“Mm-hm.” He continued to slowly shake his head, which was worse than him saying any of those things. He winked at me, and I groaned, splashing him with water. He laughed and held up his arms to protect himself, and I did it again.
Aspen shot to his feet in a flash, and I gasped as he pulled a sprayer out of the tub near the taps. I shook my head, but he turned on the cold water and doused me with it. I hissed. “I’ll murder ye, ye muppet!”
“Settle down,” he said in that enraging, calm tone of his, the one that let me know he was laughing on the inside. He stopped the cold spray. “Don’t you need me because you can’t move?”
I glared and this time he laughed for real.
“Lean back,” he said, picking up some ritzy shampoo I didn’t recognize.
I eyed him. “Ye going to wash me?”
“We were sweating our asses off. Do you want to be dirty and itchy on top of everything else?”
Shrugging, I settled in, scowling at him every once in a while, when I didn’t have to close my eyes as he used the sprayer for its proper purpose, which was to rinse soap off my body. I winced and couldn’t stand to let him touch my back with anything but water, and he gave me a washcloth with soap to clean my face. The whole time my cock hadn’t gone to sleep, and when he took the cloth to gently clean down my chest and lower, I leaned back and bit the tip of my tongue. He didn’t say anything, but tormented me, washing all around my hard-on, even going down to my balls. Smiling, I shook my head.
We were doing something right now, but I wasn’t sure what the hell it happened to be. I didn’t have the energy to shove him off or invite him closer, though. I wasn’t completely certain which I wanted, but if I was honest, I hated the idea of Aspen being away from me.
After a few excruciating minutes, he moved away from the vee of my legs and down to quickly wash the rest of me. When he was done, he slung the rag onto the side of the tub and hit the button to let the water drain out. He snagged a thick white towel from the rack nearby, and I whimpered at the thought of trying to stand up.
“I’ll help if you’ll let me.” He jutted his chin and gave me a look like he thought I was being a pain in the arse.
Nodding, I prepared myself and held up my hands.
“No complaints?”
“I’ll gut ye, if ye tell anyone, blah, blah. It hurts, Aspen. I’m fecking exhausted.” When I peeked at him, there was something different about the way he looked at me. I didn’t want to dwell on it.
He grasped my hands, and together we got me on my feet and out of the tub. A hellish awkwardness settled as Aspen patted me dry. He didn’t touch my back at all. My traitor cock bobbed in front of me, and the same as earlier, Aspen ignored it. I wasn’t certain if he was torturing me on purpose or didn’t want to do anything with it. When he was finished, I wrapped the towel around my waist. My face burned along with my back. I’d enjoyed jerking him off, but he’d never mentioned it. I’d never brought it up, either. Had he not liked it much?
Humiliation washed through me. It was for the best to ignore this. I relied on Aspen to be there in ways I didn’t other people. He was more than some bloke I knew who lived with me, a lot more. We had each other’s backs. And I fecked things up when I got close to people. Couldn’t be nice with anyone except Vail. Something about Vail made me want to be softer, but I would get on Aspen’s bad side eventually if we rocked the boat. Part of the reason Vail stayed with me was that his extra sweetness made up for my lack of it... and he had other people to do the things I’d never seen the need for.
“Go lie down.” Aspen startled me, and I covered it up with a yawn.
I tried my best to glare. “Ye don’t have to do this.”
He grabbed the towel from around my waist, and I fought him for it, but he pulled it out of my grasp.
“Ye want a rematch?” I asked with a grin.
He winked and slapped my arse—hard. The pain nearly sent me to my knees. I stumbled out of the bathroom and crawled onto the bed simply so I wasn’t trying to stay standing any longer. The pain in my arsecheeks seemed to reverberate in every nerve ending in my body.
“That wasn’t hard,” he said with a chuckle. “You need the aloe, and no one else here will risk getting their head cut off to try to help your cranky ass.”
“Feckin’ hurts,” I grumbled.
“Good.”
I tried to turn to glare at him but couldn’t. I tensed because he was back there intending to do something to me. The cold gel landed in a line down my spine, and I nearly flew off the bed with the awful and somehow wonderful sensations that skittered across my hot skin. Aspen started at my neck and worked his way down, thoroughly and carefully, like yesterday. The motion of his hands stung and tweaked my pleasure centers at the same time.
“Why did this happen?” he asked, reaching down to pat the spot on my arse that still stung.
“ ’M not Fallon. I’m not yerboy,” I snarked. “I’ll put ye on yer arse if ye do that again.”
“You can try.” He leaned down and his lips tickled over my ear. “Come on, do it.”
“Ye’re lucky this feels good.” I shivered when his warm breath gusted directly into my ear. “I wanted to relax in the pool. I’m not sleeping well alone, so I guess I dozed off, that’s why.”
Aspen grunted, and I felt stupid.
