But the poor thing was covered in dirt, basically turning the white soap a murky gray color. She had to get clean.
“Ow, Lila,” I murmured as she swiped my forearm again. “What did I ever do to you?”
“Oh, stop complaining. At least you’re not soaked,” Ceci said.
“Yeah, yeah. Well, she’s all soaped up now.” Leaning away, I set my now raw forearms on the edge of the tub, surveying. She was as good and washed as she was going to get. Looking up to Ceci with a wry smile, I said. “Dunk her.”
Ceci sputtered, her smile that goofy one I loved. “I’m not dunking the cat, you nut. What’s the other option?”
I tsked, shaking my head. But reaching behind myself I swiped up the plastic bowl I brought in from the kitchen when we first got home. “Alright, bring her here then.”
She did, wading through the tub on her knees to bring them both closer to me. Close enough that when I leaned down to scoop up water in the bowl, my cheek brushed hers gently.
Was it dramatic to say that every touch from Ceci felt like a touch from the sky? The sun even. Just like her name. So bright, so beautiful, and so right.
I ignored the sensation of it like I always did. If I thought too much about it, I might fall down the very slippery slope I almost did that night at the bar. Just thinking of it now, my hands started to itch with the memory of Cee's sweet thighs in my grasp. Her body fitting perfectly against my front. Her voice sounding like a siren song as she moaned from the touch of my palms alone.
“Con?”
Shit. I was doing it again. I had been doing it forweeks. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Because that moan had been a mistake, I could tell by the way she froze directly after it. As if she’d made a wrong move or a wrong step in the sand. But at the same time, it had been anything but a mistake. Ceci opening to me, melting for me,moaningfor me could never be a mistake.
It had been so right, I couldn’t not tell her.
That she was my person. That she was mine.
Maybe that was the real mistake. Because the look in her eyes after I did.The denial, the shock, the fear. It hurt. It hurt just enough for me to take it all back. So I did, and we continued to hang in this purgatory of knowing but not acknowledging.
Except in that damn closet.
The closet of my childhood room where I’d had my hands all over Ceci now sat under special review in my mind. Not only had I been acting crazy, but she’d also acted out of character too.
You’re mine. The words played in my mind on constant repeat, the feeling of her skin on my lips forever burned into me.
“Earth to Connor,” Ceci said, and had the nerve to sound soft, honeyed. She was clearly tired, but she was comfortable. Comfortablewith me. Quietly, she coaxed, “Come on, we’re starting to prune in here.”
I blinked at her, then down to the cat. Both were looking at me with big wide eyes that were more similar to each other than apart. Both trusting me. Both mine.
Carefully, I poured the water in the bowl over Lila’s head, trying my best not to get it in her face, since that seemed to freak her out the most. I have no idea if I succeeded though, because my eyes had gone unseeing. A word playing on repeat in my head.
Wait.
That’s what I needed to do. That I needed to be patient and wait. But the word pulsed in my mind like a taunt. The last two years feeling like they were nothingbutwaiting all of a sudden.
Had I not waited long enough?
“Alright, she’s done,” Ceci said. She stood, reaching over to the hook on the far wall. Grabbing a towel to wrap Lila up in, she rubbed the fabric around her fur, stopping only when a protesting meow warned her to. Then she reached over and set the little bundle down on the fluffy bath rug on my side of the tub.
It was so domestic. So normal. This whole night was. And I really liked it. So why was it knocking at the back of my nerves right beside that same irritating word. A chant now. A chastising plea to myself. A reprimand.
Wait, wait, wai—
All air left the room as I looked up at Ceci. I might as well have been slapped.Punched. I think I sputtered, or choked, I’m not sure which one. And eyes that were just unseeing now saw everything. Well noteverything—but damn, they saw enough.
Ceci got out of the tub too, and I assume because she was dripping from the waist down, she removed the sopping wet sweatshirt she had been wearing. Pulling it over her head and dropping it in a heap on the ground. Leaving her only in a tight white tank top and little things that were not quite underwear and not quite shorts. They were black. They were shaped like shorts. But they came up around her thighs and ass in arches that curved flatteringly, exposing a lot and outlining the shape of her in every excruciatingly perfect detail.
The initial assault of the sight stung me. Stunted my heart into stuttering beats and my boxers into tightening to accommodate unpreventable growth. But even as I greedily ate up the amazing fucking sight of her slim legs and rounded curvy ass, I thought I had it all under control. I could handle a little ass, even if my hands itched to wrap around it and squeeze until I elicited a moan quite like the one she had gifted me on other recent occasion. Hard as fuck or not, I had it under control.
But then I saw her nipples. They were peeking boldly out from underneath a completely drenched, wholly transparent white tank top. The white cloth didn’t do a damn thing to hide them. Not them and not the shape of her full chest either.
