His arm bands around my waist, pulling me into him.
“Enzo?”
“Yeah?”
I turn in his arms to face him, water cascading between us.
“Thank you. For tonight. For letting me—”
“You don’t need to thank me.” His thumb traces a circle on my hip. “He deserved everything he got.”
“I know. But still.” I reach up, touch his jaw, trace the faint scar above his brow. “You could have kept me away from it.”
“You needed to be there.” His eyes hold mine, unwavering. “I understood that.”
The water runs pink between us for a moment, the last of Sokolov’s blood swirling down the drain.
Enzo's hands slide up my ribs.
“Luca.” His voice is husky, thick with a meaning I’ve come to know over the past few days. “If you want me to just wash you and put you to bed, tell me now.”
My heart hammers. “What if I don’t want that?”
His grip tightens. “Then tell me what you do want.”
I lean in, pressing my forehead to his. “I want to feel something other than anger. Other than grief.”
“I can do that.” He reaches for the soap again, and I think he’s going to kiss me, but instead he turns me around, my back to his chest. “Let me finish washing you up first.”
His hands return to my body, slick with lather. He starts at my shoulders, kneading the tension there, then slides down over my shoulder blades, my spine, the small of my back.
“You’re still shaking,” he observes.
“I know.”
His hands round my hips and drift to my stomach, palms flat, fingers spread. He pulls me back against him, and I feel the hard length of him against my ass. He doesn't acknowledge it, and I don't say anything.
His hands keep going, moving in slow circles across my abdomen.
“Enzo.”
“Mmm?”
“You’re missing spots.”
A low hum rumbles against my ear. “Am I?”
His hands slide lower, bypassing where I want them, moving instead to my thighs. He crouches behind me, soaping down one leg, then the other, his fingers working the muscles of my calves before traveling back up, up the inside of my thighs, the crease where leg meets hip. Close, so close, but never quite touching.
“You’re doing this on purpose.”
“Doing what?” he says innocently, but then his fingers skim the underside of my balls and my whole body jerks. “I’m being thorough.”
“You’re being a tease.”
He rises, chest pressed to my back again, and his soapy hand finally wraps around my cock. I gasp, hips bucking forward into his grip.
“That better?” he murmurs against my ear.
