steven
Candles flickered around the room from the windowsill. Rain pattered against the large window near the bath. I turned on the hot water and filled the tub with Foamy bubbles for Sierra to relax after our session tonight.
“Take off your clothes,” she said when the bath was half full.
“What?”
“Take off your clothes,” she repeated. “You’re coming in with me.”
“Am I?”
“For aftercare.”
I stiffened and swallowed, my palms clammy. “Maybe another time.”
“But you promised,” she whispered.
“I know,” I said. “But …”
She stared up at me through wide, sorrowful eyes, and I pushed all my insecurities to the side. I didn’t want her to touch me the way I touched her because I didn’t know how I would react to it for the first time ever.
“It’s okay,” she said after I didn’t respond. She turned toward the bath and stripped off her shirt. “You don’t have to do it today. Sorry for pushing it. Whenever you’re comfortable with it, I would love for you to join me.”
Once she stepped into the warm tub, I loosened my tie, then unbuttoned the cuffs of my shirt. She sat down on the side of the tub and stared up at me, eyes widening. When I undid all the buttons on my shirt and pulled it apart, a small smile graced her lips.
“You don’t have to,” she whispered.
I sat beside her on the edge of the tub, but instead of my feet in the water, like hers were, I pulled off my socks on the other side. And once I was finished taking off all my clothes, I turned around and sank into the tub with her.
When I finally settled back against one end, Sierra splashed some water on my hair, crawled into my lap, and straddled my waist. Then, she grabbed the shampoo bottle on the edge of the tub and squirted some into her palm. After giggling nervously, she massaged it into my hair, her pupils wide and a smile on her lips.
“Is this okay?” she whispered, peering down at me.
After placing my hands on her thighs, I nodded and closed my eyes. My body—and I—didn’t know how to react to someone touching me so intimately.
Between my biological mother and all the shitty foster homes I had been in and out of back in England all my life, I hadn’t had anyone to care about me when I was younger.
Even years later, I didn’t really welcome it. Not with anyone else.
“You’re so tense,” she murmured.
When she placed her hands on my shoulders, they almost immediately relaxed under her soft touch. I had never once taken a bath with anyone before, never had my hair washed by anyone else, even when I was a child.
My bio parents had been too fucked up by drugs to care for their own child. I had despised them for so long for choosing to abuse pills and needles than to care for me, so much so that I had completely tried to shove them out of my mind.
But Sierra merely washing my hair fucking did something to me.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, suddenly pulling back. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” I said. “Why’d you stop?”
“Because …” she said, her gaze dropping to my cheek. She pressed her lips together and settled back onto me comfortably, then swiped her thumb across my cheek. “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, almost fearing her response.
“Nothing. Just use your safeword if you want me to stop,” she hummed.
I chuckled and returned my attention to her. “My safeword?”
“Unicorn,” she hummed in amusement. “Did you forget it already, Professor Patton?” She clicked her tongue and shook her head in disappointment. “You know what happens when you forget your safeword, don’t you?”
“What happens?”
“You get punished.”
My arms came around her waist, and I pulled her flush against my body. The water sloshed between us as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders, her giggles drifting through my master bathroom.
“I thought I told you not to call me Professor Patton outside of the classroom?” I murmured into her ear, pushing some wet hair off her face. “Or you’ll be the one getting punished tonight, Miss Monroe. Do you understand me?”
“Not if I punish you first.”
A chuckle escaped my lips. “And how will you do that?”
Eyes wide, she attempted to formulate a response. But that cute little mouth couldn’t come up with anything, except stutters. Her cheeks turned light pink, and she glanced away, playing with the ends of my hair.
“You know … maybe I’ll spank you.”
“Spank me?”
“Really hard.”
Another laugh escaped my throat. “If you slap my ass, I will spank yours until you’re begging me to stop, love.”
While I had called her the nickname more times than I meant to, she seemed to tense at it this time, her gaze dropping to my lips.
“Better watch yourself when you get out of the tub then,” she said. “That doesn’t sound like much of a punishment to me.”
“Oh, it will be.”
“Yeah?” she murmured, watching my lips move as I responded.
Fuck.
My heart pounded inside my chest, and I swallowed hard.
We stared at each other for a few moments, the only sounds coming from the crackling candles and the rain pattering against the large window that overlooked Pittsburgh. She inched closer to me, her gaze flickering from my eyes to my lips.
And then she gently cupped my face in her hands, leaned down, and kissed me.