CHAPTER32
ZEKE
When I step inside,the bathroom is filled with steam, and I see her silhouette through the glass. The soft shape of her body pulls me forward, but my panic still holds me back. I feel like I shouldn’t be in here. This is a moment I’m not meant to be a part of. This is an experience that feels far beyond me.
This is intimate. I don’t do intimate.
“Are you just going to stand there, or are you getting in?” she says, the echo of her teasing voice ripping me from my doubts. I strip my shirt off one-handed and kick off my pants.
It takes a moment for her to come into focus, and she’s a fucking goddess as the water pours down her hair and over her face. She watches me as I take her in, and I realize there’s more than one first going on for me here.
“This is the first time I’ve seen you completely naked,” I say, and she holds her hand out to me. The shower is massive, and with two separate shower heads on the walls, it’s easy for both of us to stay in the hot stream.
Her skin is slippery and smooth, and I pull at her waist to bring her to me. As her lips slide against mine and I taste her, the water dripping between us, the entire moment transforms. The word I thought of before hammers me again and again, making it hard to concentrate on her.
This is intimate.
This is closeness. True, connected closeness.
I break the kiss and huff out a trapped breath, spraying water from my lips. My hands are on her belly, and my chin tips to my chest.
“Zeke?” Nova runs her palms up my biceps. “Are you okay?”
“I’m freaking out,” I say, unable to look at her and shocked by my honesty. I just hang my head and let the hot water pour down my face.
“About what?”
“I don’t know. This. Us. Everything.” My voice pitches up, and my feelings thrash to get loose.
Why can’t I just let them out? I want to. I want to tell her.
“Can you look at me?” Her voice is soft and gentle, coaxing me and calming me.
I lift my head, wiping the water from my face to open my eyes. She’s so still, and there are no questions in her eyes, or her posture, or anything. She seems prepared. Prepared for this moment, like she predicted it.
“Will you help me wash my hair?”
The question throws me, but she puts a bottle of shampoo in my hands. I stare at it for a moment, like soap is some unrecognizable object. I’ve forgotten how it works.
She turns around and tips her head back, her hair trailing down her back as I squeeze out some shampoo. As I start massaging it into her scalp and down the long strands, my mind clears. The panic subsides only a little, and I’m just happy to be doing something. Like working extra hours in the shop, helping out Jet for extra cash, or decorating my whole house to make her smile, I’m grateful for busy hands.
The pain in my chest eases enough to get a general idea of what’s happening in the rest of my body.
Xan’s words hit me hard.Show them your weakness, and they’ll show you theirs. She scares me. I scare her. That’s why I’m panicking. I’m afraid.
“You terrify me.” I finish soaping her and turn her around to face me. Her accepting and patient smile turns me inside out, and then her eyes slide closed as she steps under the rain shower. I have to stand toe to toe with her in order to rinse her hair, and I watch her chest rise and fall. Everything about her turns me on, like she was made just for me.
But then I see the swell in her breasts and the roundness of her belly, and the curve of her hips. Her body is making life. None of this is for me. The attraction turns to awe at her power, at what she can do, and I’m not a guy who believes in miracles, but fuck. It’s almost magical.
“I’m terrified of how I feel about you, too, Zeke. I didn’t know what would happen, so I tried to resist it. I don’t want to resist it anymore,” she says, holding onto my sides for balance. “I just know that I want you. With everything I am, I want you.”
There’s an air of desperation to her voice, her vulnerability dripping through the words. The honesty is raw, but there’s the underlying meaning, too. The uncertainty of our future. Different classes, different countries, different lives. All of it is hanging between us.
It’s all too intense. I’m collapsing under the weight of my thoughts, and I just want it to stop. She’s opening a door for me, but I can’t see what’s on the other side. I can’t know how this is going to go. The text message flashes through my vision. Enjoy it while it lasts because she’s going to figure out I have nothing real to offer her. I have no value to her. I have nothing that will ever convince her to stay.
But fuck, I want her to stay. I’ve never wanted anything like this. Like her.
I rinse the last of the shampoo from her hair and kiss her while her eyes are still closed. Slowly pressing my lips to hers with the back of her neck cupped in my palm and the sting of tears in my eyes.