Birthday Girl

It only takes a moment, but then I feel the water hit the backs of my legs, and slowly, he takes a knee, trying to get a better vantage point.

I close my eyes again, diving deep into my head where everything I want in this moment but am too afraid to voice is safe. It’s not only his touch. It’s how he does it. The long, languorous caresses down my thighs and the way the tips of his fingers trail just a centimeter higher than they probably should. And how he tries to avoid the insides of my legs, but he keeps flirting close like he wants to go there and is struggling to hold himself back.

He finishes my calves and my feet, and I finally look over my shoulder and down at him.

“My turn,” I say.

He raises his gaze, his chest moving up and down in shallow breaths. His lips are parted, and there are a hundred different emotions in his eyes. But I recognize the same ones I’m having. Fear and longing, turmoil and need.

We want it, but we know we shouldn’t.

I turn and take the hose from him, and his gaze falls to my breasts right there for him and only covered by my thin, pink lacy bra with roses on it.

I’m a girly-girl at heart, and I think he likes that.

Without a word, he rises and stares at me, unflinching as I bring up the hose and start to rewash him. Neither of us had much mud on us in the first place. We could easily make it into the house and to the showers, and we both know it.

I run my hand over the smooth skin of his chest, tracing the mural he has inked across his shoulder, pec, and down his arm.

I don’t look into his eyes, but I know he’s watching my face.

“Did you get all these tattoos when you were younger?” I ask quietly.

“Most of them,” he says, raspy. “Back when I didn’t have other things to spend my money on.”

“Do you regret any of them?” I see mud under his ear and arch up to my tiptoes, putting us chest to chest.

“No, I…” He stops, his heavy breath falling on my cheek as I hover close.

“You have some mud,” I explain, looking up at him with my body pressing into his.

I fall back to my feet and continue. “You were saying?”

He clears his throat. “Uh, yeah. I’m a…I’m a little tired of some of them by now, I guess, but at one time,” he tells me, “they were exactly who I was and what I needed to say about myself.”

I nod, understanding. I trail around to his back and wash off his neck, his shoulder blades, and let my fingers fall down his spine. He shifts under my touch, and heat filters through my hand, rising up my arm, and I’m so turned on. I don’t want to stop touching him, but using my hands doesn’t feel like enough anymore. I want to feel his again.

What is Pike Lawson like when he takes?

He turns his head, asking softly, “Aren’t you going to ask me what the tattoos mean?”

I step back around to his front, watching my fingers as they graze his muscled arm. “Someday,” I whisper back.

I do want to know. I want to know everything about him. But maybe, I figure, we’ll keep having a reason to find each other if we save some things for later.

And right now, I’m desperate to see what else his mouth can do other than talk.

Touch me. Please.

Kiss me.

I drop the hose to my side and drag the fingers of my left hand down his abs, my heart pounding so hard it hurts. They tighten as my nails slide across the muscles, and I’m so afraid to look at him.

This is wrong. I know it’s wrong.

But God, he feels good. I can feel his eyes on me, and every thread of my bra is chafing my skin, and I just want to be bare right now. I want him to see me.

I close my eyes. Oh, God.