Thirty

 

I twisted my hair up in a knot on the back of my head as the cold water hissed and pattered into the bathtub beneath the shower head. It was barely above freezing as I stepped into the spray, slowly heating until my skin warmed once more in the water. When steam rose to the ceiling from the shower rose, I turned to stick my face into the stream.

A slight movement in air current told me Aidan had entered the room, for I didn't hear the door over the noisy cascade. His hands on my waist were warm as he pressed his body to my back, kissing my neck from behind. "Beautiful, Bel. You're so beautiful," he murmured.

Aidan reached for the soap and worked up a lather of foam between his hands, rubbing the bar in front of me for what appeared to be an inordinate length of time. Clinking the bar back into its dish, Aidan's breath tickled my ear. "For letting me share your shower, the least I can do is help you wash." His foam-filled hands cupped my breasts, gently massaging my skin until I relaxed against him. "That's better. You were so tense it was like you were worried you'd sprout tentacles as soon as you touched water!" Aidan laughed at his own joke but I merely smiled, closing my eyes as I enjoyed his caresses.

My skin tingled as Aidan's soapy hands slid down my belly to the length of my legs, all the way down before all the way up to my bottom, until he reached for the bar again. With a handful of foam, Aidan's firm fingers smoothed the tension from my shoulders and down my back. As he reached around me for the soap again, he murmured in my ear. "Stand with your feet just a little further apart..."

I slipped a little in the soap-slick bathtub, so Aidan's arm closed firmly across my chest to steady me, holding my body against his.

Now better balanced, I complied, my eyes on my toes as his foamy fingers reached between my legs and inside me. Without his strong support, I'd have crumpled to the floor, for my legs felt more like the consistency of gel and not bone, as his intimate caresses concentrated on the spots where I was most sensitive. And he knew, he knew...

The wordless cry I heard could only have come from my lips, but I couldn't remember uttering it. I could only focus on Aidan's hand as a louder cry tore its way out of my throat. I tensed in anticipation.

"Relax, Bel. I've got you." As if to illustrate his point, Aidan's arm tightened across my breasts as his fingers drove deeper. My voice sobbed his name, not once but over and over, my tipped-back head resting on his supportive shoulder.

I couldn't stifle the hoarse scream that ripped from my throat, for only a moment before it was muffled by Aidan's mouth as he bent his head to kiss me, his hand clenched between my trembling thighs.

I lifted my head as we both loosened our respective grips. I turned to face him, still lost for words as sensation lingered.

Aidan's face looked as stunned as I felt. "God, you're full of surprises, Bel. I almost came just watching you."

Not just watching, my sluggish thoughts stirred. Stroking and circling, sliding and slipping, strong hands that sensed every stutter in my breath, every shiver of my body...

I groped for the soap, not sure what I was going to do with it but determined to at least attempt to respond in kind. "Irish luck," I murmured, one hand reaching for him as the other closed on the softened soap. I was so intent on stroking Aidan to his increasing pleasure that I dropped the bloody bar into the bathtub.

"Bugger," I muttered, bending over to pick up the soap.