She leaned forward and tried to part her hair. It was a gory mess. Careful probing told her that she had a nice-sized lump, but the cut had already closed. Unfortunately, the blood had matted her hair. She knew from experience that the sooner she washed it out, the better all around.
She grimaced as she thought of her options. Despite her bravado, she wasn’t really ready to go home to an empty house. She wanted to stay with Nathan. Maybe she could get him to open up more about his family. There was so much she wanted to learn about the man completely outside of tigress training. She’d brought up her duffel bag, so she had a change of clothes. Making a swift decision, Tracy opened the bathroom door and called to Nathan.
“Do you mind if I just shower here? I don’t think anything short of that is going to help.”
He was at his bookcase, flipping through a stack of books, presumably for her to read. He looked up and smiled, making her stomach do a little flip-flop. “Whatever you need.”
He meant it in more ways than one, and she felt a shiver of warmth course down her spine. If they could just get past this tigress stuff, there was so much potential between them. She smiled in return and then ducked back into the bathroom, quickly stripping out of her clothing. A quick shower, some tea and then they could talk.
The water felt hot on her skin, but so welcome. She went slowly, using very little of his generic shampoo and being careful with her wound. But before long, that was done and she gave herself up to the relaxation of hot water sluicing down her body.
She heard a noise. Glancing through the semitranslucent curtain, she saw the bathroom door crack open. It was Nathan. She could see his outline clearly, but she didn’t turn to look directly at him. Now that she thought about it, he might have been calling her for a while, asking if she was okay, but she’d been so involved in the simple joy of hot water that it hadn’t registered.
She stole another glance at him. His expression looked tortured. Now there was a man struggling with his inner nature. She’d been up close and personal with her brother’s adolescence, and she knew the look of a man in lust. He wanted her. That had never been more apparent. Even through the curtain, she could see that his fingers where white where they gripped the door. But he constantly held himself apart, throwing his tigress stuff at her as a way to keep himself distant. She knew it, and it frustrated her. The question was: how could she get him to move beyond it?
Her answer was a cheap trick, but she couldn’t resist. He wanted to watch her? Fine. She would give him a show. She began by raising up her arms to rinse out her hair. Her breasts lifted up to the ceiling, and she knew he could see them tightening in desire. Then she watched out of the corner of her eye for his reaction.
He started to back away, but stopped. As if he couldn’t help himself, he let go of the door and allowed it to swing slowly back open. Then he just stood there and watched—clearly mesmerized.
Tracy smiled. She had him now. Grabbing the soap, she extended one leg to the lip of the tub. It was easy to soap between her toes then slowly draw the bubbles up her ankle and over her calf. What wasn’t so easy was to concentrate on a seduction without getting worked up herself. She’d never done anything like this before, even in fantasy.
But the idea that Nathan was watching her—was unable to stop himself from watching her—gave her new boldness. And that made her feel all the more sexy as she slicked her way up over her knee to her thigh. Her breath shortened, and her thighs trembled. But most of all, her brain froze with shock at what she saw Nathan doing. It was enough to have her drop the soap with a loud clatter.
His gaze was fixed on her, but his hand wasn’t idle. She couldn’t even tell if he was aware that he’d popped open the clasp to his pants and reached inside. He was stroking himself! Right there as he watched her.
She licked her lips, incredibly turned on. Her chest started tingling and she found to her own amazement that her hand had slipped between her legs. Oh, wow did it feel good. She touched herself, but kept her eyes on him. He had pulled himself out and was fully exposed. She was even able to time her motions with his.
She was nearing the edge. She was close to coming, but she didn’t want to do it alone. She wanted him, and more important, she needed him to acknowledge that he wanted her—as a girlfriend, a lover, whatever. She craved that acknowledgment. So she abruptly turned and shoved the curtain sideways, facing him dead-on. The water hit her shoulder, and she slammed it off with an impatient gesture. But her gaze remained on him where he stood frozen, his pants by his ankles, his penis in his hand.
“You want me,” she said, her voice deep and throaty.
“Yes.”
“And God knows, I want you right now.” She stepped out of the tub, her breasts bobbing and dripping. His eyes fastened there as she touched his forearm. Water slid from her arm to his wrist, his hand, his cock. “Let me,” she whispered as she licked her lips. Without waiting for his answer, she slipped her hand to his wrist then burrowed into his palm. She accidentally scraped her nail against his smooth tip and he sucked in his breath in shock. She did it again, and his fingers spasmed open.
It was better than she imagined. Thick, pulsing and hot enough to burn her hand. He groaned as she fondled it, stroking from tip to base. She was so engrossed in gripping him, in pushing back the layer of foreskin to the hungry mouth, that she was surprised to feel his hand slip between her legs.
She trembled in reaction, her gasp cutting off as he slid between her folds. But for once, she wasn’t going to be distracted. The whole problem was that he was willing to give but not receive. That was one way he kept his distance from her. So she shouldered his arm aside and dropped to her knees before him.
Finally, she got to taste! It was different than she’d expected. Salty, hot and large—yes. Those things she had read about. But he was also throbbing with energy. Like what he had done to her breasts in her kitchen, his cock felt larger than its physical space. When she licked it, she tasted his skin, but she also felt the pulse of energy flowing from him into her tongue.
It was bizarre, but it felt fabulous. He tasted like life, and she wanted more of it. She did everything she had read about and more. She licked; she nipped; she engulfed and sucked and swallowed. He put up a weak protest at first. His hands were on her shoulders, and he murmured, “We can’t.”
She didn’t bother responding because obviously they could. She could. And when his hands shifted from a gentle push away to a hard grip, she knew he was getting close. The power that she stroked was closer, too. It was swelling in her mouth and mind. She could feel it tingling all the way through her spine, and she loved it.
“Tracy…” he gasped. “Tracy!”
She liked the sound of her name cried like that. She had one hand cupping his balls, the other slid around to his tight tush. She felt everything in him clench. It was time, and she was more than eager. With a deep pull, she felt him release. His body pumped; his semen erupted, but that was nothing compared to what she felt in her mind. It was as if her head had been engulfed in an explosion of power. It was thick; it was potent and it was all Nathan.
She felt his strength in the pure white light of it, his passion in the heat that burned through her. But underneath the explosion, she felt his quiet loyalty to those he cherished, and the sweet essence that was all him. She absorbed it all, savoring every sweet, salty taste.