I laughed.
“I’m going to miss that magical laugh when you leave. I’m not sure I can handle a quiet house if you all move out.”
I was at the stairs when he spoke that truth, and my foot paused on the bottom step. He sounded so serious, and for a second, I heard loneliness creeping into his words. Charlie, lonely? Everyone knew he was with a different woman almost every night he was away. How could he be lonely? I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just hurried up the stairs to the escape of a shower.
I stared at the tub longingly, as if the porcelain held the answers I needed. Steam filled the bathroom as the hot water and bubbles rose. I was more excited than I let on about going back to work. I loved fencing and it would pay the bills, and I didn’t even have to deal with a job interview, other than the one over a cup of coffee in Charlie’s designer kitchen.
Once the tub was full enough, I stripped and sank slowly into the depths. The water soothed every tense and knotted muscle in my body as I eased in, letting out a soft sigh. Sweetly scented bubbles floated past my face, and I lazily ran my hands through them, swirling the water as I closed my eyes. The heat seeped into my pores, and I finally began to relax. My mind drifted, and before long, I was picturing life as Charlie’s wife.
I saw us together, happily married, with all our dogs running around the house and him holding me in love rather than lust. In the next second, though, as quickly as one of those bubbles burst, my mind took a turn and drifted to the kisses we’d shared so far, the massive heat that built between us with each one, until we were consumed by a raging inferno I couldn’t even try to escape.
I pictured Charlie pressed against me, all hard muscles and demanding, hungry touches. I was certain that sex with him would be more than explosive, that it would rock the very foundations of that luxury estate of his. We knew each other so well, and the tension between us had been escalating for years, demanding release like the lava in a long-overdue volcano.
As my lips parted on a sigh and my fantasies quickly hopped from PG-13 to R and perhaps somewhere in the NC-17 zone, Charlie’s hands glided over my bare skin. He held my swollen breasts, kneading the soft flesh. Then his hands moved lower and lower, till he could caress my thighs. The water shifted around me, and I nibbled my bottom lip. I was eager to see where else the fantasy would carry me, but a huge, eight-legged interruption jolted me from my passionate imaginings.
“Ah!” I shrieked, like some sort of over-caffeinated Little Miss Muffet.
“Jaime?” A loud knock sounded on the door just before it swung open.
I yelped and sank lower into the water as Oreo, then Tank and Billy rushed into the bathroom to surround the tub.
Charlie walked in behind them, and his jaw practically dropped to the bath mat when he saw me in the tub. “Um... You screamed, and I thought... Are you okay?”
“Sp-Spider,” I said, my lip trembling from arachnophobia as much as my abruptly jilted pleasure.
Like some kind of valiant knight, Charlie grabbed a nearby hand towel and snapped the thing to death in one fell swoop.
“Thanks. Sorry if I scared you,” I said sheepishly.
He laughed. “No problem, milady. If you need me to rid the kingdom of further dragons, I’m happy to be of assistance.”
I pushed Oreo’s licking tongue away from my face. The water brushed against my breasts, and I quickly wrapped an arm around myself as Charlie’s eyes grazed my naked body. The bubbles hid most of me, but I saw the hungry look in those eyes and knew he was picturing me without the soaping camouflage.
“Sorry,” he said roughly, reaching up to rub the back of his neck, one of his nervous habits that gave him even more schoolboy charm. “I, uh... I guess I’ll go now.”
“Turn around, Charlie,” I said, keeping one arm firmly planted over my chest.
“Why? It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” he said quietly. “Every curve and delicious hollow of your body...”
My mouth dropped open, and I glared at him. “You liar! You said you didn’t see anything when we skinny dipped!”
“So I lied. Sue me,” he stated matter-of-factly, and his eyes did another once over of the bubbles. “We’ve already established that I’m nosy, right?”
“The nosiest,” I snapped.
“Well, it’s too bad all that soap’s in the way. I’d love to see it all again, to touch it this time and see what else there is to discover about you.”
“What if the shoe was on the other foot? What if I was staring at your naked package?” I retorted.
“You’d think it was solid and promising.”
With my face burning and my thighs reflexively clenching against the sudden onslaught of desire and lust, I pointed a finger toward the bathroom door. “Out!” I said with a chuckle, trying to hide my need for him.
He held up his hands in surrender and turned, whistling to the dogs to follow. At the door, he stopped and turned back, with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “If you need me to wash your back or anything, I’m your man.”
Suddenly, even beneath the water, my whole body felt as if it was engulfed in flames. I pointed more urgently, so intently that water splashed out of the tub. “Get out!”
He chuckled knowingly and closed the door behind him.