I tilted my head, grinning up at him. “You don’t usually offer a guarantee.”
His eyes darkened with mischief and lust and God knew what else. “I should tie you up and have my way with you,” he growled.
I hooked my arms around his neck. “I guarantee that none of that will be necessary in order to have your way with me.”
He reached over to one of the lit shelves inset into one wall and grabbed a bar of soap. But it wasn’t his own manly, plain stuff that I loved to smell on his skin. No, he grabbed my frou-frou bar of French savon—bright purple and smelling of lavender. And instead of lathering himself, he soaped me up. I bit my bottom lip to keep my mouth from melting into a grin. It must be about that time again.
Slowly, methodically, his slippery hands glided over my wet skin, taking extra-special care with my breasts. Desire flamed immediately—stoked from the sparks of watching him strip naked and carry me, warmed by our frisky flirtations, and ignited by our kisses into something much hotter. Who knew such a blistering fire could flare up under a spray of water?
Adam pulled my body against his, my back to his front, as he reached around me and continued to rub those tiny circles with his nimble fingers. I closed my eyes beneath the water, relishing the feel of his hands. It had been almost two weeks since he’d left, damn it, and I was over-the-top lusting for him. Given the feel of his hard body behind me, I could tell he was on the same page. But even if I tried to right now, I wouldn’t be able to cut this shower short.
Swaying against him, I swallowed as he kissed his way up my neck, his lips pulling my earlobe into his hot mouth. Fire and electricity crackled down every nerve ending. If he pressed me against the wall of the shower and took me here and now, he’d have me coming in minutes.
I had to admit it was the sexiest damn breast exam I’d ever experienced.
He never said that was what these were, but they came at regular intervals. The first few times, I’d thought it was the normal prelude to shower sex—a sport we’d been medalists at since the beginning. But though he’d been subtle about it, it hadn’t taken me long to figure out the real intention behind his meticulous and specific soapy foreplay.
I bit my tongue and never told him that I’d figured out what he was up to. Having undergone stage two breast cancer, I was attentive to my own regular exams. Adam had even asked me, once, if I did them, and I’d reassured him that I did.
But that answer obviously didn’t satisfy. And I couldn’t fault him for wanting to be sure. He liked my boobs, and I loved it when he touched my boobs, even like this, turning it into a sexy game with some nice, sizzling foreplay. So why ruin a good thing?
I worried my bottom lip between my teeth, my eyes still closed as he finished up, a smattering of guilt pricking like a needle near the region of my heart. Adam had been left with as much of a scar due to my bout with cancer as the one left on my breast from the surgeon’s incision. And I wondered if he would ever truly breathe easy again. If either of us would.
Most of the time we were fine, but there were those brief moments when the tiniest seed of worry could cause a split second of panic before all returned to normal again. Adam was washing my back now and murmuring about all the things he wanted to do to me after we’d dried off. My eyes still closed, I enjoyed envisioning every single one.
But I hadn’t gotten my revenge yet. A smart girl never let her man get away with epic mockery. Nope. She got even. And that’s what I was going to do. Minutes later, I thanked him for his attentions and told him he should have of his own relaxing alone time—after I washed his back and did my own arousing version of a scrubdown on his perfect abs.
He enjoyed it—at least, that was what certain body parts of his led me to believe as I slipped from the shower. “Don’t dawdle,” I ordered in my best come-hither voice, which probably sounded more like a toad with a cold than the effect I was trying to evoke.
Adam promptly poured some shampoo into his palm and started scrubbing his hair, eyes squeezed closed. Gleefully, I seized this moment as my time to act.
The rules are simple when it comes to schooling men—never let them see your weakness. Thus, his joking had been cleverly forgotten—or at least I’d inferred that from his honeyed words about how much he wanted my “sexy body.”
But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to strike back. This was my chance. I dried off, craning my head to see what he was doing. From the angle of the shower, he couldn’t see me go to the linen cupboard and grab every last folded, clean towel from the shelf and leave the bathroom with the entire stack—even taking the ones hanging on the towel warmer.
The next rule was to act fast. After all, Adam was highly motivated to get through his shower quickly. And that I did. After stuffing the towels in my closet, I returned to the bathroom. I slipped on my own bathrobe and removed his, along with all hand towels that he might resort to out of desperation.
Satisfied with my results, I settled on the bed, all snug and dry in my robe. Pressing a stack of clean washcloths to my mouth to muffle the laughter, I heard the water turn off. After a few seconds’ hesitation, he called from inside the bathroom.
“Hey. Where are all the towels?”
I didn’t answer, just laughed some more and smothered my giggles.
The slap of his wet feet on the bare floor sounded as he crossed the bathroom toward the door. He poked his dripping head out of the doorway. “What did you do?” His dark eyebrow arched, hair soaked and plastered to his forehead. A puddle quickly formed around his feet.
I held up one of the tiny washcloths. “You want this, don’t you? The hate is swelling in you now.”
His mouth quirked. “Something’s swelling, but it isn’t hate.” He pushed the hair away from his forehead and cleared the water that had dripped into his eyes. “Somehow I thought getting away with that was too easy.”
I smirked. “You should know me better by now. As for drying off…you could always use your dirty underpants.”
“Underpants? What am I, five?” He clenched his jaw and then grinned. “Don’t underestimate the power of the dark side, young Jedi.”
I rolled my eyes. “So you’re going to try to one-up me? So predictable. I’m shaking in my boots.”
His dark eyes gleamed as he came closer. Rivulets of water had collected on his tasty abs. It was fascinating to behold.