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The heart coffee kept me preoccupied for the rest of the day. I was like some kind of school girl fretting over a message sent to her tablet by a crush. But I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the magic of this glittering station, or the festive cheer in the air, but I was positively goo-goo over that milky little heart.
I was still thinking about it when I got ready for my shower that night. I’d found the communal showers easily enough – they were in the centre of this block. It had taken some getting used to – the shower rooms weren’t split up by gender, but rather by the size of shower or bathtub required, depending on species. And then, after that, they were divided further along lines of adult-only or family rooms. There were six possible doors to choose from, and the one I went through was the third one – the one with showers designed for upright species between 5 and 8 feet tall, adults only. It had been a bit weird having guys milling around the open space of the shower room the first time, but everybody covered up with at least a towel in the open shared spaces from what I’d seen. Even now, as I stepped through the door, I was fully clothed. I’d strip down inside the shower stall itself.
There were communal showers at the factory at my old job, but they were nothing compared to this place. At my old job, they’d been grungy and grey and so uninviting that almost nobody ever used them unless it was absolutely necessary. But this room was almost like a freaking spa. Or what I imagined a spa must be like, never having actually been in one.
The floors were a smooth, natural-looking stone, as were the walls – creamy white and streaked with blue. Upon first entering, there was an area with benches and lockers, and a large mirror that stretched across one wall. There were a few people, in various states of undress, at the mirror now. Most of them were human, but I saw at least one alien, a Navaret woman, fluffing her hot pink feathers in the steam.
I moved through the open area towards the far end of the large room, where individual shower stalls stood along the wall. The steam was much thicker here, and between that and the fact that apparently I was the clumsiest human aboard this goddamn station, looking at the showers instead of ahead of me, I ended up walking directly into the back of someone getting ready for their own shower.
“Sorry!” I squeaked, jumping back. Man, how many people was I going to try to take out during my short stay here? It was probably good X hadn’t bothered training me on the drinks. I’d be spilling them left and right.
I gasped as the person I’d bumped turned around to face me. As if my brief thought of him had conjured him, X towered before me.
He was totally fucking naked from the waist up. And from the waist down? Only a white towel, absurdly small on his massive frame, was wrapped around his hips. My jaw slackened, my mouth dropping open, as my eyes fell to that comically tiny towel. It was impossible not to look there – the white was contrasted with the deep grey of his skin, drawing the eye. Was I imagining it, or was there a distinct bulge there, visible even beneath the thick white fabric?
I mean it makes sense. The guy is a giant. So if everything is, you know, proportional...
Heat exploded in my belly, and it wasn’t because of the steam in the room. Then I realized just how long I’d bean staring at his crotch, and I ripped my eyes away. But then they just naturally moved to what was eye-level, which was his chest. His pecs were even more impressive than their outlines beneath his white shirt would have had me believe. His abs were carved as if from dark stone, his shoulders wide and rounded with thick muscle. And every muscle was illuminated, shining, by the moisture in the air, making his whole form look slick and gleaming. I had to fight back the absolutely insane urge to swipe my tongue along his damp hide.
“Sorry,” I said again, finally wrenching my gaze up to meet his eyes. They burned right through the steam, piercing me, making my fingers tighten around the strap of the bag that held my clean clothes and towel.
“It’s OK. I barely even felt it.”
“Hey! I’m strong! If I’d been going any faster, I’d have bowled you right over!” I joked, relaxing, but only a little. It was kind of hard to relax with the hulking monster of a man you’d found yourself horribly attracted to was one slip of fabric away from being naked in front of you. Holy Terra, I am dying to see what’s under that towel...
“Also,” I said, my mind snapping back to reality. “What are you even doing here? Are you stalking me now or something?” This shower area was only for residents of this block.
X made a small sound of amusement.
“If I were stalking you, you wouldn’t know it.”
A shiver ran through me at his words, despite the humid heat of the space. It was a reminder of his power. Of his deadliness.
“OK, then what are you doing here?” I barely managed to get the words out.
“I live at 2689,” X replied simply, as if that were the most obvious thing in the universe.
“Hold on, you mean you’re basically my neighbour? Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“You never asked.”
Oh. Duh. To be honest, there was a lot I hadn’t asked X, even though I was beyond curious about him. But he was so quiet, and so often closed-off, that it was hard to try to get my questions in there.
But that ends now.
“Well, I hope you know that I’ll be asking you a hell of a lot more questions, now. If only so I can avoid surprises like this,” I said, waving my hand between us, gesturing to his glistening body.
“I look forward to it.”
The quiet thunder of his voice sent a thrill through me, and, for fuck’s sake, I was about ten seconds away from dragging him into a shower stall with me and yanking that towel right off.
But I actually did need to shower. And, I’d almost forgotten, there were tons of people milling around us. I was pretty sure it would be frowned upon to pull somebody into your shower in the communal room with the express purpose of getting to know their alien dick.
“Well, I better get to it,” I laughed shakily, holding my bag close and plowing past X into the first open shower stall I saw. A second after I’d closed and latched the door, I heard the door to the stall directly beside mine close, too.
Out of all the empty showers available, did he just choose the one right beside me?
Maybe I was mistaken – maybe somebody else had just gone into that shower. I started slipping out of my clothes, wondering until I couldn’t take it anymore.
“X?” I called tentatively through the wall, needing to know if it was him.
“What is it? Did you walk into the wall in there or something?” came the deep rumble, directly on the other side of the wall. My core clenched, and I bit my lip. So he had chosen the shower right next to mine.
I laughed, shaking my head.
“Rude,” I joked.
I was naked now, apart from my shower shoes, and I realized with another bolt of clenching heat that he was probably naked by now, too. And we were so, so close to each other, only the thin dividing wall between us. A wall that his claws could probably rip through like Christmas wrapping paper.
It was with that image burning in my mind, the image of X pounding through the wall to get to me, that I finally turned on the water and melted into the heat.
