A/N – Thank you for reading, and thank you for the reviews, too! The comments made me happy. Here's another chapter, now with more angst and more smut! The tone shifted a lot somehow. The story could be complete, or it could continue. I guess I'll wait and see.

Chapter 2

The bathroom was steamy as she stepped inside, and the change in atmosphere to the thick, thrumming humidity from the sterile quiet of her room was somehow fitting, somehow comforting.

Jess breathed in the heavy air, and then breathed it back out, alerting Nick that she'd entered.

"Hey Nick, look. I'm really sorry. That was really weird."

"Ya think, Jess?" Nick replied immediately from the shower. "I am truly at a loss."

Jess smiled to herself, relief that what had felt so, so intense moments ago had transmuted successfully into the realm of the absurd. They'd laugh at this soon. Her heart fluttered a little at the notion that she and Nick seemed to be muddling their way through it, returning to their banter, diffusing the discomfort. She was as caught off guard by her lusty gaze as he had been, and she was entirely lost in this fascinating insight when she half-heard the shower curtain rustling. Her eyes widened as the fabric became taut, except for a single point, making a sideways pyramid as it poked out.

"Pssst. You want another eyeful?" Nick teased, as she saw his finger pushing out, recreating the tenting that had recently taken place in his boxers. They were joking about this already?

"Seriously, Nick?!" Jess laughed and swatted at his curtain-covered hand, then returned to the sinks, where she rested against the cold porcelain, crossing her ankles and folding her hands together in her lap. She was preparing for some more banter. Good! This is good, she thought. But then she jumped, turning suddenly when she saw Nick's face appear from behind the curtain, his eyes meeting hers for the first time since they'd abruptly parted ways in the living room. Rivulets of water ran down his sideburns and along his jawline, and Jess noticed the glint in his eyes, while the rest of his face, despite his earlier teasing, looked quite serious. The easy smile that arose when she met his eyes dwindled under the determined burn of his gaze. Jess swallowed hard at the shift in mood, keeping her eyes from wandering as she waited for him to say something.

"It's not too soon, is it, Jess?" he asked, his voice filled with feigned concern, and something else she couldn't identify. She opened her mouth to answer him, wanting to laugh again, and declare that Hell, yes! It is way too soon!, but she closed it quickly as she watched his eyes break away from hers, and travel slowly to her mouth, and then even more slowly farther down, taking their time to trace along the length of her neck, along her collar bone to her chest. She watched in disbelief as his gaze landed quite intentionally on her breasts. His lips parted. Was he…? Was he revenge ogling her?!

She scowled, watching him carefully, unsure of whether this scenario was really mapping out the way it appeared to be, and whether she would do something to stop it. A literal tit-for-tat –he was taking a page from her book! An apology wasn't enough the first time this happened, when she'd caught him dancing to reggae in the glorious nude so many years ago. So was he trying to make things less weird by getting even, by returning the gesture, as she had once attempted?

Moments ago she had felt horrible, thinking she'd caused him to freeze in place with the looking that she couldn't seem to control. She didn't mean to humiliate him, or catch him in a display of vulnerability. But instead of addressing it directly, shaking it off and moving on, as she'd intended by coming in to the bathroom to apologize, here he was, opting instead to contribute to – no, to encourage the magnetic pull that seemed to be overtaking the both of them, one drawn-out and overly sensual gaze at a time.

Of course they'd each, on many occasions, wondered what was left between them. But more often than not, neither of them had ever been able to identify anything that was actually missing, except perhaps faith and maturity. They both knew they possessed a deep, rare, and intense connection, something that electrified their attraction, yet ran deeper than sexual chemistry alone, and deeper even than the unshakable affection they'd developed for each other. There were sparks, and there were flames, and then there was the smoldering blaze they'd both tried to push aside for the past year. It rose up again quite easily whenever they weren't very careful to keep it subdued, masked sometimes as conflict and heated exchange. And they had been very careful. Vigilant, even. Their other relationships had helped to distract them, along with their shared tendency toward flat-out denial. But now here they were, somehow completely unguarded. Again.

