Blair snorts as she flings open the door and we head inside.
“From what I’ve witnessed since I’ve gotten here, everyone’s been handling you with kid gloves. That doesn’t seem to be helping so I’m going to do things my way,” she says, her voice colder than the rain and air outside.
She leads me down the hall, up the stairs, and into the bathroom. It's only once we’re inside that she finally lets go of my ear and I can straighten. My muscles spasm as I fight cramping from being hogtied then being forced to bend down to her level as she dragged me by the ear. Blair reaches into the shower to turn on the water.
“Clothes off,” she orders.
Without turning to make sure I obey, she starts to do just that. My thoughts are slow, as if each one is a drop unfreezing from a block of ice. But my body suddenly feels warm. I look away as she peels her long-sleeve Gnarly Pines shirt from her body but almost instinctually, I feel called back to watch the entire progress. I grimace, ashamed of myself, as I watch her peel the jeans from her hips. Jesus, look at that ass?—
I jerk my head away and glare at the floor. I must’ve lost my goddamn mind. I was never blind to Blair’s beauty, I’ve just ignored it. It was easy enough, given that I tend to ignoreeverything decent around me. But here? In my face? It feels like a monumental task.
With a hard gulp, I do as she’s told and start to undress. My flannel jacket comes off first. Apparently, I’m taking too long because Blair sighs, and the sound is loud and impatient.
Before I can pull the shirt over my face, she’s there doing it for me. It lands on the floor with a ‘plop’. She steps in front of me and reaches for my jeans. As she moves to unbutton my pants and pull down my fly, my gaze flickers to her perky, round breasts. Her dark nipples are beaded in the cool room. I try to look away but my eyes travel from each one, then down between her breasts to her toned stomach and then lower where a patch of dark, neatly trim fuzz sits between her legs.
She really is something.
My cock, semi-hard, springs free as Blair pulls my pants and boxers down together. She crouches so that the puddled material stays put as I pull a foot out of each pant leg. I don’t know why I’m not protesting. I can take off my own clothes. I can draw my own shower.
But when I lift my hands up, I notice the heavy tremors that shake them. Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to undress. And, as if the sight of them shaking makes me more aware of the rest of my body, I realize thatallof me is shaking. It’s not from being cold, albeit I’m sure that’s partially the cause. My heart is hammering in my chest as I gasp for air. My lungs scream for more and I gasp deeper, for longer but they don’t fill. They remain painfully empty.
“Hey,” Blair says, her voice softening for the first time tonight as she straightens before me. Her brows slowly creep together, causing the skin between them to softly pucker. “Let’s get under the warm water, okay?”
Blair wraps her hand around my forearm to guide me toward the shower. I can’t help but notice how much smaller and softerit is than Santi’s. It's a weird thought in a moment like this and I wonder why that came to mind as Blair helps me up over the lip of the tub, one foot at a time before joining me. Every move feels robotic. From Blair turning my body so that I’m facing the steaming hot water pouring down from the showerhead to her carefully tilting my head back so that the water hits my face directly.
“Alright, I’m going to clean you up and while I do, please feel free to lose control,” Blair says.
I didn’t plan to cry. I wasn’t holding back, waiting for her permission, nor did I feel an overwhelming sense of any emotion in particular. Yet, as Blair reaches for the shampoo, dumps some of it into her palms and begins to lather it through my hair, it’s like the walls of a dam crack. Then it crumbles away completely under the impending weight of torrential emotions. The first tear from either eye creates a trail the others follow. The water from the shower head doesn’t seem to hinder their progress and with each tear that falls, two more take their place until there's a constant stream of them.
The crack that fractures through my chest is agony. A sob, so deep and full of anguish that I know it’s coming straight from my soul, slips past my lips and echoes around me. I bow forward and wrap my arms around my middle hoping like hell that I can keep myself together. It doesn’t help. I’m falling apart and there’s no catching all the pieces.
An eerie sound erupts past my lips and it reminds me of a wounded animal. It’s howl, it’s sob, it’s a broken wail that belongs to a banshee, not a man. The noise plays on repeat, over and over, pausing only when I gasp for more air. I don’t realize that my body’s violent shaking hasn't subsided until an arm wraps around my waist and pulls me back against a warm body.
Blair’s breathing is slow and steady. I can feel her chest expand and retract. I’m not sure when I start to breathe with her, but as I do the pain begins to recede.
It’s a gradual process, the reclaiming control over myself. During that time, I’m washed from head to toe. There’s not a spot that Blair doesn’t make sure to clean me. If she notices the piercings that line my cock, she says nothing. The old scar on my thigh? She doesn’t hesitate to wash that too—as ugly as it is. I’m not done crying or piecing myself back together by the time she’s done, so she simply wraps both her arms around my waist and holds me.
We stand there under the hot water even when it turns lukewarm.
By the time it grows cold, my tears and sobbing have ceased. Blair lets go of me and steps out of the shower to grab us both fresh towels. She wraps herself up first, then turns off the water and dries me down with my own towel before wrapping it around my waist.
“I’m sorry,” she mutters.
Her apologize startles me. Before I can muster up the strength to ask her why, Blair continues.
“I shouldn’t have treated you like that after I yanked you off the edge of that cliff. I was scared and I… I resorted to how my dad would’ve handled the situation.”
A thousand questions pop up in my head.
None of them make it past my lips.
I’m simply too spent to dive intothatright now. So rather than reply, I simply nod—accepting her apology and letting it go.
“Come on.” She ushers me from the bathroom and we head to my room. She opens the door and starts to guide me in but catches the back of my towel. “Ew, okay. I’mnotputting you into your own bed tonight. It stinks in here and it’s filthy.”
I don’t have it in me to be ashamed. I simply follow her as she guides me back down the hallway in the direction we’d come from and she opens the last door on the right. I’m only vaguely aware that we’re in her room. It smells nice and it’s neat and tidy.
“Wait here,” she orders.
