When I had taken the Rio job, I had never imagined I would allow myself to become so close to someone. Yet I am here now, drenched in this bathtub as I vow that I would do anything for this man, this man who has donesomuch for me.
Gently, I begin to cover his skin with the soap. My hands are shaky against his body at first, but they steady when I realize that he is familiar. His strong arms, the solid planes of his chest, scars and tattoos I have unwittingly memorized. A name here, the flag of Brazil there, a pair of dice, a cross entangled with a rosary. That stick-and-poke happy face on the side of his right wrist. If there was a detail that I hadn’t noticed yet, I take it in now.
His eyes slowly rise from the floor of the tub to meet mine, slightly red-rimmed, as beautiful a deep brown as they’ve always been. It is a symphony of pain and intimacy and stinging. The shower water pounds down around us and dripsdown our faces as I reach behind Darien, my chest flush with his, my T-shirt clinging to his skin as I spread the soap across the terrain of his muscles. My breath quickens and catches like a broken record.
I know I should stop. But from here, from this place where my body fits against his like pieces of a puzzle, I don’t know if I can so much as move.
‘Stay,’ Darien murmurs into my wet hair. ‘Please stay, Shantal.’
His voice is rough, heavy with desperation. It paralyzes me. It forces me to grow roots that anchor me here.
My legs seem to act of their own volition, positioning me so I can sit with my back to his chest as his thighs press against my hips. I lean back, his mouth finds mine, and what his hands cannot convey to me, his lips do. He kisses me the way someone begs for a miracle. His kiss is a string of words that I don’t need to hear to believe.
Thank you.
You’re what I’ve needed.
Every single inch of you.
Even through a layer of wet clothing, the heat of him is palpable on my skin, separated only by the water. I slowly bring his left hand up under my top. I need him closer, and the way he touches me, he needs the same.
‘Turn around,’ Darien barely whispers, his breath hot on my ear. I do, bracing myself by his shoulders, my shorts and shirt heavy with water. Darien’s touch is still stiff, but even as I wrap my legs around him, even with his limitation of movement, his good hand grips my thigh. He lays kisses down my collarbone, making me shiver despite the growing cloud of steam in the shower. His hand moves up, fingers teasing at the waistband of my shorts. I don’t think I can take it.
I press my lips to his as if I am starving and will not liveanother day. My hips jolt forward against him and he groans into my mouth. I stay with him, the only place I can conceive of in this moment.
‘I’m sorry.’ Darien’s voice is husky yet broken as I hold him to me. ‘For the way this … this injury messed me up …’
‘I don’t care,’ I gasp, my voice cracking, ‘if you can’t … can’t take off your helmet. I don’t even care if you can’t race, Darien.’
‘No?’ The word is almost a whimper.
‘No.’ I tangle my fingers in his hair, brush water from his cheeks. ‘I care that I can stillfeelyou.’
Darien buries his head in my shoulder. His hair tickles my jaw. ‘I do, too,’ he murmurs. ‘I do, too, Shanni.’
Shanni.
I cannot tell where water-flow ends and where tears begin. He can’t have known, but that name has not felt right coming from anyone else for so long. That name was Sonia’s first, until everyone else picked it up, and then, a year ago, it began to sound foreign. Estranged. Yet every syllable fits perfectly on his lips.
He murmurs it into my hair, into my neck, like an incantation, a plea.
Darien peels off my wet shirt and throws it aside, helping me to my feet as I shimmy out of my soaked shorts. Nothing is enough, no amount of proximity sufficient. My back presses against the wall of the shower, and the soap bottle falls to the floor with a loud crash that we both ignore. The softness and the passion of Darien’s touch melt me completely. He tears my bra off as I work furiously at the button of his jeans; we are desperate for absolutely nothing to come between us. He moves a hand to my hip while he kisses me, a hand that slowly travels down the inside of my thigh till his fingers brush the edge of my panties, neither giving me what I want nor denying it completely. I hate him all the more for it as his touch creeps beneath the lacy fabric.
I manage a breathy laugh that turns into a moan when he uses just the right amount of pressure in just the right place. He covers my lips with his and catches the next plea that escapes me. My eyes nearly roll back in my head when his fingers shift slightly lower.
‘You ready, Shanni?’ he whispers, lips skimming the spot beneath my jaw.
I don’t know if I can let him tease me a minute more. I hang on to him as if he’s a tree in the middle of a storm. I can manage little but his name and my assent. He’s left me completely speechless. I’ve had little to say in the last year, but now, when I could tell him so much, I can only hope he knows.
Even with the hot water from the shower, my skin goes cold when he reaches over to the cabinet below the sink and comes back with a condom that he quickly rolls on before turning his attention back to me. ‘How you want me,mina?’ He presses his forehead to mine and meets my eyes in that way he has, making certain I’m good. ‘Just tell me. I’m here.’
‘I don’t know.’ I kiss him, and I kiss him again, and I feel him smiling as I pull myself closer to him. Heishere, and for me; nothing else matters about this. ‘I don’t know how. I just want you.’
‘Yeah. Yeah.’ He exhales hard, a rush of air I can feel on the bridge of my nose. I swear, he shivers a little, and that’s all the reassurance I need. He hooks a finger around the side of my panties and slides them off. My entire body quivers with anticipation. His erection presses against my thigh as he holds me to him.
‘I just want you,’ I murmur again. My thumb traces circles on his back, and I feel his muscles relax slightly. I use my legs to bring myself right up against him, and he moves his hand to hold my waist with the barest squeeze of assurance:I’ve got you.
It’s a moment before Darien finally slips inside me, and I lift my hips, gripping his back with so much force that I’m surprised he doesn’t flinch. His lips find mine, and mine find his name. ‘Dar.’
