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He was bigger in the light. Dark hair spread across his chest, going gray at the center. His shoulders and arms carried fourteen years of hauling hose, and a purple bruise was coming up along his ribs where a beam had caught him on the way out. The old scar ran along his left forearm, shiny and puckered and gold under the bulb. It was a body that worked for a living, and I got to look at it for as long as I wanted.

"Molly." His throat moved. "You're staring."

"Yes." I laid my palm flat on his bruise, light as a breath. "Does it hurt when you breathe?"

"Only when you look at me like that."

The turnout pants came off next, and the rest of it, and then he stood there in the full glare of the bathroom light, hard and unashamed, with his arms loose and nothing hidden, letting me see. My mouth went dry. I'd had him in firelight and in the dark. I hadn't known he would be so beautiful.

My own buttons were the problem. My fingers fumbled the second one, and the old voice started up in my head, the one that knew every inch of me, the hips and the stomach and the thighs. I stood there with my shirt half open, and my arms started to come up to cover myself.

"Don't." He said it easy, and he caught my wrists without any pressure at all. "Two years, Molly. Let me look."

I let my arms fall and worked the rest of the buttons while he watched, taking his time, and for once the heat climbing my skin wasn't embarrassment. When I was bare, he let out a breath that shook on the way out.

"God," he said. "Look at you. Look how beautiful you are. You're perfect, sweetheart. Every inch."

Nobody had ever said that to me with the lights on. Ten years in finance, and I'd been told I was thorough, efficient, and reliable, and nobody had ever told me I was perfect while naked, with a hand that wasn't quite steady. I discovered I'd do nearly anything to hear it again.

He took my glasses off, folded them, and set them on the shelf. Then he opened the shower door, and we stepped into the steam.

The water was scalding, and it felt wonderful. Gray soot ran off us both and swirled down the drain. I picked up the bar of soap, cedar-scented and plain, and lathered it between my palms.

"Last time," I said, "I asked you to tell me what to do. Tonight I'd like to look. I'd like to touch you. I'd like to take my time."

"Anything you want." His voice was rough and low. "Everything's yours."

Chapter 10

Molly

Iwashed his chest first, working the soap through the hair, feeling the muscle jump beneath my palms. I washed his shoulders and the long line of his back, and the heavy muscle there flexed when I pressed my thumbs into it. I found the blistered knuckles and lifted his hand to my mouth, and kissed each one. Something low and helpless came out of his throat.

"I'm a nurse," I whispered against his skin. "I'm permitted."

"Veterinary nurse."

"Same principle. Hold still."

He held still. His whole body shook with the effort. I washed the scar on his forearm last and slowest, and when I pressed my lips to it, he put his free hand flat against the tile as if the floor had tilted. I went down his stomach with the soap, then lower, and when my hand closed around his cock, his head fell back and his breath left him in a rush.

"Molly."

"Is that all right?"

"Christ. Yes. Yes, it's all right."

I stroked him slow, learning him in the light, the heat of him, the heavy weight in my palm, the tremor that ran through his thighs. His eyes were closed. Water ran down his chest. The flush spreading across his skin made me bold, and I sank to my knees on the tile.

"Molly, you don't have to⁠—"

"I know." I looked up at him through the steam. "I want to."

The first taste of him made me moan. I took him into my mouth slow, tasting salt and soap and him, and his hand shot out and braced against the wall, his fingers digging at the tile. I used my tongue and my hand and then my mouth again, finding the rhythm, learning what made his breath catch and his hips jerk. When I took him deeper, he swore.

"That's it. Fuck, that's it, sweetheart." His other hand slid into my wet hair, and he stopped, shaking. "Can I?"

I hummed yes around him.