“Admiring,” she corrected, voice lazy. “There’sa difference.”
“Mm.” I stepped close and hooked a finger under one strap of her romper, pulling until it slipped off her shoulder. She shrugged out of it. Her waves were tangled around the other strap, and something in me went very still and very, very pleased at the fact that I was the one who got to undress her like this. “Lift your hair, Mrs. Almost-Fraser.”
“That’s not my name,” she protested automatically, but she obeyed, gathering her hair in her free hand until it pulled free of the strap and baring the long line of her neck. It made it easy to tug the other strap off her shoulder and peel the fabric down her body.
I kept my eyes mostly on her face. Mostly. I was hungover, not dead. And those fucking tan lines, herwarm goldlen skin, the fading bite marks on her hips I’d put there myself. Yeah. Definitely not dead.
She shivered in the cool air, then reached for the hem of my T-shirt, pushing it up with determined little hands. “Your turn,” she muttered. “Equal nudity.”
“Bossy,” I said, but I let her strip me, because I was weak and in love and there was no universe where I was saying no to her hands on me.
We stepped under the spray together. The water was hot enough to sting at first, then sink into our sore muscles like an apology. She tipped her head back, eyes closing, water running over her face and down her throat, tracing every place I’d kissed this last week.
I reached for the shampoo and squeezed some into my palm, then gently worked it into her hair, fingers massaging her scalp. Her whole body melted. She sighed so deeply it felt like a release, the tension draining out of her limbs as she swayed closer.
“Mmmm, I’d marry you for your hair-washing skills alone,” she murmured. “Everything else is just… bonus features.”
Part of me wanted to laugh. The other part wanted to keep this moment gentle and fragile. I bent and pressed a slow kiss to her wet forehead, then another to the bridge of her nose, her cheeks, the corner of her mouth. Nothing hungry. Just soft, lingering touches that made her lips part on a small, helpless sound.
She opened her golden-green eyes, hazy and content, and lifted her hands to my shoulders, sliding them around my neck. We drifted together until her front was pressed to my chest, water beating down our backs. I kissed her properly then—unhurried, lazy, the kind of kiss you only had time for when you weren’t already braced for impact.
And fuck, that was the best feeling in the world. I’d spent my whole life speeding and racing, and now I craved more than anything to slow down and stay still.
She tasted like sleep and last night’s wine and something sweet that had nothing to do with either.
My hands settled at her waist, thumbs stroking idly at the dip above her hips. Even that felt different this morning. Less like trying to hold us together through a storm, more like… memorizing the feel of peace.
“Scale now?” I murmured against her mouth. “Shower edition.”
She hummed, forehead resting against mine, eyes still closed. “Ten,” she whispered. “Definitely ten.”
A slow, deep satisfaction rolled through me. I kissed the corner of her mouth again, then reluctantly stepped back before my self-control got ideas.
“Good,” I said, reaching for the conditioner. “No fainting in the shower. I’d never live it down.”
“You’d catch me,” she said easily.
“Every time,” I answered.
We moved around each other in a sleepy rhythm. Washing, rinsing, trading soft, distracted kisses whenever we passed within reach. Every brush of skin sparked awareness, but it stayed quiet and banked. There’d be time for feral later. Right now, it was enough to exist together under hot water, alive and whole—stupidly in love while our friends nursed hangovers in the next room.
By the time we stepped out, the mirror was fogged, our fingers wrinkled, and her hair was slick and heavy down her back. I wrapped a towel around her shoulders and another around her body, then took my time drying her off, just because I could.
“You’re ridiculous,” she muttered, but she didn’t stop me.
“You love it,” I said.
“Unfortunately,” she said, but there was no bite in it.
I shoved my own towel through my hair until it stuck up at worse angles than usual and went hunting for clothes in the dresser. The thought of actual buttons made my head throb in self-defense.
“Absolutely not,” I muttered, bypassing the linen shirt that had made me feel like a rich yacht prick. I grabbed a soft, washed-black t-shirt and a pair of grey joggers instead. My body sighed in relief just looking at them.
Behind me, drawers slid and hangers rattled. “What’s our vibing aesthetic today?” she asked. Her voice was still scratchy from sleep and wine. “Rich bitch? Paddock chic? ‘We definitely did not drink six bottles of wine between six people’?”
“Pretty sure it was seven,” I said, pulling the shirt over my head. My brain flinched at the movement. “We opened three inside, brought three down with us, and then Marco came back with another after he went to the bathroom. When we were already on the beach.”
She paused. “Seven?”
