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“This is Kate and Amy,” I tell her.
“Delilah,” she says.
“My girlfriend,” I offer, as if they didn’t know. They shake hands, across the hot tub. Delilah settles in next to me, her hair tickling my face, her hand settling on my leg.
“You know, Delilah, I have to tell you,” Amy says. “I don’t normally like tattoos but yours are beautiful. Did they hurt?”
Delilah just laughs.
“Yes,” she says. “Though not as much as you might think. Arms aren’t too bad, but I’ve got one right here —" she pushes herself out of the water slightly, points at the spot where the raven is, across her ribs, pale cleavage shining as water sluices off, “— and that hurt.”
“Ooh, I bet,” Kate says. “Is that the most painful spot?”
“I think feet are worse, or at least, that’s what people seem to have the most trouble with. I’m also a tattoo artist,” she explains.
Kate and Amy are fascinated, and I can’t blame them. Delilah’s fascinating. We talk tattoos, then piercings, then bad haircuts, and there’s something wonderful about watching Delilah work her magic on these two strangers. No wonder the tattoo shop has taken off.
The whole time, her hand stays on my leg. Sometimes her fingers move, and I can’t tell whether it’s with the water in the hot tub or whether she’s teasing me as she talks. I just know that by the time Amy and Kate head off to margaritas — they finally decided — every hair on my body is standing on end, the whole of my mind dedicated to the path her fingers are taking.
“Have a great night!” Amy calls from the doorway, and then the two of them are gone and we’re alone up here.
Delilah tilts her head back against my arm, her cheek against my shoulder. She presses her hand into my leg and all I can think about is four fingers and a thumb, the length of her thigh against mine. The way she looks at me and her neck curves away from her collarbone, the plunge of her neckline, the swell of her breasts.
“I have bad news,” she says, raising one eyebrow.
“I’m the worst skiier you’ve ever met.”
Delilah scoffs.
“Shut up, you did great,” she says. “You’re sliding down a mountain on slippery sticks. It’s hard.”
“Every toddler I saw begs to differ,” I point out.
“You’re much further off the ground than they are,” she says. “A kid falls down face-first, they barely notice. An adult falls down face-first, it’s an ER visit. I once watched Bree tumble down half a flight of stairs and then bounce up still asking for ice cream.”
“What’s the bad news, then?” I ask.
Her hand moves, or maybe it’s the water. Half a centimeter up. I feel like my skin is glowing with heat.
“I can’t leave this hot tub,” she says. “It’s too cold. It was cold before I got in, and getting out is gonna be even colder, so I live here now. Promise you’ll write.”
“You’ll just get my letters all wet,” I tease.
“Seth, I would be so careful with your letters,” she says, laughing. “I would hold them super far away from the water while I read them.”
“But then your arms would be cold.”
“That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make to read your letters,” she says, her head still on my arm. “A very small part of me can be cold.”
Her hand on my leg moves, I think, or maybe it’s the water. Another half-centimeter, the distance geometric, my desire logarithmic. I’ve been fighting myself since she walked out here in a bathing suit, but I’m losing.
“You do know there’s an indoor hot tub, don’t you?” I point out, just to tease her. “By the pool. First floor.”
“But that one gets crowded, and this one’s on the roof,” she says. “A little privacy is probably worth never being able to leave.”
My own fingers alight on her thigh, just below the garter. Her face flickers. Her chest rises, falls, breasts swelling above the water and then sinking beneath the surface again.
She’s soft, slippery, flesh and muscle. Watching me with her lips parted as my hand pushes between her thighs, gripping her just hard enough for her soft skin to bulge between my fingers.
Nothing about her yields. She’s soft the way the earth is soft: welcoming, giving, unconquerable. I’m falling toward her, parachute forgotten.
“And why would you want privacy?” I ask. I move my thumb along her skin, still gripping, and I feel her move her hips in response: microscopic, the angle of her leg changing by half a degree, but Delilah is a song I know by heart.
“Because my self-control is fraying at the seams,” she says. Her fingers play with a fold on my swim trunks, and my whole leg shivers. My cock swells. There’s nothing I can do. “Because you kissed me hello like you hadn’t seen me for weeks.”
