“Hi yourself.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been hit by a very attractive truck.” I turn in his arms, looping my hands behind his neck. “A truck that apparently has stamina issues. As in, too much stamina. An unreasonable amount.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was meant as one.” I reach up and push the wet hair from his forehead. Without his glasses, with water streaming down his face, he looks younger. Softer. Like the boy he must have been before the world taught him to hide. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”
Even after everything we just did, he still blushes when I compliment him. “I’m adequate.”
“You’re beautiful. And I’m not going to stop saying it until you believe me.”
“That could take a while.”
“Good thing I’m not going anywhere.”
He kisses me then—slow and sweet, nothing like the desperate hunger from before. Just connection. Just us.
When he pulls back, he reaches for my shampoo on the shelf. “Turn around.”
I turn. His fingers sink into my hair, working the lather through my curls with a gentleness that makes my throat tight. No one’s washed my hair since I was a kid. But now, there’s something unbearably intimate about it. About letting someone take care of you like this. About trusting them with the small, tender things.
“Tip your head back.”
I do, and he unhooks the removable shower head and rinses me, his hand guiding my neck in precise increments so the soap doesn’t get in my eyes. I love the way Logan approaches even this like a micro-experiment—attention-to-detail bordering on maniacal, but always in service of making me feel as good as possible. The kind of service you can’t buy, can’t even ask for, not really.
When he’s done, he reaches for the conditioner and scrunches it into my hair gently—exactly the way he’s seen me doing—and then traces his fingers over my scalp, massaging slow, steady circles. I’m a puddle.
Logically, I know what conditioned hair is supposed to feel like, but I swear he’s managed to make even that into an act of worship. He’s careful not to tug, uses just the right amount of pressure, always pausing to confirm I’m comfortable before moving on. I want to laugh at myself for getting emotional over what is, essentially, a luxury spa treatment in a billionaire’s shower, but mostly I just want to keep standing here forever.
“You’re purring,” he observes.
“Maybe. I’ll neither confirm nor deny. You’re good at this.”
“I researched techniques.”
“You researched hair-washing techniques in case I ever let you wash my hair?”
“I research everything. It’s a coping mechanism.” His hands still for a moment. “Is that weird?”
“It’s very you.” I turn to face him again, water streaming between us. “But no, it’s not weird. It’s sweet. Deranged, but sweet.”
“You keep using that combination of words.”
“Because it keeps being accurate.”
He leans in, lips brushing mine in a way that’s feather light but loaded, and even the gentle affection has every nerve ending under my skin sparking. For a man who just railed the sense out of me against an antique desk, he’s infuriatingly good at switching gears—tender now, infinitely patient, like he’s memorizing the angles of my face for the next time he needs them, which is probably always. I taste the warm, mineral tang of water on his lips, feel the strange disconnect of being so clean and so thoroughly ruined all at once.
He lets the kiss stretch out, lazy, hands coasting over my shoulders and back. When he draws away, he takes the showerhead again and rinses my hair with unhurried care, the water temperature somehow dialing up to exquisite rather than scalding. I close my eyes as he moves my head, his voice a low hum.
“Almost done. Don’t move.”
There’s a pause, then he sets the showerhead back into its holder.
“Would you… can I wash you? Is that—allowed?” There’s a rawness in his voice, almost-bashful reverence, like he’s not sure if the words are ridiculous or profound.
Something inside me aches at the question. It’s how he asks. Not because he expects it, but because it’s an earnest privilege.
