He still wasn’t touching her, but he was so close she could feel his warmth; the dampness of his flesh seemed to brush her own. He leaned forward, pressing her against the wall behind her, bracing them both, where they stood, and when he spoke, there was emotion in his voice, as if the moments of banter had been cast aside. “I want the answers, yes, because if anyone ever deserved for the truth to be known, it was Nancy.”
She lowered her head suddenly afraid. She had rushed into this, thinking she could indulge in reckless desire and come out unscathed. She wasn’t even hearing what he was saying to her; she was far too hypnotized by the aura of this man she had known for so brief a time. But that time had been intense. She knew she had been attracted to him from more than a physical standpoint, though that particular appeal was in the ascendant at this particular moment. But there was so much else about him to admire. She knew he took work seriously, that he wouldn’t take the time to humor a whim of hers no matter what he felt for her sexually.
She also knew that there had been something lacking in him. An ability to give himself completely, maybe, because the past had been shadowing him no matter how he had tried to shake it. She wondered if his words were a strange form of commitment to her, but she didn’t want to try to test them. She was shaken, frightened of the passion, of her own desire to be with him. Not just to sleep with him, but to be with him.
“Ashley?”
He lifted her chin, then slid a hand around her nape, bent and kissed her lips. Against the chill of the air-conditioned cabin, the warmth of his lips was electric. The ills of the world seemed to slip from her shoulders. The hair-roughened texture of his chest rubbed against her naked breasts, and that light contact seemed to arouse a roiling lava bed in the pit of her stomach.
When he moved away from her, his lips remained close as he whispered, “You know, you looked good in those trainee blues of yours, you look darn good in jeans, and you even look fantastic in seaweed. But I’m willing to bet you look even better all lathered in soap.”
A smile crept into her lips. “I’m assuming this boat has a small shower.”
“Small can be good.”
“And too tight to move.”
“Tight can be good, too.”
“And awkward.”
“You never know until you investigate the situation.”
“True. And, of course, you’re known for your investigative technique.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“My pleasure.” She slipped from beneath his arm, shed the jeans that had given him so much trouble, took a step and eased out of her thong panties. She cast a glance over her shoulder. “Head…master cabin…shower. I’m on my way.”
It wasn’t that small a shower. The Gwendolyn was a houseboat, after all, not a pleasure craft. Tight, yes, but the shower did offer room for two. Two who stood very close. Almost touching, skin to skin. Yet when she took hold of the bar of soap, she didn’t have the room to slide it freely down the length of her form. Apparently he’d been anticipating such a dilemma. His darkly bronzed fingers slid over her own and took the bar of soap from her grip. He started with her throat. “We investigators don’t like to miss a thing.”
“Your entire case could fall apart if you did.”
“I like to be thorough.”
The bar of soap, wielded so deftly in his hands, moved over her breasts, the hardness of the bar excruciating against the sensitivity of her nipples. She felt them quickening, shaking with little spasms centered deeper in her body. The water in the tiny stall sluiced continually against the foam he created. Steam misted and rose quickly. His hands, slick and sure, moved slowly down the length of her, caressing her ribs and midriff, the plane of her abdomen, over her hips, then erotically flat and low, sliding between the length of her legs. Her breath caught. She felt she would have fallen had there been room to do so. The slide and swiftness of his fingers seared and teased with each seductive touch and stroke. The soap fell between them. They both went to retrieve it, crashed, laughed, left it…locked into an embrace instead, mouths glued and hungry, tongues sweeping, soap still sluicing over them both as the water rained down and the steam rose, enveloping them both.