Page 122 of Beyond the Stroke

I glance at my watch, checking the time.

“You got a hot date?” Rory jokes, walking over shirtless and in a pair of athletic shorts.

“If I did, would you be jealous?” I tease.

He brushes a loose hair out of my face. “Jealous? Nah. I’d just feel bad for the guy when he realizes you’re obsessed with your husband.”

“Obsessed?” I laugh. “That’s a stretch.”

We haven’t mentioned the conversation we had in the kitchen yesterday and I’m hoping Rory is going to just let it go.

“There’s an exhibit at a gallery I wanted to see. It closes at six.”

“Then I’ll make this quick, so we can go.”

“It’s okay if we miss it.”

“Trust me, I’m a professional. We’ll make it.”

“Time to get lubed up.” Vanessa, the photographer’s assistant, appears with a bottle of oil in her hand. She looks between me and Rory, then hands me the bottle of oil. “I’ll let your wife do the job.” She winks before rushing off.

“I thought oil and water don’t mix,” I say, staring at the bottle of oil in my hand.

“I’m not getting in the water, but they want me to glisten.” He smirks before his eyes drop to the bottle in my hands, and his smile morphs into one of sincerity. “If you don’t want to, I can tell Vanessa?—”

“It’s okay. I can do it,” I rush out, knowing it might seem odd if I’m his wife and I refuse to oil him up.

I squeeze out the oil, then place my hands against his back. I’m starting there because it’s far less intimidating than his front with his washboard abs and those magical V muscles.

“They only gave you one bottle?” I ask, sliding my hand down the back of his sculpted arm. “Have they seen how much surface area needs to be covered?”

He rolls his shoulders back and groans.

“This okay?” I ask,

“More than okay. My gorgeous wife is rubbing me down with oil. What’s not to like?” He shoots me a wink over his shoulder.

“You’re enjoying this too much.”

I make my way around to the front of his body.

“Every fucking second.” Rory winks. “Don’t forget the abs. The abs are very important.”

I make a show of squeezing more oil out and slathering it on him, my oil-covered hands slipping over his carved muscles.

Beneath my palms, Rory’s muscles contract. The deep, sloping lines on his lower abdomen are dangerously captivating. When my fingertips dip just beneath the waistband of his shorts, his stomach quivers. It’s a fascinating movement, one I’m dying to see again but the area is already fully covered, so I move upward, determined to finish the job without embarrassing myself.

When my hands move over his chest, Rory makes his pectoral muscles dance, one side, then the other. I look up to find him smirking at me.

It’s that lighthearted smirk of his that makes me forget to be intimidated, and has me reaching up and lightly pinching one of his nipples between my fingers.

As I tease over his pebbled nipple, a gravelly groan rises out of Rory’s throat, startling me. The sound isn’t playful or teasing, it’s feral, like a wild animal rattling around in its cage. Just like the night I put my hands in his hair, it’s like no sound I’ve heard before, so I immediately second-guess myself, and start to pull my hand back.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have?—"

Rory quickly covers my hand with his, holding me to his warm, slick skin. When he lifts my chin with the finger of his other hand, the passion in his eyes has me weak in the knees.

“Don’t be sorry, Wildflower.” The thumb of his hand holding mine grazes the tattoo on my wrist. “I like your hands on me.”

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