Isaac kisses along my collarbone and takes a very long time to answer. “What was that?” he asks, voice hoarse.
I chuckle. “Never mind.”
His lips stop at the edge of my sports bra, and then his eyes shift with a focus that makes me shiver. He reaches behind me for a clasp.
But it doesn’t have one, and I lean back in his arms to pull my sports bra over my chest. My breasts pop free and Isaac groans, the hands supporting my waist tightening almost painfully.
“Jesus, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he says.
The expression on his face heats my skin as much as his words do. My chest is average, not big or small, and not very noteworthy. But his expression says anything butaverage.
We step into the shower. I reach behind him to turn the knob and cold water sprays from above.
“Shit,” he says, and I yelp at the sudden spray. “Sorry!”
He pulls me into his arms and into the corner of my small shower. Chest to chest, my cheek against his. He reaches behind me to adjust the temperature.
“I might not be a math teacher,” he murmurs, “but I know degrees.”
I pretend to shiver in delight, and he laughs. “Yeah. Just don’t make me do calculus, though.”
“Please don’t,” I say, and fan myself with my hand. “That would bring me over the edge.”
He glances down, and the humor on his face fades, leaving behind concentrated awe. “Cold water does have its perks, though.” He smooths his hands up my ribs, his thumbs brushing a peaked nipple. “Would you look at that,” he murmurs.
It’s been so long. So long, and never here, in my shower in the apartment I got myself to start over. He bends his head and kisses my skin, and his mouth is hot, warmer than the water at my back, and I close my eyes at the sensations.
I twine my fingers through his hair, the short, dark strands unusually mussy. He adds his teeth, biting lightly at my nipple.
“Isaac,” I say. My free hand finds his shoulder, curving around it. “Please.”
He lifts his head. “Please what?”
“I need more. I need…” I wrap my arms around his neck and pull us under the warm water. The nerves in my body feel electrified, my stomach alive.
“What do you need?” Isaac asks, and bends his head to kiss me. They’re long, warm kisses beneath the onslaught of water, kisses with his hands on my waist, on my breasts, on the wet fabric of my underwear.
You,I think.
“Sophia?” he reminds me in a deep voice.
I rest my hands on the waistband of his shorts, now soaked through. To pull them down? To pull us both out of this shower?
I don’t know.
I open my mouth to tell him that I want him. That I want fun, and easy, and for us to forget ourselves in one another. But that’s not what comes out.
“It’s been so long since I did this,” I whisper.
His hands pause at my hips. “I see.”
“But I want you,” I say. “I wantthis.”
Isaac makes a low humming sound, a thoughtful agreement. The water runs in rivulets down his lightly stubbled cheeks and over wide shoulders. The silence between us feels taut, and I wonder if I’ve ruined the moment. Broken the magic spell.
But then he turns me around, my back to his chest, and his hands move down my body. They grip my underwear. “These need to come off,” he says, and pulls them down my thighs. Soaking wet, they fall the rest of the way, leaving me naked.
“You said you liked clear communication,” he murmurs in my ear, and slides his hand down my stomach. “Go on, then. Tell me what you like.”