Jess could feel her lungs expanding and contracting as her knees quivered and she put her hand flat on the wall next to the shower, right next to Nick's face, which she continued to study as the moments moved like honey. His eyes took in her chest, her cleavage, grazing over her nipples. The sheen of steam glistened on the skin of her upper boobs, and she watched as his eyes lingered there, the recollection of their championship in Nick's mind igniting a twirling feeling in that celestial space in her pelvis. Yes. She liked this. She was not going to stop it at all. If she was capable of sporting a boner right now, she was sure history would be repeating itself rather prominently between her legs.

Nick blinked slowly and Jess felt her body falling forward with the weight of her racing heart, moving even closer to where Nick's naked body stood dripping wet, mere inches away. She suddenly became aware that only those few inches and the flimsy fabric of the shower curtain separated them. The yearning in her abdomen deepened at the thought while his eyes continued their penetrating assault, and he cleared his throat.

At that moment, Jess caught the flash of his tongue sneaking out to smooth over his bottom lip, followed by his upper teeth dragging over it before he grinned broadly and shot his gaze back up to where Jess stood, breathlessly watching him, as he purposefully repeated her own ill-timed gesture. He wanted to make sure she saw him do it. She was incredulous at his cockiness, but she just stood there, stuck in place as he had been, her breathing now jagged and shallow. She'd come in there to make things less weird, to try and reverse the tension that instead had escalated exponentially since she walked in. It seemed that Nick couldn't help himself – had taken her cue and meant to pay homage to the persistence of their attraction. But what would happen if they acted on it again? Jess' mind immediately went there, her usual admonitions loosened by the days' events, her rationale growing weak and dizzy from the steaming shower and the bathroom's hot, sultry air.

She needn't have wondered about any of it for a moment longer, though, as Nick's wet hand shot out from behind the curtain and wrapped around the slim wrist that held Jess upright. In response she didn't pull away, but gulped in a lungful of air as her other hand streaked to her forehead, pushing aside her bangs and forcing her eyes closed as her palm ran down her flushed cheek and to the back of her neck. She relished his touch, surprised at how easily she gave in now that he'd made contact. Still unable to meet his eyes, she focused on how the heat from his fingers penetrated her skin, his palm holding tightly to her wrist, electrifying her whole body where they connected. Water ran in streams like envoys for his touch, traveling from his hand in tiny, sensual rivers, down her forearm and around her elbow, finding their way to the hollow under her arm, and down the side of her breast. Despite the heat, she shivered and breathed in quickly, and then she could no longer stop herself from looking hard at Nick.

His jaw was set, his gaze locked on her eyes, wholly determined, and despite his apparent calm, she could feel his pulse pounding. He looked back at where he held her wrist, and then looked again into her eyes, and, nodding almost imperceptibly, slowly but firmly began to pull her hand from where it lay against the bathroom wall, urging her to come closer. She was captivated.

As his other hand pushed the curtain aside, revealing his entire, wet body, he watched her face for her reaction. It was clear that he was tending exquisitely to this moment as he placed his free palm firmly on her waist. He was leaving his mark, his wet palm squeezing the flesh at the top of her hip. There was no mistaking that nothing had changed in Nick's body over the past fifteen minutes, and he waited for Jess to register his arousal as she looked down again, needing her to come even remotely close to comprehending the depths of his desire for her. She watched him grow even harder before she looked back up to his face. She was swept up in the storm that filled his eyes, desire growing rapidly in her center before overflowing into her whole body. She gasped as she felt him pull her, god, finally, to step into the shower stall where the hot spray inundated her body, her sheer blouse and skirt clinging to her back and breasts and thighs. The sensations, at last, brought some relief, some of the contact her body was screaming for. But it wasn't enough, and she grabbed Nick's shoulder as he deftly maneuvered her body to land against the tiled wall, still holding tight to her wrist, his other hand reaching behind her body to span her back as he breathed hotly in her ear, pushing himself hard against her. "It's not enough to just look, Jess." He leaned into her ear and delicately pulled her lobe between his teeth. "I want you…and I want you to feel how hard you've made me." She was dying. His face was so close to hers, they were both drenched, and he pulled back to tease her lips with his mouth, letting her feel his breath on her cheek, her jaw, hot against her neck.

