sorry, baby.” Mase grips my neck, his other arm wrapping around my middle and holding me a little bit tighter.
“Thanks.” I don’t need the condolences, but I appreciate them nonetheless. It’s been years, so the pain of losing the main mother figure in my life has faded with time. Like Pops, Moms Taylor was always a surrogate parent; it’s probably why when our biological mother abandoned us that first time, it didn’t hit E and me as hard as it could have.
“She loved the story of Peter Pan. There are copies of every version and retelling of it stored on the bookshelves inside the Taylor home.” Pops spent countless hours tracking down as many as he could, gifting her a new one for every anniversary or birthday.
“When it became clear she wasn’t going to get better—” Time may have lessened the pain, but I still have to stop to swallow down a ball of emotion. “We all flew to London to see the famous statue.” This time it’s a laugh that interrupts. “I think there are legit five hundred pictures from that day alone with all the combinations of groupings we made.”
“I think I remember seeing a few of them on the wall at E’s.”
I chuckle thinking of the ridiculousness of the pictures he used in making up the gallery walls around his home in Baltimore.
“E has a lot of pictures of Moms on display. It may have been years later, but I think part of the reason he loves Bette so much—even if it’s unconsciously—is because she stepped into that mother role for me without even being asked.”
The heavier conversation fades, nothing more needing to be said on why that would mean so much to us.
Behind me I feel Mase’s muscles bunch and stretch as he reaches for something. A moment later there’s the pop of a top, and the scent of vanilla fills the air. “God.” His teeth nip at my tattoo and he brings his arm around, the loofah held in his hand. “All your scents make me hungry.” Lust coats his voice.
I want to agree, want to tell him the smell of him fresh from a shower is one of my favorites and I’m grateful I get to experience it twice a day because of his rigorous training schedule, but I’m incapable of speech. Every nerve and brain cell in my body is focused solely on the drag of the loofah, down my arm, back over my shoulder, and across my chest.
Back and forth. A dip down into the water before a new round of circles traces around my breasts.
His free hand comes up to aid in the washing, cupping and squeezing, his thumb smoothing away the suds clinging to my now fully erect nipples.
My back arches, none of my earlier soreness registering as pleasure from him pinching my buds between his thumb and forefinger fills me. The slight twist he gives them shoots a bolt of lust straight to my clit, my legs falling open of their own accord.
His hard-on pokes my lower back as he continues to tease me. I breathe in the thick fragrant air, my breasts full, heavy, and aching for…more.
Instead, they bob slightly in the water as Mase releases them and shifts me to sit forward, the loofah washing a path across my shoulder blades.
I tilt my chin and level him with side-eye.
“What?” An evil smirk tugs at one side of Mase’s mouth. “You said you wanted help washing your back.”
And he says you’re the smartass? My inner cheerleader folds her arms in a huff.
“That was before you started teasing me.”
Two can play this game. I place both my hands on his knees, angling them so my fingertips fall toward his inner thighs, and start to draw lazy, almost absentminded figure eights up and down his skin, inching higher with each pass.
“Who said I was a tease?” His hips buck forward as I run my thumb along the crease where his thigh meets his hip.
“Me.” I cow-stretch, my ass brushing his erection with the subtle movement.
Water sloshes as an arm bands around my middle, tugging me until my back is suctioned to his front. In my peripheral vision, I watch the lavender loofah disappear under the surface of the water.
I hold my breath, anticipating it touching my pulsing center. Instead it runs down the length of my thigh, taking a slow trip down then up before dipping into the space between my legs. All I get is one quick brush over