We kiss and kiss and lose ourselves in it. The water beats down on us. We’ve stumbled backward and the spray is partly on me and partly on him, and it’s warm rather than hot and I feel his sex wedged between our bodies and I want to touch him again and make him come again and get messy and sticky and feel him need what only I can give him.
I grasp him, and feel him respond.
“Jo?”
I pull away from the kiss and meet his eyes. “Hmmm?”
He grins. “One more long drive and we’ll be home. At my house. And we’ll have all the time and privacy in the world to do everything we want, as much as we want.”
I let him go, with great regret. “I like touching you, Wes. I…I feel like you…like we…like I can’t get enough.” I settle for touching his strong shoulders instead. “Of touching you. Of being touched.”
“I can’t either, Jo, I promise I can’t. But number one, the water is getting cold and I’m still a little sticky. And number two, we need to eat. So as much as I’d rather stay here in the shower with you and let you give me another amazing handjob, I think we’d better clean up and get moving.”
I reluctantly let go of his muscles. Take a dollop of shower gel and wash him. Twist the water as hot as it will go, which isn’t very, not after all the time we’ve been in here letting it run. I wash him, and he rinses while I run shampoo in my hair and scrub a few places even his attentive and loving touch couldn’t quite get. The more…err, personal places, if you know what I mean. He does the same, and we rinse in now-cool water. And then Wes steps out and grabs a towel from the rack and wraps it around me. Another for himself, and we dry off.
I like the intimacy of this—showering, drying off.
It feels like a crash course in the daily minutiae of being a couple.
It makes my heart sing.
The towel wrapped around my torso, I watch him scrub his skin dry with the towel then toss it on the floor by the shower, standing naked and confident. He opens the door and steam writhes out, replaced by a sudden wave of cool air.
He wipes the mirror clean with a hand towel, peering at his reflection as he runs his fingers through his thick blond hair.
He catches me watching and smirks at me. “What?”
I shake my head and shrug, then find my own confidence enough to let the towel drop and just be naked with him. “Nothing,” I say. “You just…” I bite the corner of my lower lip, closing my eyes as I blurt out the truth, consequences be damned. “You just really make me so happy.”
He turns, cups my chin in one hand, thumb brushing my jawline. “Good. You deserve to be happy. There’s nothing I won’t do to make you happy, Jo. I mean that, from the bottom of my heart. This feels wild and crazy and reckless and impulsive and way too soon and way too fast on so many levels and…I don’t even freaking care, like at all. Because it feels right. So…you tell me what I can do to make you happy, and if it’s within my power, I’ll do it.” A pause, a breath. “Because you make me happy, too. I hope you understand that.”
“I…do?” My throat is tight and hot and thick.
He nods. “You really, really do.”
“All you have to do is what we’re doing, Wes. Just being…” I swallow hard. “Just being us. There being an us to be, if that makes any sense. That’s what made me smile. Just watching you, being like this, the casual intimacy of just being people together.” I whisper it. “Feeling like…like a couple. It’s something I never thought I’d feel in my life, and having it with you is…it means more to me than I could probably ever put into words, Westley.”
He blinks hard. “Dammit, woman, you’re making me emotional.” He says this with a self-conscious laugh.
“That’s okay,” I say. “More than okay. It’s good. I like it.”
“Is there anything you don’t like?”
I laugh. “Bad days. Feeling like there’s not enough time.” A pause, and another chuckle. “Broccoli.”
He laughs. “Noted.” He touches his lips to mine in a brief gesture of affection. “Let’s get dressed and get out of here.”
“Sounds good. I could eat a horse, at this point.” Right on cue, my stomach growls noisily.
I select an outfit, a favorite pair of short, loose, soft athletic shorts which I have in several colors, and a plain V-neck T-shirt. I put on a pair of underwear—nothing fancy, since I don’t own anything like fancy underwear—and the shorts, then pause.
“Wes?” I ask. “Weird question for you.”
He’s halfway dressed himself. “Shoot.”
“Do you…um, particularly care whether I wear a bra? Because I don’t normally. With these little things,” I cup my barely there breasts, “there’s not much point other than hiding my stupid poky nipples, which I don’t really care if people see. It drives my mom nuts—she hates when I don’t wear a bra. She’s always trying to make me wear one, and says it’s immodest when I don’t, especially in public. But I just hate them.”
He laughs. “Couple answers, here. One, you’re not a child, you’re nineteen and an adult and therefore have the right to decide what you wear, especially now that you’re not at home with your parents. When you’re living with them, I suppose an argument could be made about showing respect for their rules when living with them, but that’s neither here nor there, since we’re hundreds of miles away from them. Two, I’m personally of the opinion, in general, that a woman can dress however she wants. Granted, if she chooses to show a certain amount of skin, she can’t expect men to not look, but the flip side of that is that men can’t act like that’s some kind of invitation—she’s just dressing to her comfort, for herself and no one else. Three, regarding you in this specific context? No, I don’t mind if you don’t wear a bra. If you want me to go further, I kind of like it when you don’t. But you do what you’re comfortable with. Wear one, don’t wear one, it’s totally up to you.”
I huff. “That was a lot of an answer.” With a sigh of relief, I toss the bra I’d gotten out of my suitcase back into it. “In that case, no bra it is.” I shrug into my shirt and glance down—sure enough, as always, my nips are prominent. But whatever. They’re just nipples. It’s not like I’m prancing around topless.
You’d think I would be more modest, considering the conservative, sheltered way I was raised, but the no bra thing began as a kind of teenaged rebellion, in one part. The one way I could show a little spirit, a little pushback. But the other side is more practical—I just have never seen the point. They’re uncomfortable and my boobs are small enough that there’s just not much to support, and why should I care if people see my nipples? Everyone has them. It’s just been this ongoing battle with Mom. Jolene Park, put on a bra! No one needs to see those. Nipples, nipples, nipples. Who cares?
And now that I’m with Wes, it just feels…different. More sensual, where it was purely practical and for comfort before.
Maybe it’s an aftereffect of the orgasm, but everything feels more sensual, and all my senses feel more heightened.