Can I come with you?Can I show you around and watch over you?I had to gulp down some kimchi to keep myself from asking.
"It's probably silly but I've always wanted to see Rome and Paris and Versailles, and all those places," he continued. "I know the summers are the busiest but it's the best time for my schedule. The only other time we close the office is over Christmas and New Year's, and while I could take a vacation outside those blocks, I don't want to rearrange all of my current build schedules for that. At this point, we're planned out to next January."
"Are you an architect?"
He shook his head as he gathered a pile of kimchi and broccoli on his fork. "I'm the managing director of operations. It's a fancy way of saying I keep the hammers swinging and money flowing."
I didn't know why he was hell-bent on insisting everything he did was inconsequential. He only climbed mountains and ran an architecture firm and whipped up sesame sauces and wore suits like a revelation. Nothing about him was inconsequential. "Doesn't sound fancy, it sounds important."
"Everyone at the firm is important," Tom replied.
Every time he bounced that shoulder or gave me that frowny-scowly-irritable face, I felt as if someone was scooping something out of me, like a melon baller between the ribs. The odds were high it was phantom spleen pains or the beginnings of the gunshot wound infection I was past due to enjoy. That I felt those twinges whenever his dark eyes turned shy and he downplayed everything was a coincidence. "What did you do before you were managing director of operations?"
He grinned down at his plate, laughing to himself. "I was Shannon's assistant. Before that, I helped out around the office, whatever needed getting done. Walsh Associates is the only place I've—okay, what the hell are you doing?" When I didn't respond, he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, saying, "You're wiggling again. You've been doing it since we sat down and I just need to know why you're wiggling."
"Apparently I've lost the ability to engage in any covert action." I set my fork on the plate and folded my hands in my lap. "It's complicated."
He pursed his lips and hit me with a sharp stare. "Should I show myself out?"
"Okay. All right. Here's the situation." I pointed at the brace on my arm. "There's this, which isn't great, and there are a handful of other injuries that have made it impossible for me to maintain normal exfoliating and moisturizing routines." He continued staring at me, fine creases and grooves dug into his forehead and the corners of his eyes. "What I'm saying is my back is disgustingly dry and scaly and riddled with dead skin because I can't bend this arm enough and I can't twist the other side because the muscles are still fucked-up over there. I can't reach. It's hard enough to get a damn shirt over my head, let alone get a loofah between my shoulder blades."
Tom studied me for a long moment, his gaze roving over my body. Eventually, he said, "Let me see."
I blinked at him. "See what?"
Again, he shifted to his knees but instead of flashing his belly, he brought his hand to my shoulder and pressed, urging me to lean forward. "I want to see why you can't sit still."
He rucked up my hoodie and t-shirt, and ran his palm down my spine. I shivered into his touch, shuddering out a laugh as I said, "Sorry about that."
There was another twinge between my ribs but this felt like warmth and need rather than a gradual excavation of my soft tissue. This felt right—and that was strange. There was nothing sexy about my dry skin situation.
"Oh, holy Jesus, this is a mess. I didn't believe you," he murmured, his fingertips skating over the worst patches of it. "But you're right. You need a good scrub."
A vein of heat bloomed low in my core. "Are you offering?"
He shifted forward to meet my eyes, the shadow of a smirk pulling at his lips. "Are you asking?"
9
Tom
If I'd givenmyself permission to get naked with G.I. Joe tonight, I would've coordinated my suit and socks with my underwear. On most days I coordinated everything, but this morning I'd intentionally selected hunter green boxer briefs to wear with red houndstooth socks and a navy pinstripe suit. The idea was simple: put myself together in a manner that would inhibit future taking apart.
It was true what they said about best-laid plans and mismatched undergarments because here I was, stepping into the shower behind him. There were no urgent kisses, no roving hands. None of the fanfare usually associated with stripping down to skin and getting that first eyeful. This state of undress was functional, much like a locker room or finding a man flailing in a frozen lake and dragging him out and ripping off his clothes and yours because he needed your body heat to survive.
Wes wasn't dying of hypothermia but he was in need of a favor. And that was why I'd ordered him into the shower. He needed a favor.
I could've remained fully dressed and met Wes's exfoliation needs from outside the stall but the position of the showerhead and the volume of space this man took up would've left me soaked regardless. If anything, this was the responsible choice. The last thing anyone needed was water all over the floor.
Yeah, this made all the sense in the world.
Unfortunately, my cock had yet to receive any of those messages. The confusion was understandable. We'd spent more than an hour flirting and I hadn't stopped thinking about his fuzzy chest all week and now we were naked. Of course I was hard and throbbing and dizzy from the reality of this.
"Nice of you to join me," Wes mused. "I was beginning to think you'd gone home and left me in here to prune up alone."
"Now listen," I said, unceremoniously yanking the curtain shut behind me. "You're the one who puppy-dog-eyed your way into a community bathing experience when I'd planned for no such thing this evening. You can give me a few minutes to lay out my clothes so they don't wrinkle."
"Does it matter if your clothes wrinkle? It's like nine o'clock. Are you going somewhere after this?"
