Page 43 of A Lifetime of Afters
My eyes dropped to look at his hand but got caught on his erection. I smiled triumphantly. “Ha! My work here is done,” I sauntered over to the shower and bent over, taunting him, to turn on the water.
Hawk remained in the doorway with his hands braced on the frame, the muscles in his arms and chest on glorious display, looking down at his dick. “Sorry, buddy. If she takes us there, I don’t think I’ll be able to stand. You’re going to have to wait.”
A fit of giggles bubbled up in my chest, but I repressed them as I made a show of bending over to talk to my vagina. “It’s okay, sister. We’ve got excellent toys at home. We don’t need him and his little buddy.”
“Little?” he exclaimed, stalking toward me. “Who are you calling little?” Pulling me against his chest, he grinned down into my face and reached past me to test the water. “I should take you outside and throw you in the snow, but this will have to do.”
With that, he lifted me off my feet and stepped into the shower where the full force of the freezing water hit me.
“Ah, Hawk, you asshole!” I screamed, smacking his back.
He spun me away from the spray, laughing and gasping as it hit him instead while he hurried to adjust the temperature.
“That was mean!” I frowned, my arms wrapped around my shivering frame.
He grinned at me. “But funny.”
“Yes,” I admitted begrudgingly. “It was funny.” I smiled at a memory. “Remember when we all went up to the cottage at Moose Lake and Hunter poured freezing water over the edge of the shower curtain on your dad? Startled him so badly your dad pulled the whole curtain down.”
“And stood there naked and gaping while the five of us stared back?” Hawk laughed. “Come here,” he held out his hand. “It’s hot now.”
I grinned. “Harley and I ran out of there so fast. I couldn’t look your dad in the face for years.”
Holding my hand, he tugged me under the water, dropping a gentle kiss onto my shoulder.
“The man is hung,” he teased. “It’s where I get it from.”
“Oh my gosh, stop talking!”
We made short work of our shower as he held true to his word that nothing but nothing would happen.
He got out first and passed me a bath sheet which made him a truly hot commodity in my book. Getting out of the shower in the cold ranked in the top five things I hated most about winter. It may even have been number one followed by slush, power outages, icy roads, and scraping my car off in the morning.
The volume of his complaints showed me he was not a fan either. Wrapped in his enormous bath sheets, we jumped into his bed and pulled the heavy blankets up over our shoulders.
At that moment, the exertion from our early morning hike caught up with me. My limbs heavy, I groaned, “I can’t move.”
“Moving is overrated,” he huffed. “I thought I was fit, but after this morning I’m not so sure.”
Turning on my side, I folded my arm under my head and studied his profile.
Strong nose, firm lips, crazy beard that did crazier things to my breasts and thighs. He smiled up at the ceiling, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way that called to my heart and my lips.
“You’re staring at me again,” he chuckled, turning on his side to mirror me.
“You’re beautiful,” I said.
He snorted. “Women are beautiful, Noelle.” He ran a gentle finger from my temple to my chin. “You’re beautiful.” His eyes warmed on my face. “I’m a stud,” he teased.
“You are a stud,” I confirmed, hearing the smile in my voice.
Since we’d started, a warm sense of belonging became my daily companion.
My eyes ran around his face, delighting in him, in being so close to him. I held up my hand and, his eyes soft, he pressed his palm to mine.
Watching his reaction, I confessed, “I don’t want us to be a secret anymore.”
His face fell. When he went to pull his hand away, I quickly laced my fingers through his. “Don’t. Don’t pull away unless you’re doing it for real.”
