Page 31 of Puppy Kisses

“Oh, hell no.” She marched across his bedroom, taking quick note of the familiar sparsity of it—everything in neutral tones, nothing scattered over the tabletops, the only clutter a set of headphones on the side table that Adam used to listen to audiobooks. It had felt strange at first, this room with no pictures or knickknacks, every single item of clothing and sock tucked exactly where it was supposed to be, but she liked it now. There was something profoundly comforting in so much constancy.

There was also something profoundly appealing in it, but that wasn’t what Dawn intended to focus on right now. Without knocking this time, she pulled open the adjoining bathroom door.

“You’d better not be doing what I think you’re doing in there.” Without waiting for a reply, she reached for the hem of her dress and pulled it over her head. “If you’re wasting even an ounce of your stamina, you’re going to pay dearly for it.”

The blur of Adam’s naked body behind the semitransparent glass wasn’t clear enough for her to make outallthe details, but the scent of his alpine shampoo and the fact that his hands were up near his head seemed to indicate that he was only washing his hair.

Still. She wasn’t taking any chances. Not when she could practically feel the slide of his wet skin under her fingertips.

She wriggled out of her panties and unclipped her bra, making short work of the disrobing process. In fact, she was so quick that Adam barely had time to utter a protest before she pulled open the door and joined him inside the compact shower.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. “Zeke is—”

“Already well on his way to swim practice,” she finished for him. “We’re alone in the house. I think the real question is, what areyoudoing?”

She glanced down at his glorious nudity, marveling, as she always did, that a man could be so perfectly molded without hours of careful and strategic weight lifting at the gym. She’d dated enough gym rats to know that most men had to work very specific muscles to get that buff, sculpted physique so prized by Hollywood and Instagram influencers. Adam, on the other hand, never did anything that wasn’t related to this ranch. He didn’t have time for gym memberships, and even if he did, he’d probably scoff at the notion of spending energy working on something as silly as physical appearance.

Not that it seemed to matter to his body in the slightest. His thighs were a perfect picture of masculine power, his abdomen flat without being overly defined. Most of his musculature was in his arms and across his chest, a testament to all the heavy lifting required in a place like this.

And his ass, well… Dawn bit her lip. She could only be glad that he was face-to-face with her right now. There was a lot to be said for full frontal, but his ass made her feel unnatural things. It made her want todounnatural things.

“I was afraid you’d gotten started without me,” she said when all he did was continue to stand there, his head soapy and his body on display. “I had all sorts of punishments planned.”

His laugh was slightly mocking. “Just having you here is punishment enough, wouldn’t you say?”

Considering howrobustlyhe was adapting to her presence in his shower—and she hadn’t even touched him yet—she wouldn’t have said that at all. “It doesn’t look like you mind. In fact, I’d have to say you’re about to enjoy every second of my presence.” She paused and held her hand out to catch the drops cascading from up above. “This water is freezing, by the way. How can you stand it?”

“I can’t.” He reached out and turned the knob to a much warmer temperature. “But it was the only way I could keep myself from, ah, getting started without you.”

That was all Dawn needed to hear to have every nerve ending in her body thrumming. Call her crazy, but self-imposed preventive torture had to be one of the hottest aphrodisiacs on the planet.

She stepped under the spray and allowed the water to surge over her. The shower was so small that there was no way to do this without their bodies coming into contact. It wasn’t much to start out with—the brush of her nipple against his chest, her hip pressing against his—but it was enough. Especially since Adam was so soapy that everywhere they touched was smooth and slippery.

Smoothandslipperywere two of Dawn’s favorite adjectives when crammed naked into a compact space with a man, so she made the most of it. Turning this way and that, letting a small moan escape as the water crashed over her head and washed away the grime of the day, she became a body in constant motion.

Adam noticed—and in abigway. With a groan, he reached down and gripped her just below her waist, his fingers pressing into the roundest parts of her hip. “Stop wriggling around like that, dammit. I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing.”

She laughed at how irritated he sounded—a strange thing when he was so obviouslynotirritated with her right now. “Then duck your head, stupid. I’ll wash your hair for you. I’ll wash anything you want me to. Just tell me where you’d like me to start.”

“I thought we were going to have a drink first,” he grumbled, but he lowered his head enough so she could reach it. “I had a whole plan.”

“I hate plans,” she replied and threaded her fingers through the wet, soapy strands of his hair. Her nails weren’t very long, but she used what she had to massage his scalp, tilting his head this way and that as she rinsed. “They take all the fun out of everything. Why don’t you tell me about what you had in mind instead?”

He hadn’t yet let go of her hip, and at this request, his fingers dug even deeper into her flesh. “You don’t deserve to hear it.”

She laughed and renewed the wriggling undulations that had unsettled him so much before. The movements were intended to entice Adam to the point where he had no choice but to pin her up against the shower wall, but she’d underestimated his ability to hold himself in check.Herarms were starting to turn to gelatin, andherlegs were throbbing with the desire to have him between them, but he seemed able to control his limbs just fine.

“Fine,” he said and ran his free hand along his jawline. “The first thing I was going to do is shave. Otherwise, it’s going to feel like sandpaper against your lips later. Or between your thighs. I hadn’t yet decided where I was going to focus my attention.”

She stopped all movement at once. Despite the fact that they were surrounded by water, her mouth went dry. “Why not both?” she managed.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have as much time as I’d like. I figured I was either going to have to start at the top and work my way down, or start at the bottom and see where my tongue ended up. It was turning into a kind of dilemma, to be honest.”

“It just so happens I love sandpaper,” Dawn said. She reached for the shower knob. Enough of this wet, steamy foreplay. She was going to kiss this man soon or die trying. “It’s my favorite thing. On my lips, between my thighs, pretty much anywhere you’d like to rub it…”

His hand dropped over hers before she managed to get the water turned off. “I’ve never understood why you’re always in such a hurry. Some things aren’t meant to be rushed.” He gave a gentletskbefore grabbing a razor from a clip on the shower wall and pointing it at her. “Here. You do it.”

She looked at the razor but didn’t reach for it. “You want me to shave you?”