Page 44 of Knots About You
‘You currently look like it too.’
Claire rolled her eyes.
Turn around, I demanded, and she did with only the slightest of groans.
I soaped my hands and worked them over her back and shoulders, slow and steady, loosening all the tight muscles.
‘That feels so good,’ she moaned. ‘You’re far too good with your hands.’
‘Are you complaining?’
‘God no. You had me coming with barely a touch. If anything, I’m going to declare you some kind of witch. They should study you and make a manual to teach other guys.’
A little jolt of pride lit up in my chest.
Seemed like both of us could enjoy praise.
I washed her hair next, massaging her scalp as she grew even more languid beneath my touch. Slipping my fingers into thehair at the nape of her neck, I tightened my grip just enough to make her moan before lathering again. I repeated the action until her sweet moans had me even harder than before.
‘My turn,’ she murmured after I rinsed, grabbing a sponge and twisting to face me on her knees. The copper creaked beneath us. Her eyes flicked down, went wide, and then up again to my face with such a delighted look that I almost laughed.
‘Well, hello,’ she giggled.
‘Claire.’
‘I’m behaving,’ she said, which was untrue for about three heartbeats. The sponge drifted lower. I caught her wrist.
‘Not there.’
She cocked her head. ‘Why not there?’
‘Wash,’ I said. ‘Not play.’
She sighed, but obeyed. Chest. Shoulders. The crooked scar near my ribs that got achy in the cold. She took her time, and I had to stop breathing for a second to keep from making a sound that would only encourage her.
The sponge drifted lower again, her wrist grazing the swollen head of my cock.
Fuck me.
She lifted that green-eyed gaze to my face. ‘Do you not want me to?’
‘I do,’ I said, truthfully. ‘But don’t.’
‘Why?’
Steam curled between us. I put the sponge aside and held both her wrists in my hand. ‘Because the last time I gave a woman all of me, she hurt me. She threatened to leak photos if I didn’t give her money to go on holiday with the bloke she’d cheated with. I’m not ashamed of what I like. But I’m… careful about who I let in.’
‘We’re already being intimate though.’
I nodded. ‘There’s just a bit of me that needs to know I’m building something with someone who won’t use the foundation as a battering ram later.’
‘And you think I will?’ Claire frowned.
‘I think you’re leaving,’ I said, and there it was, the stupid, vulnerable centre of the problem. We’ve known each other for ten days. You’ll go back to London. You’ll get your life on track and forget about all this. I’ll be here, doing the same things and seeing you in all of them. And it will hurt like hell if I let myself fall for you.’
‘Sometimes ten days is all it takes,’ she whispered. ‘To make you wonder if going back will ever feel right.’
I ran my thumbs along her wrists, the faint rope patterns warm and reassuring.
