Page 31 of Whiskey Shivers

“Stand up for me,” I ordered, pointedly ignoring the moment and how in a perfect fuckin’ world or in a movie or some shit, I should have kissed her.

I didn’t think either of us were quite ready for that. Not with how shook up the day had left either of us; her especially.

I peeled her jeans down her legs and her cotton panties, a match for her simple cotton bra, off her, down her legs which admittedly could stand a shave. Somehow, the thought of kneeling at her feet in the bottom of the tub, carefully drawing a razor up those legs of hers, turned me the fuck on and I immediately had to squash the desire with any and every method I had at my disposal.

I hate to say it, but picturing Mrs. Donal’s wrinkled naked ass is what did the trick. She was a nice enough woman – butno.

I stood up swiftly, keeping things as respectful as I could by pointedlynotlooking as she found her bravery and left her bra behind on the bed.

“I’m going to get you in there and then I’ll be in to join you and help you out, okay?” I asked. I knew my voice was a little rougher than it’d been a moment ago.

“Okay, if you think that would be easiest,” she said.

I gave a bit of a laugh and said, “I can’t promise something won’t be hard, but what I can promise is to be as much of a gentleman as humanly possible, given I’m about to be naked in the shower with one of the most beautiful women I think I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

The word vomit just sort of tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop any of it. I was pointedly looking everywhere but at her when I said it, as I led her into the small bathroom that I’d finished myself just in the last year.

She didn’t laugh this time or call me cheesy. If anything, she’d gone just a little too quiet, and I had to look over my shoulder and check on her to make sure she was still behind me as I swept back the shower curtain and stuck my hand under the spray to make sure it was an acceptable temperature.

She was standing there mute, her eyes on me, her bad arm tucked into her side, her good arm hanging limp. I noted the fresh pink scarring on her shoulder and in the hollow of her collarbone, the ridge of a new pink scar just under her arm and barely peeking around her front from where he’d collapsed her lung.

Internally, I marveled at modern medicine and at how even with a lengthy emergency surgery they hadn’t had to open her up from here to hell and gone, and how everything had been stitched neatly.

A few years down the line, you might not even notice the scars were there.

It was good work.

“Here,” I said quietly. “Check that out and make sure it’s not too ho. You can always warm up from cool but I’d hate to scald you.”

She put her hand under the spray and nodded. “Thank you,” she murmured.

I held out a hand and helped stabilize her as she stepped into the tub and stopped her just before she turned so that I could take down her ponytail.

I could see why she was so skeeved out and wanting a shower when her hair sort of tried to stick or remain in the shape it was in from the hair tie.

“Let that warm water work some magic and gimme just a minute,” I said.

She said, “Okay.” Her voice was a little smaller and a little breathy. I couldn’t tell if it was becausenowher nerves were setting in or if it was from some form of excitement.

I was certainly hoping it was the latter. I know I was a little more excited than I needed to be at the moment, which is partially why I needed a minute. Not just to undress myself, but to get a fucking grip. If that meant quickly beating off in the next room then so be it.

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

Corliss…

I stood under the shower spray, turning it up incrementally until it was as hot as I could stand it – which was, I hoped, alright with Hex, who was taking a curiously long time to get in here. I hoped I hadn’t said or done something wrong. That I hadn’t overstepped, been too forward or made him uncomfortable… I don’t know. It felt like my whole life had been tossed into the air. The whole puzzle that’d fit so nicely, its pieces snug, was suddenly dashed into pieces, all of them now strange and foreign and I didn’t know how to make them fit.

Like in the dashing, the pieces scattering, the picture had changed on top just to add to the confusion of it all.

“Hey, babe, it’s just me,” he called out from the other side of the curtain and I jumped slightly. I was facing the water and I closed my eyes and listened over the shower spray as the rings whisked along the rod and the space suddenly seemed all the smaller than it had originally with his presence.

Not uncomfortably so. If anything, it had become cozier.

“Ooo, a woman who likes her water thermonuclear. I’d like to think I’d love you for that,” he said.

“What?” I asked curiously.

“I love a good hot shower,” he said, sticking his hand past me and under the spray.

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