Chapter 5: The Shower Pact
Catriona took a long sip from her paint-stained mug, grimaced, and set it down with a decisive clatter. “Yep. Tar.” She turned, her eyes traveling over him still standing there, naked and dazed. A slow, wicked smile spread across her face. “You’re blocking the cereal cabinet, by the way.”
He moved on autopilot, bending to retrieve his jeans. The cool air of the apartment was a shock against his damp skin. He could feel the sweat drying, a sticky reminder of what they’d just done against the counter.
“We should probably,” she gestured vaguely between them, “not be this sticky. Shared living space and all. Hygiene.” She said it like she was proposing they take out the trash. “Shower?”
The question hung in the coffee-scented air. It wasn’t really a question. It was a test, another one, veiled in practicality.
“Yeah,” Aidan said, pulling on his jeans without buttoning them. “Probably smart.”
She led the way, the sheet abandoned on the kitchen floor. He followed the swing of her hips, the defiant set of her shoulders, into the narrow hallway. The bathroom was at the end, a relic of the old building with black-and-white hexagon tiles and a giant clawfoot tub with a chrome showerhead on a hose.
Catriona twisted the taps, and water roared into the tub. She dumped a generous glug of something amber and viscous under the stream. Bubbles mushroomed, filling the air with the scent of vanilla and sandalwood. Steam began to curl toward the ceiling.
She stepped over the high edge and into the foaming water, sinking down with a sigh that seemed to come from her bones. She looked up at him, her skin already glistening, her red hair darkening at the ends. “You just gonna audit the process?”
He stripped, climbed in facing her. The water was scalding, perfect. They were a tangle of limbs under the opaque blanket of bubbles. For a minute, they just sat, the heat soaking into muscles that were pleasantly sore.
Then her foot found his calf, slid up it. “Here,” she said, her voice softer in the steam. She handed him a bar of soap. “You missed a spot. Several.”
He took it. The soap was slick. He started with her shoulders, working the lather over the graceful lines, down the strong muscles of her back. His thumbs pressed into the knots he found there. She groaned, her head lolling forward.
“God, you have good hands,” she mumbled into the steam.
He washed the delicate wings of her shoulder blades, the dip of her spine. When his hands slid around to her front, over the swell of her breasts, her breath hitched. He soaped her slowly, circling her nipples until they peaked under his slippery palms. She leaned back against his chest, her head on his shoulder, watching his hands move over her body.
His touch trailed lower, over the curve of her stomach, through the coarse hair between her legs. He soaped her there, too, a gentle, thorough exploration that made her hips shift in the water. Her hand came up, gripping the back of his neck.
“Your turn,” she whispered, turning in the water to face him. Bubbles clung to her eyelashes.
She took the soap. Her hands on him were businesslike at first, scrubbing his chest, his arms. But when she wrapped her slick, soapy hand around his cock, her demeanor shifted. It was a study, not just a stroke. She worked him slowly back to full hardness, her touch firm, her eyes fixed on the effect she was having. Water sloshed over the rim of the tub.
“Still fascinating,” she murmured, more to herself than to him.
He was breathless, aching. “Catriona…”
“Stand up,” she said.
He did, water sheeting off him. She stayed seated for a moment, just looking up at him, her green eyes wide and dark. Then she rose, water cascading down her body, bubbles sliding like melting lace from her skin. She turned her back to him, placed her hands on the broad, cold rim of the tub, and bent forward.
The invitation was unmistakable. The arch of her back, the perfect curve of her ass, the wet, red hair stuck to her shoulder blades. Steam rose around her like an offering.
He stepped closer, the water now at his knees. He guided himself into her from behind, a slow, deep push that made her gasp and push back against him instantly. One of his hands splayed on her stomach, holding her to him; the other gripped her hip.
He set a rhythm, helped by the slippery slide of soap and water. Each thrust pushed her forward against the cold porcelain edge. She matched him, meeting every movement with a roll of her hips. The sound was obscene—wet skin, slapping water, their ragged breaths echoing off the tiles.
She reached back, one hand grabbing his thigh, her nails digging in. “Don’t stop. Right there. Right there.”
He was lost in the heat of her, the vision of her bent over before him. The showerhead dripped a steady, cold rhythm onto his back, a stark counterpoint to the furnace building between them. Her moans escalated, tightening into a sharp, choked cry as she came, her internal muscles clenching around him in rapid, pulsing waves.
It tipped him over the edge. He drove into her one last, deep time, a groan tearing from his throat as he spilled inside her, his forehead dropping between her shoulder blades.
For a long moment, the only sounds were the drip of the tap and their struggling lungs. The steam was starting to thin. Reality was the cold porcelain under her hands, the cooling water around their legs.
He softened, slipped out of her. She straightened slowly, wincing a little. She turned, her face flushed, her expression unreadable. She picked up the handheld showerhead, turned on the cold water, and aimed it at his chest.
He yelped. She laughed, a real, rough sound, and then directed the spray over herself, rinsing the last of the soap and everything else down the drain.
“Evidence,” she said, meeting his eyes as the water plastered her hair to her skull. “Rinsed away.”
But as she handed him the showerhead, her fingers trembled. Just a slight, almost imperceptible shake. And she wouldn’t look at him again. She climbed out of the tub, wrapping herself in a thin, worn towel, and left him standing there in the cooling water.
The ‘no strings’ agreement was like the soap suds now, dissolved and gone. What was left between them was just skin, raw and clean and terrifyingly exposed.