“Well, Iwasclean,” I say, for lack of anything better.
“Now we’ll have to fight over the shower.”
“You go. This will wipe off.”
He reaches down between us, takes the end corner of the towel, lifts it, and wipes at the mud until my skin is clean again. “There. Good as new.”
Of course, in lifting the towel, he bared a significant portion of my bare skin, from knee to belly. The air is cold on my skin, and I’m trembling. Or maybe it’s Logan making me tremble.
One hand pressed to my chest, keeping me at least nominally covered, I mirror his action, lifting a corner of the towel and using it to wipe at the droplets of water on his chest.
How easy it would be to drop the towel. Some part of me wants to, feels daring enough to risk it. To let him see me. To let him touch me, skin to bare skin.
I wonder if he can read my mind: His hand steals around my back, tugs me to him. I stumble, and willingly fall against him, cheek to chest. Heartbeat, like a drum:Bumpbump—bumpbump—bumpbump.His flesh is warm, smooth, firm, damp. My cheek sticks to his chest, but I have no desire to pull away. My hands are on his chest, palms flat against his skin on either side of my head. My left palm is on the right side of his chest, and I can feel the puckered scars there. Bullet wounds, is my guess. My fingertips touch the scars, trace them gently.
Logan murmurs in my ear. “Those weren’t as bad as they look. Hit meat and bone, mostly.” He takes my hand, moves it down so my fingers touch the wound just beneath his rib cage. “This one nearly got me. Rotated home, took me damn nearsix months to recover. Nicked the bottom of my lung, narrowly missed a few other important bits.”
Who is this crazy woman inhabiting my body? Not me, not the self I’m accustomed to being. This woman, she is wild, daring. She clutches his ribs with both hands, feeling thick slabs of muscle under sensitive, exploring fingertips. This woman, this me, this X? Her lips touch skin. Feather over tattoos, cross the centerline of his sternum, kiss, kiss, kiss, and touch those wicked scars. My lips, his skin; explosive chemistry. Delicate touch, just a breath, motion across flesh, but enough to set me ablaze. I feel him shake under my hands, under my mouth. I kiss each scar. I don’t know why. Each long-healed slice on his skin—“Close encounters of the shrapnel kind,” he murmurs—a kiss. A burn mark on his forearm, shiny, too smooth, rippled—“Got too close to a hot rifle barrel,” he whispers in explanation—kissed.
Every time my lips touch his skin, he inhales sharply, as if my mouth is afire, as if my tongue is white-hot, scorching his flesh.
Bare skin under my hands, hard muscle... I’m addicted. Drunk with him. I pause the skein of kisses, lips on his clavicle, and just touch. Fingers on his shoulder blades, tracing the bright ink I can see with eyes closed, even, down low to explore his waist above denim, slipping palms up sides to stutter fingertips over ribs. A poem of touch, a song of kisses.
“X, you gotta stop.” His voice is tense, wired, slow with precision.
“Why?” I’ve never felt such need, felt such pleasure in merely touching. I revel in being allowed to touch as I wish, no guidance, no commands, no instructions. Only touching as I wish, mouth moving of its own volition, my small hands exploring a work of art.
“Because now isn’t the time.” He grabs my left hand, gathers my right into the same gentle grip, brushes my hair out of my face with his empty hand. “And you keep this up, I’ll forget that.”
“What isn’t it the time or place for?” I look up as I ask this, meet his eyes.
“For what I want to do with you, and how long it’s going to take.” Oh, the promise in those eyes, those words.
I shiver. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” He draws a deep breath, as if for courage.
His eyes roam my face, as if memorizing. My hands still pinioned in the gentle circle of his left hand, his right nudges my chin up, tilting my face up to his, the pad of his thumb brushing my cheek and then skating over my forehead, sliding a lock of hair away.
“Damn it,” he murmurs,
and kisses me,
and kisses me,
and kisses me.
Breathless, dizzy, heart madly beating, lungs seizing, hands fluttering and clutching, I kiss him in return.
A kiss. Such a simple thing. Two mouths meeting. Lips touching, a little moist, tender yet firm, hungry yet tentative. Hands reach, dare closer to erogenous samples of skin. So simple. Yet so complex, so fraught with meaning. Pulsing with questions, throbbing with possibility.
Does he kiss me to begin something else, something more?
Do I kiss him to beg for more?
Can we kiss to merely kiss, to find each other’s fathom, to plumb the depths of desire without the vulnerability of shared nakedness?
I break his hold on my wrists. Reach up, snake both arms around his strong neck, cling to him. Press up against him. We pause for breath, lips touching but not locked, gasping, eyes open and seeing one another from so close that features blur. His eyes are blue like the deepest ocean, the shade of night just past twilight when the sun has sunk and stars do not yet piercethe sky. His hands find my waist, find skin—all there is to find of me is bare flesh, for I am naked, and unashamed, and full of hunger.
