I’m struck again by what a beautiful man he is, stern and almost forbidding in his handsomeness. It’s all those hard edges, sharp cheekbones and jaw, the dark slash of his brows, softened only by his long black lashes.
“Do you want me to do your hamstrings and glutes?” he asks.
“Oh. Um. Sure.”
“Okay.”
I’ve never thought about the back of my knee as anythingother than a joint, but it turns out to be wired directly to every nerve ending I possess. His fingers skim across the soft skin there, sending pleasure simmering through my entire body.
I make a sound, small and involuntary.
Even though I clamp down on it immediately, it’s already out there, already in the quiet room between us, and I feel him go very still.
“Sorry,” I breathe. “That’s just—the back of the knee is apparently…”
“Sensitive,” he says.
“Yes.” My voice comes out slightly unsteady. “Very.”
A beat of silence.
“I’ll be careful,” he says.
And as he continues massaging me, he is careful. But careful isn’t the same as gentle.
His touch is firm and confident. His thumbs press into the muscle at the back of my thigh, working slowly upward. Every pass of his hands sends heat radiating outward through my whole body.
I’m gripping the cushion beneath me with both hands and trying to remember how to breathe normally.
“Tell me if it’s too much pressure,” he says.
Too much pressureis not the problem. The problem is that his hands are moving higher and the firelight is warm on my skin and I’m about thirty seconds away from doing something that will make the next several months of living in this man’s house extremely awkward.
Like moaning. Or begging him to just touch my pussy already.
Friend. Husband in name only. Friend, friend, friend.I chant it like a mantra as he touches me.
The issue is that the way he’s touching me feels like anything but friendly. It feels like a lover’s touch. The touch ofa man who’s going to kiss me and take me in his arms and call me baby.
His thumbs press in slow circles and I feel my whole body go loose and tight at the same time, boneless from his hands and coiled with wanting. The only sound is the fire crackling. His hands are on the back of my thighs, rubbing, inching ever higher.
He clears his throat. But his voice sounds rough, almost guttural when he speaks. “Glutes now?”
I press my face into the cushion.
“Sure,” I say, muffled.
His hands move higher.
I guess I didn’t really realize that your glutes are your ass.
And Slade is now touching mine.
His fingers knead my flesh, arousal pulsing hotly through me with every squeeze. His fingers find the hem of my pajama shorts and push the silk up slowly, until the curve of my ass is bare in the firelight, and then both hands are on me. Warm. So warm. His palms span the full width of each ass cheek as he rubs slowly upward.
I grip the cushion as he works the muscle thoroughly, the heel of his palm driving in deep, his fingers spread wide across my skin. All I can think is that my husband has his hands on my ass and he’s rubbing and gripping me in a way that feels intensely, unbearably, deliciously sexual.
My toes curl. My hips want to move, to writhe, to push up further into his hand or to press my clit against the sofa to ease the overpowering ache there. It’s only by curling my hands into fists so tight my nails dig painfully into my palms that I’m able to resist.
