“I’m thinking ... I’ve been taking baths in the creek, but I could use a proper shower, and maybe something for dinner that wasn’t cooked over a camp stove.” She grinned at him. “And not to be rude, but you look like you’ve been rolled in a mud bath and put away damp. You need a shower even more than I do.”
Baz grinned back. “You know what? I think that can be arranged. There’s gotta be a motel around here somewhere.”
“I wouldn’t mind a store run before the motel. I don’t even have shampoo or clean underwear.” She grimaced. “Not to mention I’m flat broke. Maybe there’s still some room on my credit card, now that I can use it again.”
“Allow me to celebrate your new freedom by buying you underwear,” Baz said solemnly. “I will also very happily supply you with shampoo and whatever else you need, not that I’m saying you need it, because you look and smell amazing.”
“I look and smell like a woman who’s been camping out for a week,” Arden laughed. “Okay, fine. Let’s go shopping and thenwe’re finding the nearest motel and I’m jumping in the shower.” She looked up into his face. “And then I’m jumpingyou.”
With that in mind, Arden thought this might be the fastest she had ever cruised through the beauty and cosmetics aisle of a ShopMart. Baz collected a basket full of everything she so much as glanced at, and then led her into the clothing section and gestured. “Get whatever you need.”
“Baz, I’m serious, I can’t let you ...”
“I’mserious. Go crazy.”
She didn’t exactly go crazy, but she did pick herself up a new bra, and a change of clothes. It was lovely to look forward to a shower, but even lovelier to not have to put on the same stained sweater and jeans afterwards.
“I am also politely requesting that you buy yourself a clean shirt, if you don’t mind my saying so, Baz.”
Baz laughed and casually tossed a shirt into the basket. He also nabbed a package of condoms before they checked out.
They got a room at a small roadside motel, where the clerk didn’t even blink at his muddy condition. (Advantage to living in a farming area, Arden supposed.) They were in a clinch and kissing as they stumbled through the door. Arden dropped her bag wherever it wanted to fall. The room was small but tidy, a queen-sized bed and a table and lamp. After all that time camping out, with no idea when she might next sleep in a proper bed, it looked like the height of luxury.
“Do you want the first shower?” Baz asked when they broke apart.
“I’d love it, but I promise I won’t take too long.”
In the bathroom, she peeled off her sweat-stained and campfire-smelling clothes, once again luxuriating in the cleanness and the delight of turning on the tap and having hot water come out. She had grown up in low-rent apartments and trailers, then spent a few years in Grant’s top-of-the-linepenthouses that now seemed like a dream. Right now, this small, tidy bathroom with hot water cascading from the shower head was all the luxury she needed or wanted.
She was sudsing her hair under the delicious cascade of hot water when there was a knock on the bathroom door.
“You should’ve gone before I got in here!” she called over the shower noise. “It’s my bathroom now!”
“Actually,” Baz said through the door, “I was wondering if there was room for two.”
A rush of tingling spread through Arden down to her toes. “Probably not, actually,” she called back, laughing. The shower enclosure was small and cheap.
“Want to find out?”
“Oh, come on in here, let’s give it a try.”
Baz opened the door, and she peeked out through the steamy shower curtain as he began peeling off his clothes, dropping them on the floor with a look of disgust. She had already seen him naked, but this time she got to truly enjoy it, even under the caked-on mud. It looked like Baz had tried to wipe some of it off, but all he had really done was smear it around.
“What did you do, roll up and down the street and hit all the mud puddles on the way?”
“More or less. You should’ve seen Declan.” He joined her in the shower. It turned out that there was indeed room for two, at least two people who didn’t mind being very close together.
“Oh, wow,” Arden murmured as Baz pressed up against her, with hot water cascading over both of them. Suddenly she no longer had the slightest urge to laugh. He was just the right amount of hairy, rubbing against her skin whenever either of them moved.
She sudsed him with handfuls of shampoo. The water turned muddy, then sudsy, then clear, swirling down the drain around their feet. This involved deliciously running her hands all overhis body, up and down his hairy chest, over his muscular shoulders, down the wet contours of his back and across his flexing buttocks.
“If you keep this up, I think we’re going to need those condoms soon,” Baz managed in a strangled tone.
Arden straightened up, rubbing decadently against him. It had been so long since she had truly been able to think of herself as sexy and desirable. Now Baz was looking at her with eyes dark with need, glinting gold around the edges. Was that his bear? She felt herself in the grasp of something almost beyond herself, a physical passion that overwhelmed her at the same instant that it seemed to come over Baz.
He took her by the shoulders, pressing her back against the wall of the shower as his mouth took hers, claiming her lips, biting her throat. His entire body was in contact with hers, the slick wet length of his hard cock pressing against her thigh. Her nipples rose to hard points, and suddenly her need to have him inside her blanked out every other consideration.
“Condoms,” she mumbled. “Bed.” With what little mental capacity remained to her, she reached up and shut off the water.
