Chapter 6: The Unspoken Question
The silence wasn’t comfortable anymore.It was a living thing, thick with everything unsaid. Harry’s hands moved on autopilot, smoothing oil over the newly bared skin of Anne’s lower back and the upper slopes of her ass. The professional part of his brain had short-circuited. His touch was all sensation—the incredible softness, the heat, the faint tremor he felt underneath. He was painfully hard, the denim of his jeans a rough, insistent prison. He shifted slightly on the edge of the bed, trying to relieve the pressure, but it was futile.Emma watched from the chair, her earlier mischief tempered by something else. A frank, assessing curiosity.She leaned her chin on her hand. “You know, I’ve known you for years, Anne,” she said, her voice thoughtful. “And I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in, like, a proper bikini. You’re always in a one-piece or a tankini.”
Anne tensed under Harry’s hands. “I just… I don’t like a lot of sun,” she mumbled into the duvet.
“Bull,” Emma said lightly, but there was an edge to it.“You’re just crazy modest. It’s kinda wild.” Her eyes tracked the movement of Harry’s hands. “I mean, look at you.You have a banging bod. You should flaunt it.”
Harry’s thumb pressed into the firm muscle of her glute, and Anne let out a soft, stifled sound. It wasn’t pain.He knew the difference.“She does,” Harry heard himself say. The words were out before he could stop them, low and rough.He cleared his throat. “I mean, anatomically, her posterior chain is very well-developed.From pilates, probably.”
Emma snorted. “Anatomically. Right.” She stood up, stretching, and wandered over to the window, looking out.Then she turned, leaning against the sill.The afternoon light haloed her curls. “Seriously, though.You’re so private.Even with me. It makes a person wonder.”
Anne shifted, the towel bunching lower.“Wonder what?”
“You know. What’s under all the coverage.Like, are you just perfect everywhere? Is it all… matching?” Emma’s gaze was direct now, landing on Anne, then flicking to Harry’s working hands. “Like, are you a natural blonde?”
Anne froze. A bright, violent flush spread from her neck, over her shoulders, seeping into the skin under Harry’s palms. He could feel the heat of it.“Emma,” she whispered, a warning that had no strength.“What? It’s a valid curiosity.You’re a closed book. Harry’s a physio, he’s seen a million bodies.He’s basically a doctor. Right, Harry?” Emma’s tone was playful, but her eyes were sharp, watching the effect.
Harry’s mouth was desert-dry. He was stroking lower now, his fingertips skimming the very top of the crease where her thigh met her buttock. He could see the subtle, tight clench of her muscles there. He wasn’t imagining the dampness on the inner terry cloth, a darker blue patch that hadn’t been there before. The air in the room grew heavier, warmer, smelling of coconut and salt and her.
“Every body is different,” he said, his voice tight.It was a non-answer.A coward’s answer.
“See?” Emma pushed off the windowsill and took a step closer to the bed. She was looking at Anne’s exposed back, the dip of her spine, the flawless skin. “I bet it’s all neat and tidy.You’re so… precise about everything else.”
Anne’s breath hitched. Harry watched, mesmerized, as a fine sheen of sweat bloomed across the small of her back.His left hand splayed there, feeling the rapid pulse beneath the skin. His right hand swept down again, a long, languid stroke that ended with his fingers just brushing the very edge of the towel where it lay between her cheeks.A suggestion.A promise.
He didn’t slip underneath this time.He didn’t have to.The boundary had been breached. The knowledge of what lay beneath that fabric was a physical presence in the room, between the three of them.
Anne made another sound, a quiet, trapped gasp. Her hips pressed down into the mattress, a slow, almost involuntary roll.The movement was subtle, but Harry felt it. So did Emma, whose eyebrows rose a fraction.He was so hard it was a dull ache. The fantasy was breathing in the same room, warm and oiled and shaking under his hands. The clean, bare pussy he’d pictured for years was just there, separated from him by a fold of cheap cotton. And she was getting wet.For him.Because of him.
“You okay, Anne?” Emma asked, but her voice had changed.It was lower, less playful, more intent. She wasn’t just instigating anymore. She was seeing it—the ripple of tension, the blush, the way Anne’s legs shifted slightly apart against the sheets.She was catching up.Anne didn’t answer. She turned her head to the side, her cheek pressed into the pale pink duvet, eyes closed tight. Her dark hair was stuck to her damp temple.She was breathing through her mouth, shallow little breaths.
Harry’s thumb traced a slow, deliberate circle right over her tailbone, the very base of her spine.A professional decompression technique. It also pushed the towel’s edge a millimeter lower.He saw more skin.The very beginning of the cleft.He was past thought. He was a current of want, flowing directly from his hands into her.The heater hummed. The light began to soften, the golden hour deepening toward amber.
Emma sat back down in the chair slowly, not taking her eyes off them.She crossed her legs, then uncrossed them. Her own face was flushed.She’d started this for a laugh, to fluster her friend. But she hadn’t counted on the raw, intimate physics of it—the scent, the sounds, the charged silence.She was in it now, too.
“Harry,” Anne whispered suddenly, her voice raw and thin.He stopped moving.His heart hammered against his ribs. “Yeah?”
She didn’t open her eyes.Her next words were so quiet they were almost lost in the fabric. “Don’t stop.”