Page 24 of Gift of You
“Okay.”
“That’s it. Just ‘okay’?”
His lips curved up in a smile. “Okay. Let’s go shower.”
17
LOUIS
We madeour way to the bathroom where Matthew turned on the water, and we stood waiting for it to heat up. I removed my glasses and set them on the back of the sink, then turned to face him. Little flutters made their way through my system, pulses of energy that I would have thought were the aftershocks of such a powerful orgasm, but I suspected were actually nerves.
What came now? He hadn’t pushed me away as I’d expected him to. I’d offered myself to him for the rest of the week, but that didn’t mean we had to spend every moment of it together. I figured he’d do some exploring, I’d help him answer some of his questions, we’d get off several times throughout the week and go back to our apartments... But he’d asked me to shower. He’d said he didn’t know how he felt about what we’d done, but he’d wanted me to stay. It didn’t fit the narrative I’d created in my head, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
Matthew brushed his hand down the side of my face, muttering something about “those eyes,” then turned and pulled back the shower curtain, holding it aside for me to climb in ahead of him.
We took turns standing under the water, rinsing our bodies as swirls of steam rose around us. I grabbed the bar of soap, smiling to myself as I recalled that first day when he’d brought me a wrapped bar just like it. I looked around the tub, looking for a loofah or washcloth. Coming up empty, I asked for one.
He raised a brow, but turned and stuck his hand out of the shower curtain, then pulled it back with a washcloth in his hand. Wordlessly, he handed it to me.
I soaped up the washcloth, then returned the soap to its spot. “Turn around. I’m going to wash your back.”
He gave me a long look, but did as I asked, though I didn’t miss the way his shoulders relaxed as I began running the cloth over his back and shoulders, using just enough pressure with each pass over his skin to lightly exfoliate. A groan slipped from him, and he braced his hands against the back wall as I sank to my knees and ran the cloth lower, over his buttocks and down each leg.
“Turn around,” I said, sitting back on my heels to give him space to turn.
He complied with my request, bringing his half-hard cock directly to my eye level. I stared at it, then flicked my eyes up to his, unable to keep the smirk from teasing at my lips.
“Really? Already?”
He cocked one brow. “There’s a sexy man in my shower putting his hands all over me.”
“You think I’m sexy?”
He looked down at his cock pointedly. “It would seem that I do.”
Ignoring the way those words sent flutters through my system, I sank back down, running the washcloth down one leg and up the other, pausing when I returned to the dick in question, which was still semi-erect. A quick glance at his expression told me his eyes were tracking my every movement.
My intentions in this act of washing him had purely been to care for him, possibly in ways he hadn’t been cared for in quite some time. But with the twitch of his cock and the intensity of his stare, I couldn’t resist giving this part of his body a little extra attention.
I slid the washcloth between his legs, gently rubbing the fabric across his balls and back toward his taint. I wanted to slide it further toward his hole, but wasn’t sure if he was ready for that particular type of intimacy. I hoped he’d let me introduce him to his prostate at some point this week, but there was still time for that. No need to rush.
I rubbed the cloth back and forth from front to back a couple more times, gratified when he emitted a low groan and tipped his head back with eyes closed. Sliding the cloth forward, I wrapped it loosely around his cock and gave it a gentle stroke. He still wasn’t fully erect, but neither was I, which was to be expected as men who’d said goodbye to our twenties some time ago. Still, I stroked him a couple of times, gently scrubbing the dried cum from his skin, enjoying the way he subtly rocked his hips under my touch.
Releasing him, I stood, continuing the job of washing him, running the cloth across his belly, up his torso, and over his shoulders. He shivered under my touch, then put his hand out, grasped my chin between his fingers and tilted my head up. He kissed me long and deep, then released me, leaving me dazed as he maneuvered me into switching places with him.
Somehow, without my realizing it, he’d wrestled control away from me. I hadn’t even noticed when he’d pulled the washcloth from my hands. And it wasn’t that I’d needed or wanted that control, it was just that he had this way of slipping into a more dominant role, and I was pretty sure he did so without even realizing it.
And so he became the caretaker, gently wiping down my body in much the same way I had done for him. He wasn’t dominant in the kinky sense of the word. And he wasn’t the alphahole kind of guy you’d read about in romance novels. His dominance was just a natural extension of who he was. Beneath that growly, mountain-man exterior, was a caretaker. A protector. A man who’d taken care of his dying wife. Who’d shoveled his neighbors’ sidewalks and tucked a drunk stranger into bed. Who’d only just begun to discover this new side of his sexuality, and yet still didn’t hesitate to wash my body with the same care and consideration I’d done for him.
I swallowed hard, recognizing the feeling stirring in my chest. I could so easily fall for this man, had likely already started to. He may have been a caretaker, but so was I in my own way. For all of my claims of self-sufficiency and independence, I had a deep-seated need to be needed. And Matthew needed me. If for nothing else, than to guide him through his sexual awakening. Could he find someone else to do it? Probably. But would they do it with the kind of care that I would? Definitely not.
Everything about this scenario spelled disaster for my heart, but I was already invested. There was no turning back.
We finished the shower, the water starting to cool as Matthew turned off the faucet and we stepped out to towel off. Just as he’d done in the shower, Matthew took the the towel from me and began drying my body. When finished, he wrapped it around me, handed me my glasses, then took another towel for himself.
Once scrubbed dry, he took my hand in his and led me out of the bathroom and into his bedroom, where he pulled back the blankets and gestured for me to climb in. I was sure my face registered surprise, but I dropped my towel on the floor and climbed in, Matthew following suit and scooting in behind me.
I popped my glasses off and set them on the side table, wondering what the hell was going on. Matthew didn’t strike me as the sort to take naps, but nothing about this seemed sexual either. He pulled me into him, nestling his knees against the back of mine with his hips pressed against my ass. His dick was soft, confirming my suspicions that against all odds, this was in fact, a nap.
