes she’ll overlook how arousing I find this whole bath situation. She’s submerged in frothy bubbles, her pretty face and the colorful headscarf the only things visible.
I can’t stay away, so I walk over to the tub and sit on the edge, running my hand through the water.
She stiffens, her eyes glued to my hand clearing a path through the bubbles. I notice the razor on the small table by the tub.
I pick it up and turn it, smiling. “Shaving your legs?”
“Uh, yeah.” She clears her throat. “I plan to.”
“Can I help?”
I’ve never wanted to shave any part of a woman’s body, but it suddenly seems like the safest erotic thing I could do. Our gazes lock, and just beneath the reserve I’ve met more than once the last week, heat stirs.
I can work with heat.
“You don’t have to,” she says, her voice barely audible in the quiet bathroom.
“I want to.” I pick up the pink canister of shaving cream. “Use this?”
She nods, her eyes flicking between the razor and my face. I’ve never done this, but how hard can it be? How different from shaving a jaw and chin and cheeks?
I lift one long, lean leg from the water and immediately recognize that this is very different.
“I don’t see any hair,” I tease. “What am I supposed to be shaving?”
“I like to shave before the hair shows,” she says, her expression loosening into a smile.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Gimme that,” she laughs, reaching for the razor. “You’re gonna cut me.”
I gently push her shoulder until her back rests against the lip of the tub.
“I can do this.” I squeeze a dollop of the cream into my palm, spread it slowly over the curve of her knee and down the muscle of her calf. All humor is snuffed, because I’m touching her more intimately than I have since we last made love in Santa Barbara. In tandem, our breathing hitches, hurries. I run the razor down the length of her leg, clearing a path in the foamy shaving cream. She goes still, our stare unbroken, her chest heaving with labored breaths, while I repeat the action until her leg is smooth and soapless.
“One down,” I say, unable to look away from the elegant lines of her throat and collarbone. “One to go.”
I wait for her to extend the other leg, and begin again. I’m smoothing on the shaving cream when I notice the same rash on her arm a few weeks ago on her calf and knee.
“Does it hurt or itch?” I ask, frowning, unsure if I should put shaving cream on the affected areas.
The simmering passion stirring in her eyes extinguishes, and she jerks away, dropping her leg back into the water.
“I’ll finish later. You can . . . I can do this. Thanks anyway.”
First the uncharacteristic modesty and now this. Neevah’s incredibly comfortable with her body and has never been shy with me. So her hiding and withdrawing this way—it’s not her.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, trying to keep my voice low and reasonable when I want to yell. Want to demand why she’s been avoiding me. Why she acts like I haven’t seen her naked before. Haven’t touched her. Haven’t fucked her in every position I’ve ever fantasized about. I have. I remember the slide of our sweat-slick skin—recall the mingled scents of our bodies. I know how tightly she contracts around me when she comes.
So what is this?
“Baby, please talk to me.” I dip my hand into the water, find her fingers, and link them with mine, watching her face for those feelings she usually can’t hide. “I’ve been with you. I have seen you.”