“Oh, hi.” Deacon was clearly surprised to see AJ. “You’re the neighbor, right? You were with Poppy on the footage? I’m Deacon.”
He extended his hand, and AJ shook it. “AJ.”
AJ couldn’t quite put his finger on what the deal was with Deacon St. Claire, but there was more to his story than he was letting on. For one thing, Deacon definitely knew who AJ was when he’d just shaken his hand. Maybe, like AJ, Deacon had googled him, but he sensed it was more than just that.
It could be that Deacon was a Waves fan, and so he knew Niko Costas and knew Niko had a brother, AJ. That could be why there was recognition in Deacon’s eyes, but it felt like more than that.
When he dropped AJ’s hand, Deacon looked back at Poppy. “I won’t keep you, I just wanted to make sure you were okay, that you didn’t need anything. And if you’re not feeling up to taking Tabitha to schoo?—”
“I’m fine. Really,” Poppy insisted as she touched the stitches on her forehead. “It looks like Frankenstein, but I’m okay.”
Deacon smiled. “Well, if that changes, just let me know. It’s no problem. I can work from home. And if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thanks.” Poppy shut the door and turned around to face AJ.
He could see from her expression that she was not happy. She crossed her arms and looked up at him. “Someone is very bad at following orders.”
AJ grinned. Her statement was too lighthearted for her to be really upset. “I’m much better at giving them.”
His comment caused a flush to rise up her chest and cheeks. He hadn’t meant it to be sexual, but now that he’d seen the way she’d blushed his dick thought he had.
“I, um, I need to take a shower before bed.” She licked her lips and headed into the bathroom, he followed behind her.
He used to think about sex the way he thought about music theory, as a system, a multi-level puzzle, an equation to be mastered for results. There was a time when he’d get off on the precision, the timing, the rhythm, and the feedback loop of pleasure and performance. But with her, none of those metrics mattered, because every time she brushed against him, all the structure fell away, and it was just chaos and heat and nerve endings going haywire.
He’d barely kept his hands off her for the last two days, and she was fresh out of the hospital. His body had basically switched into permanent low-grade arousal every time he was near her, as if his hormones had retroactively gone full primitiveman, the biological impulse triggered by the idea of his genetic material being propagated and protected.
He stopped, waiting outside the bathroom. She wasn’t just home from the hospital and unsteady on her feet. But she was still getting a little woozy and could need his help.
She took out a waterproof bandage and secured it in place, then pulled her shirt up and over her head, letting the fabric fall to the floor before she stepped out of her underwear and sweats.
After turning on the shower, she glanced over her shoulder. He forced himself to keep his eyes above her shoulders and not allow them to drift down to her perfect, heart-shaped bare ass. “Coming?”
A deep groan rumbled in his chest. He didn’t trust himself to get into that intimate space with her. The past forty-eight hours had been a long torture session of foreplay.
“I’ll wait here.”
“Please, just come in here with me,” she asked softly, but with that pointed edge that always made him ache.
He stepped into the humid air of the bathroom, blurring the lines of their bodies, as if the world outside had faded and left only this space, this heat, this wanting. She was already under the spray, droplets running down her flesh.
“All the way in.”
He hesitated because it was the right thing to do. He hesitated because the entire room had gone thick with steam and he was so hard it actually hurt. He hesitated because if he didn’t he might cross a line.
“Please, I need you to wash my hair.”
He started to move to help her, but she put her hand up.
“I don’t want to get your clothes wet again.”
Fuck. She was actually trying to kill him.
AJ peeled off his t-shirt, sweats, and boxers with quick, economical movements, careful not to let his gaze linger onthe way her skin gleamed as water ran over the curves of her body. But he saw it anyway, the way heat rose up her chest, the scattered droplets as they slithered down the sensual lines of her hips and thighs.
He stepped into the glass stall, feet braced on cold tile. The space was small and close, their bodies almost touching, every breath amplifying the tension that had been simmering between them. He tried to focus on the task, not on the pulse of want that threatened to short-circuit his brain every time she blinked or shifted or looked at him.
He reached for the shampoo, squeezing a dollop into his palm, and began to work it through her hair. Being gentle was difficult, he wanted to fist his hands in her hair and drag her against him, but instead he used careful, measured pressure, fingers massaging her scalp, slipping behind her ears and tracing the line of her neck.
