Right. She’d wanted a shower. He could do that. Get her all soaped up and slippery and…
Tess grabbed his hand and pulled. Shade followed. This was going to be fast.
She led him to her room and shut the door, yanking off her boots as she locked it. Her now-wrinkled pink scrubs and skimpy underclothes hit the floor before he could even reach for her, and the sight of her naked body thumped through him like a beat of deep percussion, resonating in his chest. The heavy thud of his heart told him things he already knew.Tess. Mine. Us. Want.
She moved toward him and grabbed his shirt, lifting it up and over his head. Shade’s abdomen tightened, and anticipation made his cock grow thick and hard. A wave of warmth surged through him when Tess’s fingers fell to his belt.
He let her undress him, helping only to toe off his boots. Her blue eyes landed on his erection and then roamed greedily over the rest of him. The way she looked at him was so fucking generous and sexy. No holds barred. She’d take a mile and give two. They stood together in nothing but skin, and Shade was more than ready to leave the shower for later and drag her into bed.
But Tess turned and moved toward her washroom, beckoning for him to follow. He stepped into the shower with her. It was tight for two. No matter; he’d make do. He couldn’t wait to be closer to her, so close they were joined from top to bottom, inside and out.
“Here goes,” she said, drawing in a deep breath.
It seemed like an odd thing to say and do, but Shade was beyond caring about anything other than getting inside her. He wanted her. And he wanted to show her, to prove to her… He wasn’t sure what. Whatever it was men proved.
Tess turned on the water. A timer beeped on, and an ice-cold spray hit him square in the back.
Shade jumped. “What the fuck?” he yelled.
“Go!” she cried. “Four minutes and seven seconds before the tank runs out.”
She pushed past him and slipped under the frigid stream, scrambling to get herself wet. She leaped back out again and went for the shampoo.
Shade followed her lead, breathing in short, pained bursts laced with muttered curses.
“Swearing your head off won’t make the water warm,” she said tartly.
“I’m going to punish you for this,” he told her through gritted teeth. His lust had died a cold death, and it was all he could do just to move.
“Switch!” Tess yelled out.
They waltzed in a circle, and she gasped when the water hit her head. She got the shampoo out of her hair, scrubbed her face with her hands, and then jumped back out and grabbed the soap.
Shade rinsed his hair and quickly exited the stream of death while Tess rinsed off, shivering, her nipples hard peaks, and her teeth chattering audibly. He soaped up like a madman, she got out of the way, and he started to rinse off just as the countdown began, a tinny electronic voice announcing that the tank would run out infive, four, three, two, one…
The water stopped.
Shade stood there, dripping wet, covered in goose bumps, his shoulders hunched in, and his cock the smallest it had ever been. Tess was in so much trouble right now.
He growled. “You are—”
He stopped talking when she grinned. Her reddish-brown hair was slicked back, and her freckles stood out in her pale face. She looked at him through dark lashes spiked with moisture, her brilliant-blue eyes glittering like the brightest of stars and blinding him to everything but her light.
“—fucking adorable,” he finished, smiling back.
Tess jumped into his arms, all naked, cold, and wet.
He swept them both out of the cubicle of doom and then reached for the towel he saw hanging on the wall. He rubbed Tess dry, quickly swiping the cold drops off her skin and then making a mess of her hair as he scrubbed her head extra hard in payback for the torture he’d just endured. She laughed, batting his hands away.
“Detail your water situation for me, Captain,” he demanded, turning the damp towel on himself.
Fuck, that was cold.
She answered as she ran her fingers through her hair, shaking it out. “One four-minute and ten-second tank for showers. It takes two days for the water to recycle and clean itself. Another slightly smaller tank for sinks and laundry.”
Shade gaped at her. “That’s it?”
Tess nodded. “Water’s expensive. So are tanks.”
