When the houses came into sight, she slowed their pace. “By getting me home, did you mean…?”
He tightened his arm around her waist. Preparing himself for a no, he said, “Come back to mine? Only if you want to. But if you do, I’d…” He’d love it was what he’d do. “I’d like that. I don’t really want to let go of you yet.”
As accustomed to it as she might be, he didn’t want her to be alone.
She nodded, though her posture was stiff. “I’m not promising you anything.”
Seriously? Voice firm, he said, “I’m definitely not expecting it.”
With that, he headed them down the path to the guys’ house. Mercifully, the windows were all dark. The rest of the crowd must be hanging out at the girls’ place again. Thank God. Neither he nor Jo was really in a position to be putting up a cheerful front right now.
Sure enough, the place seemed deserted, save for a light on under Tom’s closed door. But he almost never stuck his head out there. No chance he’d be bothering them.
Plunking their bags down in the entryway, he looked to Jo. It felt so normal to have her in his space now, and yet at the same time that normality itself was strange. He scratched his salt-stiff hair and glanced around. “Do you want something to eat? Maybe a drink?” He gestured at the television in the living room. “We can just… hang out. See if there are any movies on.”
She scowled, looking down. “I feel disgusting, actually.”
Okay. That was an objective he could deal with. “Shower,” he agreed.
He led her toward the bathroom, ushering her inside. But then he hesitated. Hovering in the doorway, he swallowed and gestured at the space within. “Do you want? I mean, I could really use one, too. I can wait and take my turn, but—” Fuck it, after everything they’d been through today, the least he could do was put what he wanted into words. “We could share. I’d like to, if you don’t mind.”
She shook her head, and his heart fell, but then she sighed and beckoned him in. “Insert joke about saving water here.”
His throat went dry. “You sure?”
“Get in here already.”
Taking her at her word, he stepped inside, closing the door and locking it behind him. She stooped over to get the water heating up, then without ceremony started to strip.
With her back to him.
The doorknob in his hand and the floor beneath his feet were his only touchstones to the world as she shimmied her way out of her bra, baring the long expanse of her spine. There was no rush of desire to keep him from looking his fill, no wicked smile as she pinned him to a bed or sucked him in or started to ride him.
Just her, inked and damaged and beautiful and taking her clothes off in front of him.
He reached out his hand but stopped before he could touch.
The tattoo stretched across her shoulder blades was an animal all right, but not one of the ones he’d originally suspected. The tiger prowled across the landscape of her flesh, coiled strength and sinewy muscles that followed the curves of her spine and ribs. It rippled with strength and grace and implicit threat, its teeth and claws all hidden but there. Ready to be bared at any instant.
It was dangerous and beautiful. Just like her.
“Well? You planning on getting naked at some point, too?”
While he’d been gawking, she’d managed to get her boots and bottoms off. Fully nude, she gazed over her shoulder at him, one eyebrow raised, like she was trying to be teasing. Only she wasn’t quite managing it. She shifted her weight between her feet, looking… self-conscious? It seemed impossible after the brazenness with which she usually took off her clothes in front of him. Then again, in all the time they’d been together, she had yet to let him see her like this.
Releasing his death grip on the doorknob, he took one careful step toward her and another. With his already extended hand, he worked to bridge the gap, her tension like a force field between them. But he pushed through it.
The first brush of his fingertips over her skin made her shudder, a tingle of electricity rushing down his arm. She was warm to the touch, the inked lines on her skin lightly raised. He traced the tiger’s flank, the fine detail that made up its fur. Dropping her head forward, she leaned into him.
“Right,” she said, voice strained. “Almost forgot you had a body mod kink.”
“I have a Jo kink.” With the utmost reverence, he stroked his thumb down the side of the tiger’s face. “This is gorgeous.”
Some of the stiffness seeped out of her shoulders. “I knew you’d like it, but—” She stopped, and he had to still his tongue against the impulse to fill the silence with more praise. “It’s personal, you know?” He hummed, waiting a couple of beats before she volunteered, “My mother was born in the year of the tiger. My dad, too, but it was for her. Originally.”
“Originally?”
She shrugged. “Can’t really ignore the fact that they were born in the same year. I could have done something that was unique to her, you know? But instead I went with this. Subconsciousness, what?”
He paused the motions of his fingers across her skin.
Her voice dipped lower. “I guess maybe I was hoping he’d like it, too.”
Adam almost didn’t want to ask. “Did he ever see it?”
“Eventually. The last time I wore a bathing suit.”
Oh. “And what did he say?”
In a rushing whoosh of an exhalation, she answered, “Nothing.”
With that, she climbed into the shower and pulled the curtain partway closed, leaving him out there alone, still clothed and staring after her.
Well. He wasn’t waiting around for a written invitation.
He got undressed and stepped inside. In what little time he’d wasted, she’d gotten her head under the spray, and she stood there, facing him, her eyes closed, wet hair plastered to her head. She’d crossed her arms over her chest, making a shelf beneath her breasts where water pooled. Rivulets ran their way across her skin, tracing the slopes and valleys of her curves, and his breath got caught inside his chest. His body responded the way it always did, but he bit the inside of his cheek, trying to ignore it.
Her eyes fluttered open, and she sluiced the water off her face as she stepped to the side, offering him a chance under the spray. He shook his head. He’d get his crack at it eventually. For now, he had something else in mind.
“Turn around?” It came out more a question than a directive, his tongue thicker around the request than he had planned.
To his surprise, she did as he’d asked, though she did give him a little lip, so he didn’t have to wonder if she was really in there or not. “Need some more time to ogle my tattoo?”
“Side benefit.” He bent to grab his shampoo, then paused. There wasn’t any telling what was whose, but the bathroom at the girls’ house was stocked with all kinds of things. All he had was basic drugstore stuff. “Do you need to use something special for your hair? Because of the dye?”
She peeked over her shoulder at him, her gaze registering the bottle in his hand. She turned back around and shrugged. “It’ll make it fade faster, but whatever. I need to redo it soon anyway.”
Taking her at her word, he popped the cap and squirted some into his palm before setting the bottle down. He raised his hands, letting them hover above her crown. “Can I?”
“Knock yourself out,” she said, flippant as anything, but with a shiver running down her spine the instant his fingertips connected with her flesh.
He spread the lather through her hair with gentle strokes and soft kneading of her scalp, taking care not to let it run down into her eyes. Taking his time. When he was done, he pulled away. “Okay.”
He used the time she spent rinsing the shampoo out to rub his bar of soap between his hands. She twisted to face him and took one look at him before narrowing her eyes. “Just because I agreed to shower with you doesn’t mean I suddenly became incapable of washing myself.”