chilled to the bone from having walked around in wet shoes. The hot water was relaxing and did a fine job of warming me up. It felt so good I must have been in there longer than I realized, because a soft knock on my bathroom door just about sent me to the ceiling with a yelp.
“Brooke?”
It was Leo, of course. Not a psycho ax murderer. He opened the door just wide enough to stick his head in. I could barely see the outline of it through the frosted glass doors of my shower.
“You scared me,” I said, laughing with relief.
“Sorry. I just wanted to let you know I was here.”
“Okay, I’ll be out in a sec.”
“Want some company in there?”
I paused for a second. “In here. In the shower?” I’d never had sex in the shower. I’d tried to once with a college boyfriend, but his roommates were all in the other room, and it was about the least sexy near-sexual encounter I’d ever had. I’d lasted about two minutes before he’d accidentally knocked a shampoo bottle on my head, and I told him I was out. It wasn’t a scenario I’d ever contemplated repeating. But . . . Leo.
Something told me he’d have a bit more skill.
“Brooke?” he said again, and I realized I’d been lost in thought.
“Sorry. Just thinking.” I slid the door open just enough to peek out at him. “I’m kind of shy. It’s very bright in here.”
He smiled. “I could close one eye so I can only see half of you. Come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?” He squinted in demonstration, and I couldn’t resist. By most people’s standards, shower sex wasn’t considered an adventure, but it was for me.
“Close both eyes,” I teased.
“Okay, but understand that means I’ll be seeing with my hands,” he answered as he pulled his shirt up and over his head, giving me a wonderfully enticing view of flexing abs. I watched as he quickly divested himself of the rest of his clothes and I realized that my insistence on dim lighting had done him a disservice. Even in universally unflattering bathroom light, he was divine.
“You really have a beautiful body,” I said out loud, surprising myself. Blame it on the alcohol.
“So do you. Can I see it?” His eagerness made me laugh, and I slid open the sliding door.
“Come on in,” I said. “The water’s fine.”
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders as he stepped in and under the showerhead. Water ran over his skin in rivulets, and I followed them with my mouth until the two of us were creating more steam than the hot water was. He kissed my mouth and shoulders and the little spot right behind my ear that drove me simply wild. He hadn’t shaved today, and the scruff was scratchy, adding to the myriad of delicious sensations coursing through me. The rasp of his whiskers, the soft heat of his mouth, the water, his hands. It was wet and wild and wonderful and I decided, then and there, that even if Leo Walker eventually broke my heart, it was worth it.
Chapter 25
Leo and I watched a movie while lying in my bed with food containers from Carmen’s Café strewn all around us. Macaroni and cheese, an Italian-style panini, barbecued chicken tenders, french fries that I’d reheated in the oven, and oversize chocolate chip cookies. A smorgasbord of comfort food that we fed to each other while laughing. Leo had brought two bottles of wine, and although I probably didn’t need any more alcohol, I drank anyway, leaving me tipsy and loose but not so intoxicated that I wasn’t fully aware. I loved the glow that I was wrapped in, being here with him, enjoying such simple pleasures. Cheese- and carb-laden food, a farcical, brain-candy movie where the boy would most certainly get the girl, and slow, steamy, wet sex that started in my shower and ended on the floor of my hallway because we simply couldn’t wait to get all the way to the mattress.
This night was just what I needed to relieve the tension of earlier. Dmitri had been miles away from my mind until Leo asked, “So what kind of community service did you do today?”
It was an innocent question but was like a club to my senses, pushing memories of my afternoon to the forefront of my mind. What to do about Dmitri? My concerns must have been obvious because Leo reached over and tucked a strand of