But he didn't allow his lips to touch her. Not yet. He was driving her crazy. He wanted to drive her crazy. He wanted her to feel the torment, to understand how much her staring at his cock made him want her, how much her eyes on his body reignited everything he'd tried to suppress for the past year. He wanted her so badly– not just to feel her body, or to be inside of her, or to push himself in and out of her again and again. Not just to watch her completely unravel, hear his name come through her whole body. He was desperate to consume all of her, and then he would take such satisfaction in filling her back up with the best of everything he could muster, all of everything he could possibly give her. He was desperate for another chance to make her happy.

Jess could feel all of it. She shuddered with him, with the growing pain of unreleased tension as she took her hand from his shoulder and pulled his face in. She wanted his lips on her lips, wanted to taste him, and she reached her fingers around his neck, gently clawing her fingernails through the mass of wet hair on his head. She reached up and devoured him, greedily breathing in his groans, reaching with her other hand to grab his ass and press his body harder into her center.

He reached up and put his arm against the wall to steady himself, reaching under her shirt with his other hand, pressing his palm along her ribcage and running his thumb along the weighty underside of her breast. He lamented the wrinkles in his fingers from so much water that prevented him from fully sensing her skin's silken softness. His heart ached as the full realization began to sink in of how much he'd missed her, how much he'd pushed aside his own desires for the sake of giving her what he'd thought she had wanted. He pressed his tongue at the base of her throat and sucked gently with his lips and let out a soft cry, a lump forming in his throat that made its way out, quickly giving thanks for the relief the tears brought, and that the water from the shower would conceal how deeply this was affecting him. He felt the familiar fears creeping back in. And then she spoke.

"Nick, god. Please. I just…" she trailed off, looking up into Nick's eyes which were now wide with worry, his mind struggling to sort through the onslaught of emotions. Jess' face was flushed, her lips cherry red, and her damp eyelashes matted together, making them look more lush than usual. Her eyes glowed a deep blue. There was a white-hot fire, alive and well between them, and she didn't want to hide from it anymore, she understood that now. But she didn't have any real notion of how to be both cautious and as flagrantly carnal as her highly aroused body was begging her to be.

"What, Jess? You just what?" he pleaded, his hands still roaming over her body, along her hot skin, in and out of her soaked clothing, and under and over any part of her he could reach. Her lashes fluttered, and she caught her breath at what his touch was doing to her.

"God, Nick! God, I want you so much, I just… I want you, okay?! And I don't think I realized how much... And now that I have, it's just... It's completely freaking me out."

Nick looked at her face, scanning her eyes, her brows and lips. His hands stopped roving, resting on her hips, massaging her flesh. He knew exactly what she meant, her words mirrored in his racing heart, and fuck, in his damn throbbing dick, and most deeply in his gut, where an intense, euphoric longing swirled with sheer terror. They both came to the realization that they'd just scratched the surface, that there was so much more to reconcile than just an onslaught of unmitigated flirting.

They'd crossed the line, scaled the wall they'd crafted so carefully over the past year. There was no turning back now. Everything would need to be laid out on the table if they wanted this to go any further, and especially if they wanted whatever this was, to endure.

Jess exhaled, long and slow, as Nick closed his eyes and leaned into her, wrapping his arms around her waist and stooping to press his forehead against her chest. He pulled her in tightly against his body, rolling his face so his cheek lay against her skin. She reached her arms up and pulled his head against her breasts, letting her hand wander through his hair and down his neck as the water cascaded over both of them.

Her touch electrified him and his mind was racing. Nick suddenly felt a surge of courage as they held each other, the water enveloping them in warmth, sealing the spaces between them. He couldn't squander this chance, this gift. He felt sure of what he had to do, and released one of his arms from around her body. Still holding her tightly with the other, he reached back to turn off the water. He felt bold and certain. This was happening. This needed to happen. He looked into her eyes. She was waiting for him to respond. "Get ready", he said. "We're doing this."

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