She shampooed him gently, concentrating more on relaxation than cleanliness. At first, he stood stiff, watching her with wary eyes. But as she dug her thumbs into the base of his neck, he groaned a little and let his head fall back again.
That’s when she knew she had him.
She massaged his scalp for another minute or so, then eased his head back under the water. She made sure to keep her fingers relaxed as she soothingly stroked his scalp and rinsed each strand of hair. Then she reached for his conditioner, and did the same thing all over again.
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It was all Heath could do not to dissolve into a boneless mass of quivering arousal as Lyric stroked her long, sexy fingers through his hair.
When she nudged him, he obligingly tilted his head back so the warm water could slowly stream over his head and down his body—his very aroused body. He was growing harder with each touch of her talented fingers. He knew she felt his arousal nestled against her stomach, knew she could see the tension and the need for her burning in his eyes. But she didn’t react to it. Instead, she just kept rinsing out the conditioner, and stoking the flames between them.
After an eternity, and after his hair had finally been rinsed clean, Lyric grabbed a bottle of shower gel and squirted some onto her hands. She rubbed them together, worked up a nice lather, and then slowly began to soap him up. He nearly lost his mind before she’d moved more than an inch or two.
This was Lyric who was touching him—beautiful, brainy Lyric who was making him burn. Making him need. Making him want her for so much more than just a few days. For so much more than a fake engagement.
Her hands slid down his neck, over the width of his shoulders, and down his spine to the small of his back, where she rubbed and rubbed until he could feel the knots he’d carried there for what felt like forever slowly dissolving. Then she worked her way back up his spine, kneading and massaging until he felt simultaneously both more relaxed and more inflamed than he could ever remember being in his life.
She spent a long time on his shoulders and upper back. He tried to stop her, to return the favor, but she just laughed, low and sexy, and swatted his hands away. Then got more soap before trailing her talented fingers over his neck and collarbone to his chest and ribcage. She circled his nipples with her soap-slicked fingers, making him nearly insane with the need to be inside her.
And then she moved lower, tickling his navel and caressing his hips before reaching between them and wrapping her hand around his hard, aching length. His eyes nearly crossed as she stroked him, up and down, up and down. When her thumb swept over his tip, circling him again and again, he nearly lost it completely. He pulled her against him.
“Lyric.” He bent his head and took her mouth with his own.
His hands tightened in her crazy curls, and he relished the feel of them beneath his hands. Warm and wet from the water pouring over both of them, the strands wrapped themselves around his fingers with a mind of their own, chaining him to Lyric and, more importantly, chaining Lyric to him.
This was going to last. He would make sure of it. She was in his arms, and he wasn’t going to let her go until he had to. And even then, only if she promised to come back to him.
She breathed out on a soft, ragged sigh that parted her lips and had every nerve ending in his body standing up and taking notice. Taking advantage of the opening, he slipped his tongue inside her mouth and tangled it around her own. She tasted sweet, like whipped cream and tart strawberries and the sea-salt caramels he’d grown addicted to in Hawaii.
He wanted more of her, needed more of her, and she must have felt the same way, because her hands went from massaging to clinging in an instant. Her nails dug into the
muscles of his upper back, and lust roared through him at the sweet pain of it. Part of him wanted to lift her up, press her back against the shower wall, and plunge into her again and again and again until they were both so sated and exhausted that the rest of the world no longer mattered. But there was so much they hadn’t done last night, so much he still wanted to learn about her body. He wanted to know what made her whimper and what made her scream. He wanted to know what would make her tremble in his arms and what would have her clawing at his back and demanding more.
He wanted to know it all. Just as he wanted to explore every sweet inch of her until she was screaming for him to take her. He backed off the kiss. Turned it slow and soft and leisurely as he stroked his tongue over her lower lip, lingering at the upturned corners of her mouth.
She pressed closer, and he relished her responsiveness as he eased them both into the shower spray, rinsing away the last remnants of soap. They might have been friends for more than twenty-five years and lovers for only one night, but when he touched her, she lit up like Wranglers Stadium on the Fourth of July.
It was both humbling and exhilarating.
And frustrating as hell.
Lyric pulled her mouth from his and started licking her way down his neck, and he gladly gave up control. When her mouth skimmed over his chest, stopping to toy with first one nipple and then the other, he lost all sense of restraint. He cupped the back of her head and held her in place as streaks of lightning sizzled through him.
She nuzzled and licked her way down his chest before once again dropping to her knees before him. Then she wrapped her arms around his upper thighs and pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses over his abdomen before pausing to tickle his navel with her tongue. He gasped and tensed.
Her laughter, deep and sexy, billowed out before she continued her downward path, kissing along the light dusting of hair that ran from his belly button to his groin.
By the time she reached the end of the trail, he was gasping. Air seemed to be in short supply. Even his good knee felt like Jell-O, and he leaned back against the tiled wall of the shower, bracing himself against it as he tangled his fingers in her hair and yanked her forward until her mouth closed gently, hotly, around him.
She was making crazy, sexy sounds—like she was enjoying every second of it—and the vibration of them was working its way along the length of his dick, making him absolutely crazy.
Her tongue stroked up and down the length of him, and he forgot the world around them. Forgot his own name. He leaned his head back against the shower wall, closed his eyes, and just enjoyed.
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Chapter 22
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