“Can you keep washing me?”
In answer, I brought the fabric to her neck, gently brushing back and forth along her collarbones. The corner of the washcloth dipped low, dragging over one pert nipple. Candace’s breathing picked up, and I could feel my heart pounding in mychest, so fucking eager to do this for her—to take care of her, to make her feel good.
My hand dropped down, caressing her breasts through the cloth I held. I watched her lips part on a soft moan, and her eyelids closed once more.
I started to lower the cloth below the water, across her taut stomach, when her voice stopped me. “You should probably take that shirt off. Wouldn’t want to get your sleeves wet.”
The request seemed innocent enough, but when I’d drawn the fabric over my head and tossed it onto the bath mat with Candace’s clothes, I found her eyes taking me in.
“The pants, too,” she said with a mischievous smile. “I’m a splasher.”
My grin was amused, but I slipped off my jeans as she requested, happy to play this game with her.
When I sat back down on the stool in nothing but my boxer briefs, she propped one long leg up on the side of the tub. I fished the cloth out of the water and resumed washing. The fabric slid easily over her smooth calves. I took a few slow passes behind her knee that had her squirming before dragging the terry cloth up her thigh.
Candace placed her foot back into the water but left her bent leg spread wide. As my hand dipped below the surface to pay particular attention to her hip and side, the washcloth slipped from my hand. She didn’t seem to mind as my touch drifted over her stomach. A fast exhale came between parted lips, and Candace tilted her hips ever so subtly.
I took the direction and dipped my hand low, the pads of my fingers finding her center, smooth and warm, even in the bathwater.
Her head was still tipped back, eyes closed and features relaxed, as I took three fingers and circled her clit slowly.
I’d been half-hard the moment I’d started washing her, but, now, my arousal was straining the fabric of my underwear. Suddenly, I was grateful she’d asked me to remove the constricting denim.
She made a low whimper when my middle finger drifted down to her entrance and pushed slowly inside before I returned to the apex of her thighs, focusing myenergy there. I watched her full lips and her panted breaths, the way her breasts moved above the water. Candace was straining toward release and getting close, but then her eyes opened and she looked at me.
She straightened and stilled my hand, and I worried I’d done something wrong, misread a signal. Maybe she couldn’t get there like this—with just my fingers, in the water.
But then she smiled and reached over the side of the tub for a towel. Candace stood quickly and stepped out onto the rug. I steadied her hips as she ran the fabric quickly over her skin. She was still damp a moment later when she surprised me and climbed into my lap.
Jesus.
She was a welcome weight in my arms. Her center pressed down on my erection as she straddled me on the stool. I wrapped my arms around her tight when she leaned in to whisper, “I didn’t want to come yet. I wanted you to be inside me.”
I pressed my lips to the skin of her shoulder, still damp and unbelievably warm. “Whatever you want.”
I felt her reach between us and pull the front of my boxer briefs down.
I groaned as she gave me a few firm pumps before inching her hips forward and positioning me at her entrance.
“Candace,” I breathed out roughly. Her delicate, soft skin—the heat of her—enveloping just the tip made me lightheaded with want.
“Can I?” she asked. “I wanted to feel you. Just you.”
We’d used condoms in the weeks we’d been together. Always careful. Always controlled.
My confusion must have registered in my stillness and hesitation because she pulled back to look at me and clarified, “I have an IUD and I’ve been tested.”
I wanted it—the possibility of feeling her like this, with nothing between us. The intimacy of it. The trust.
It wasn’t like I needed to admit I’d been celibate for five years before she came along—she knew the truth of my marriage and the vows I’d kept. So, I simply nodded and replied, “If you’re sure?”
In answer, she kept her soft gaze locked on mine as she lowered herself down. The heat and the pressure and the stunning pleasure of her bare skin had my eyes slipping closed as a groan escaped my lips.
My forehead dropped and rested against her collarbone as she rolled her hips and then found her rhythm—legs spread wide, raising herself up onto tiptoe, and then falling on my length. I let my hands skim her shoulder blades, her back, and then lower, cupping her backside as she ground against me.
A thousand images flashed behind my closed eyelids as we moved together—things I had no business wanting, desperate wishes for tomorrow and next year and forever—until they all evaporated in a brilliant blinding light. Candace’s inner muscles contracted around me and her arms clutched my shoulders in a desperate grip, so I held her tight in case she was feeling what I felt—like I might come undone when this was all over, as insubstantial as a memory, faded and lost.
Her release triggered my own, and the sensation was nothing I’d ever felt before. I couldn’t stop touching her skin. I couldn’t get close enough. My lips lingered everywhere I could reach.
