“Yeah, I know it’s all my fault,” he said, smiling to himself,pleasedwith himself, as he took hold of my shirt, which he gently lifted over my head. I let him have it. And my bra. “Still, no regrets.”
He unfastened my skirt next, letting it fall.
My underwear? Still MIA. Had he put it in his pocket? I was pretty sure he had.
Hopefully we hadn’t left it in the tomb…
Steam filled the small room, and Grim must have used his shadows to shift open the sliding door, because his hands—and eyes—never left me.
He guided me backward, into the hot stream thatdidfeel blissful as it washed over me. I grabbed my yellow loofah, happy when Grim climbed in after me, his clothes evaporating as he came to stand in front of me, leaving the shower stream at my back.
“When you were here before,” I said as he reached behind me to riffle through my shelf of products. “And I was in here. Did you think about me being in the shower?”
“No.” His eyes cut back to mine. “You were singing. And I liked your voice. It’s beautiful. Like you. That’s what I thought about.”
I smiled again as all the warm fuzzies came up to engulf my heart.
Grim shrugged, bringing a bottle of my citrus shower gel between us. “I didn’t become a raging sex addict untilafteryou kissed me. If that’s what you’re asking.”
Still grinning, I looked away. “I thought for sure you thought I was out of my mind.”
“Who kisses a skeleton?” he asked before answering himself in an ironic mumble. “Same type who fucks one, I guess.”
“Ilikedkissing you,” I admitted. “Besides, by that time, I’d had a crush on you for a while. Though I didn’t think you liked me back.”
A few beats of quiet passed before he spoke again.
“That night I fixed the uke,” he said. “It was late, and the whole reason I came in at all was because I thought you were talking to some guy. I wanted to know who, and I was jealous as fuck for a second until I figured out it was a pineapple.”
“You were spying on me?” I might have blushed—and furiously so—but I didn’t really mind Grim knowing I talked to my stuff. Maui at least. “Through the window? And did you say you were jealous?”
“Whatwereyou talking to that thing about?”
“Maui’s a she,” I said as he opened the gel, giving it a sniff. “And I was probably ranting to her about you.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, pouring a generous amount of gel onto the loofah, “she didn’t rat me out, so you won’t have to worry about her going missing.”
I laughed as Grim lathered up my loofah, tattooed hands working the yellow puff into a ball of fragrant suds before he applied it to my shoulders, gently washing me.
“This orange shit,” he said. “You smell like it.”
“You must like the stuff,” I observed as he moved to wash my breasts.
“You kidding?” His eyes flicked between me and his task—which he seemed to be taking quite seriously. “I could fuckingdrinkit.”
I laughed again, my spirit beaming in his presence, my heart reveling in his undivided attention—his affection.
Grim continued to dote on me, washing me with reverence, like he really did think of me as precious. He even shampooed my hair and surprised me by following up with conditioner.
Relaxing fully, maybe for the first time in months, possibly even years, I let him take care of me, and fingers going to his chest, I traced the outline of his sun tattoo.
“You’re not mad at me anymore,” he asked, “are you?”
“No.”
“Good,” he said. “Next time you are, I know how to fix it.”
That got a snort-laugh out of me. “Grim, you’re joking again.”
