I’ve never been with a man who had a piercing like that, but just looking at it, I can imagine it’s going to feel delicious.
His smile is cocky, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Got it after my divorce. A parting gift to myself. Felt a little ridiculous at the time but I was in my twenties and wasn’t thinking clearly. Never took it out.”
“Damn,” I breathe out, laughing softly. “The only thing my ex-husband gave me after my divorce was distrust for men, a mountain of legal debt, and an inability to orgasm.”
His brows shoot up, eyes darkening with something that feels dangerously close to a challenge. “Inability to orgasm?”
I shrug, trying to play it off, but my cheeks are now burning with the admission. This isn’t something I’d normally share with a date, but I’ve also never gotten this far to hooking up with someone who wasn’t my ex-husband.
Gabriel isn’t a normal guy, and this isn’t a date. He’s my neighbor, my roommate’s cousin, and tonight, he’s the one person I desperatelywant to see me—really see me and help me come for the first time in years.
“Yeah,” I say quietly.
He steps closer, fingers hooking into the waistband of my jeans, eyes locked on mine like he can see straight through me.
“We’re going to change that tonight. If you’ll let me. Okay?”
I nod, my throat tight with emotion I haven’t let myself process. “Okay.”
He pushes my jeans down slowly, along with my underwear, until I’m standing there completely bare, my skin tingling under his gaze. He steps out of his own clothes, and suddenly it’s just us—no barriers, no pretense, just skin on skin. His warmth seeps into me, grounding and electrifying all at once as he wraps his arms around me in a hug.
It’s not sexual. It’s not intimate. It’s just two people doing something that they both consent to and healing parts of their selves individually in the process.
I feel that ice melt a little more.
“We’re not leaving this bathroom until you come,” he whispers, and there’s something about the way he says it that tells me I believe him.
I’ve never had a man’s sole focus be on my pleasure. It’s relieving. It’s attractive. It’s exactly what I need.
I’m not leaving this bathroom until I come.
Chapter 14: Gabriel
I extend my hand, giving Alessia the space to decide what she wants to do next. There’s no pressure, no expectations from me. Just the promise of warmth and release if she wants it.?
She takes my hand without hesitation, and I notice the first signs of her walls lowering.
I guide her past the glass door and into the shower, steam curling around us as the water pelts down, hot and steady. This house that my cousin purchased might be painfully outdated in a hundred ways that I still need to fix, but at least the shower has been remodeled. It’s got modern fixtures and steady water pressure along with a showerhead that’s high enough to clear my height.
The second the heat hits her, I feel it—the slow, unfurling release of tension in her body. Shoulders loosening. Breath deepening. The rigid line of her spine softening against me as she melts. If you could physicallyfeelsomeone letting go mentally, this would be the closest thing to it.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been intimate like this, and I don’t intend to rush it. Having her trust and feeling her relaxgives me the push that I need to take my time and help her enjoy this.
I pull her back against my chest, letting her take the full force of the water to her front while I take the full weight ofher. Her body is warm, slick, molding into mine like she belongs here.
My hands move over her curves. Down her hips, to her thighs. Then up to her ribcage, around her front to her breasts that I palm in both hands. Even in my grip, she’s spilling out and I love the weight of them and the way her nipples darken even more when she’s turned on.
She’s so curvy. Everything about Alessia is beautiful. The way her hips flare beneath my grip. The toned strength of her thighs. The delicate arch of her spine. And those two little dimples right above her ass—perfect for digging my thumb into when I take her from behind later.
“Soap?” I murmur against her ear, even though I know she’s already clean, it’s not about that. I want to touch every part of her; be sure she’s warmed like putty in my grip before I start anything.
She nods toward a bottle of shower gel that’s perched on one of the ledges. I reach around her, lathering up a pink loofah I find, then press it against her skin, dragging it over her body in slow, unhurried circles.
I sink to my knees, starting at her feet, massaging as I go. Every movement is intentional—rubbing the soap into her calves, kneading out the tension in her thighs, working my way up with steady, lingering strokes so that every part of her is touched by me.
Her skin is smooth, and warm under my touch, with a few stretch marks on her thighs and ass that I’d never notice but show growth. I’ve always loved a woman with these. It shows that their body has changed, and they’ve matured. It shows that they’velived.And there’s something so sexy about awoman who understands life because I’ve lived too.
Perhaps that’s what I’ve always needed. A woman who gets what it means to have alifethat’s not always perfect to the outside world.
