"I'm not nervous."
"Baby. Your hand is shaking."
I look down. My hand is, in fact, shaking.
"That's the steam."
"Mm." His grin is slow. "That's the steam."
"Shut up."
"Make me. Or wash me. Pick one."
I press the bar of soap to his chest.
He hums. Low. Pleased. His eyes close, but only halfway—I can still see the dark gleam under his lashes, the way he is watching me even when he's not.
I work it in slow circles. Across his pec. Down the cut of his sternum. Around the dark ink that wraps over his collarbone and down his bicep—a tattoo I've seen the edges of for months but never been allowed to look at like this, and now I can take my time with it. A line drawing of something that might be antlers, might be a knife, might be both. He sees me looking.
"You've been wondering."
My fingers slow at the curve of his bicep. The ink runs from his shoulder down past his elbow in a loop I can't quite read.
"For months," I admit.
He flexes for me. Not flashy. Just turns his arm forward into my soaped palm so the line catches the light, the muscle shifting under my hand.
"What is it?"
I tilt my head. Trace it with my thumb. Two long curves like horns, but a blade running between them, the whole thing wrapped through with something that might be smoke.
"...something with horns. A knife? Goat skull?"
"Mm. Close. Keep guessing."
"Devil?"
"Warmer."
"Zero, just tell me—"
His free hand comes up and catches my wrist. Guides my hand back down off his arm, onto his stomach.
"Lower."
"I'm getting there."
"You're stalling."
I let the soap drift down to his hip. Circle the cut of bone there.
"I've never done this," I say. Quiet.
"Done what."
"...this."
His thumb stops moving on my hipbone. He waits.
