Page 124 of Veiled in Brick

His eyes met mine. “Can I return the favor?” He didn’t need to explain what he meant. We were both covered in sweat, soil, and blood—some Liam’s; some from the man. Liam reached up to gently touch my right cheek. The scrape there smarted, and I gasped. His hand fell away. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Shower and then bed?”

My knees wobbled. “I don’t want to stand.”

“Bath?” he asked. I nodded in return, and he mouthed, “Okay.”

Neither of us spoke as we made our way to his bathroom. Liam pushed the curtain aside, sat on the edge of the tub, and began to run the water. He held his hand out, testing the temperature as it ran over his fingers, and I turned to look into the mirror behind me. I looked…dirty. I knew I would despite having already cleaned myself up once in the past few hours but, for some reason, seeing myself was a shock. My head tilted to the side as I looked myself up and down, stopping to inspect every dirt patch on my top—every blemish on my skin. My face was almost ashen. The spot on my cheek where I had fallen to the ground hours ago was red and angry. My hair stuck up on all ends. I began to reach a hand up to run it through the short strands, but the sight of them halted my actions altogether.

They were red. No longer bright red, but red nonetheless. I looked at them as I listened to the water rush behind me, and then I scrubbed myself clean all the way to my forearms. The white bar of soap next to the bathroom sink became tinged with pink as I rinsed the evidence of my actions away, and I massaged it under the stream until the color dissipated.

The sink was off. The slippery bar was back on the counter. My clothes were stripped away, and by the time that I was shifting my focus back to Liam, the bath was no longer running. He remained sitting on the edge of the tub, eyeing me hesitantly—his gaze trailed over my naked body, but it held no trace of heat. Instead, it lingered on the scratches and scuffs, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed.

I allowed a corner of my lip to pull up, tipping my head at the suds behind him.

“You had stuff for a bubble bath?”

He shook his head, reaching behind himself to grab the bottle of shower gel, and waved it at me. “Just kinda squirted it in there while the water was running.”

“Mmm.” I nodded. “That makes more sense.”

He offered me his hand. “Just get in, Zo’.”

I took it, asking, “Let me look at your head again first?”

“How about I get in with you and you can do it then?”

I smiled, but only just. “Will you fit?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never tried—only one way to find out.”

I bobbed my head up and down in acquiescence and I carefully stepped in, sinking into the water. It was blissfully hot—just hot enough to sting upon the first impression against my skin. My eyes fluttered closed for a beat, I sighed long and low, and I gestured for Liam to join me with a wave of my hand. He reached behind himself to yank his shirt over his head. His shoes were next—then, his jeans; his socks and boxer briefs. Taking a brief moment to find a hand towel in the drawer under the sink, Liam then stood naked, eyeing the tub with a questioning look as if he wasn’t sure where to step, and I scooted forward.

“Sit behind me.”

I read his lips as they moved in a silent, “Okay.”

The water sloshed, his steps less than graceful, and he lowered himself. His knees were bent on either side of me, poking out of the suds, and the back of his head rested against the tile of the shower with a gentle thud.

“This tub is not Liam-sized,” I mumbled, tracing my fingers over the blonde hair on his kneecaps.

“Mm-mmm,” he hummed out a semblance of a no. “It’s not. Are you comfy?”

I leaned back, my head fell against his chest, and he set the small towel he had grabbed on the edge of the tub to his left. With one arm around my shoulders and the other clutching my waist, he enveloped me. His arms were wet, the heat surrounded me, the sound of crackling bubbles reached my ears, and my eyes closed softly once more.

“Very comfy,” I replied.

“Then I’m good.”

“Don’t torture yourself back there,” I told him quietly. “If there’s not enough room, it’s fi—”

His arms tightened around me. “I said I’m good, Zo’.”

We sat still for a while, save for our touches grazing each other. I ran my hands over his knees and thighs. His nails gently scratched at my right shoulder and the left side of my waist as his fingers curled in and flexed back out. I was nearly certain that our breathing synchronized. I could have slept right then and there, but I knew that the option wasn’t one based in realism.

I eventually reached for the black loofah that rested on the soap stand jutting out of the wall, and Liam moved with me. He took it from my hands, doused it with the body wash that was to the left of him, and pulled me back against him once more. He ran it across my arms with a gentle pressure, over my chest and abdomen, and down to wherever he could reach on my legs. He lingered only on the spots that were particularly soiled, brushing the loofah back and forth until the area was clean, and then moving on. Every motion he made was laced with care, intimate to the point that a slight blush rose to my cheeks. Liam ushered me to lean forward with a hand pressing between my shoulder blades, and I obliged. His touch caressed my back, the loofah appeared to be foregone, and he planted a kiss at the top of my spine.

The gesture made me twist to look at him, his eyes met mine, and his lips twitched in a tiny smile.

“Good?” he asked.

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