I finish washing the remnants of last night off of my skin, although realizing that there’s no washing away the memories. The way Brick lit my soul on fire will forever be etched into my skin. I’m so entrenched in my own thoughts that I don’t even hear when Brick steps inside of the bathroom.
“Is there room for me in there, beautiful?”
My head snaps up as facial wash runs into my eyes.
Shit.
I quickly try flushing my eyes with clean water as Brick takes my silence as a yes and opens the glass door to the shower. While the two of us have been intimate in the darkness of the lagoon as well as a bed, there’s something about standing in front of a man you’re ridiculously attracted to, completely bare, and in the bright lights of a hotel bathroom.
“You okay?” he asks, concerned, handing me a clean washcloth.
“Yes, I wasn’t expecting you. You startled me.”
He flashes that signature grin of his, the one that wets my panties, and I swear I can hear my heart pounding through my chest.
“I reached out for you and you weren’t there, so I needed to find out where you’d run off to.”
“Here I am,” I say awkwardly.
“What should we do before the rehearsal?” he says casually, as if we’re a couple on a holiday together.
“I need to grab a few things in town for Dena, so I’ll probably do a bit of shopping, then get back here just in time for rehearsal.”
“I was thinking about doing the same thing. We can go together.”
I don’t know how to answer him, so I say nothing and try exiting the shower. “All done.”
His hand gently presses on the door to keep me from opening it.
“What’s going on, Kaya?”
“Nothing, I’m just finished my shower.”
“But I just got here, baby.” He smiles.
I laugh nervously as he continues to keep his enormous palm flat on the door.
“I’m not up for anything this morning,” I tell him.
“And I never said I was either.”
Embarrassed that I assumed Brick would want to sleep with me again, I finally just spit out the truth.
“I think we made a mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?”
“You’re Kyle’s best friend. I’ve known you most of my life. This is... weird.”
“I don’t think there’s anything weird about it. You know me. I know you. We can trust each other in a way that we can’t trust other people because of our shared history. And if we’re really being honest, the sex was too amazing for us to not stop here, wasn’t it?”
Brick’s colossal figure presses up against mine and I can feel his hard length pressing against the curve of my back. I close my eyes, the glass door pressed against my face, and ask the ancestors to give me strength. This man is going to be the death of me.
“I’m not going to lie, Brick. I’m deeply attracted to you.”
“Which is clear by the way you rode me half the night.”
“I am deeply attracted to you, but that’s not enough of a reason to cause a conflict between you and Kyle. He’d be mad at me for a week, but he’d never forgive you.”
