A/N: Whooh, I'm nervous! I won't spoil things, but just so you know, this fic has made the transition to R-18. And if at any point you start to feel uncomfortable, feel free to skip it.
Chapter 9: Cold Shower (Ashley's POV)
"Have I told you yet how hot you are in that green dress?"
"Yeah, like ten times," I laughed. "Don't worry, I love it when you do."
In an instant, Scott swept me up into his arms and carried me up the steps to his door. "I'll be doing this again one day, but next time you'll be wearing a white dress."
God, how does he do that? We've been going out for a while now, and yet he can still make me blush like a schoolgirl! It's like he knows all the right buttons to push.
"Ooh, my hands sense that someone isn't wearing any panties..."
I smacked him upside the head. "You dirty man!" I squealed as the door swung open.
"Please, honey, you want it as much as I do! Scratch that -- it's impossible for anyone to want it as much as I do."
"And for your information, I'm wearing Spanx."
He set me down on his sofa. Wow, just looking at his living room makes me so proud about helping him decorate it a week ago. I can't wait until Christy, Jeff, Christian, and Trish come over for Christmas dinner! (And again with the freaky realizations...in all my life, I have never decorated a boyfriend's house before.)
"So what do you want to do tonight?" he asked with a smile, handing me a glass of scotch.
I watched him light the fireplace. "Just hold me close tonight, Scott."
It was pure heaven, having both the fire and Scott warm me. His arms fit just perfectly around me. And his eyes...I have a fixation with those eyes. So dark and intense. They pierce right through me every time. I get this sort of flutter in my insides whenever I look at him, and that's been happening since the first time we made eye contact, which was at that bar on our first night in Tennessee. I absent-mindedly began twirling a lock of his wavy hair around my finger.
"Scott, I just remembered..."
"Yeah?" he returned in that sexy, gravelly voice of his.
"You write the stupidest things in that online journal of yours."
He laughed, not taking those eyes off of me. "Keeping the mystery alive, babe. Average guys aren't nearly as sexy as mysterious guys. Why do you think Jeff Hardy is so popular with the ladies?"
"I must say, that is true." I laughed, remembering Christy. We stayed like this, close together on the couch, quiet, for a while longer, when I began to yawn.
"Tired?"
"I am," I replied softly, staring into the fire.
That man sure knows how to make a girl feel like a princess. He carried me up the stairs and into his bedroom, which was far more beautiful than I remembered it. His bed is soft like a dream. "I could really get used to this."
"I could really get used to having you here," he said, smiling at me through the doorway. "I'll be back in a sec -- feel free to use one of my shirts. They're in the armoire to your left."
Randomly pulling out a white polo, I changed in record time, and fell asleep moments before I landed on the bed.
-o-
The sunlight slanted through the blinds to warm my face the next morning. I could feel someone's arms around my waist, which I instantly knew were Scott's. Apparently, he was too tired to change last night, because I could feel his dress shirt and slacks against me. Wait, we were spooning last night and I didn't even know it? Damn, I wish I'd stayed awake a little longer!
I wish we could stay like this forever, as clichéd as that sounds.
He stirred within moments. "Four dates, not counting our first encounter," he breathed, "two sleepovers, and I still haven't gotten any. You drive me crazy, woman."
"You've been a very patient man, and I appreciate that." I rolled over to face him. Those eyes are incredibly sexy this morning, all half-closed and looking at me like that. "Hey, I didn't know you spooned."
"I don't. You're the only exception. And this was not how I planned things would go last night, my dear. Men don't bring women home to...spoon."
"There's sexiness in spontaneity, you of all people should know that."
He grinned. "I'm going to roll over and go back to sleep now. Don't speak a word to anyone -- if the boys in the locker room hear about how we spooned and I didn't get any action, they're totally gonna think I'm gay." And he dozed off before I could say anything.
Reluctantly, I got up off of the bed and left the room, but not without casting one last glance at his sleeping form. I should really be careful around this guy -- he's sexy even in his sleep.
His armoire had some towels in it, so I grabbed one and headed for the nearest bathroom. Before I entered, though, I walked into an adjacent room, where I knew he kept a sound system. Once I plugged it and switched it on, I flipped through the stations until a nice Corinne Bailey-Rae song was playing.
Since I'd started living on my own, I always had this habit of leaving the bathroom door open so that I could hear the music from outside better. Of course, I never do that when there are guests over, but I really liked the song that was playing today. The polo and my underwear were on the floor in seconds, and I stepped into the shower, setting the water temperature to "cold." After a night of spooning with the man, Heaven knows I needed one desperately.
I welcomed the spray of cold water on my body, the droplets forming on my bare skin. I reached for the bottle of lavender-scented shampoo which I'd left during my last visit, when I helped him decorate his house. I didn't sleep over that time, but I wanted to bathe and change into something more comfortable before hanging stockings and Christmas lights with him.
Repeat, lather, rinse. Mmm, nothing like the smell of lavender in my hair. I've always loved moments like these, when you can just take your time and appreciate the little things. I'm alone, I'm indulgent, I love it.
I'd just begun washing off the shampoo when I sensed movement from my side. I turned, and there he was. Scott, still in last night's clothes (sans the shoes), staring at me. Through me. All over me.
He's never seen me naked before. And with his eyes all like that, I feel more vulnerable than I normally would. He just has this look, you know? He doesn't say a word, but it's all in his eyes, with that one look, so...smoldering and...wanton. I don't normally use those words, so you know I'm totally serious.
As shocked as I was, I made no move to cover myself up. He continues to look at me with that look, and in a matter of nanoseconds the cold water lost all its effect on me and I felt so. Very. Hot. And. Bothered. My heart rate tripled almost immediately, until I could literally feel and hear it beating rapidly inside of me.
He approaches, slowly. My breathing quickens with every step he takes towards me. He twists the shower knob and changes the setting from "cold" to "warm" to "hot" without breaking his gaze. He's within arm's reach, so by impulse I fist my hands in his shirt and pull him in beneath the water until my back is against the wall and he's pressing against my body. And I can feel him down there, and I have not wanted a man this badly in a looong time I unbutton his dress shirt as he trails kisses on the hollow of my neck, and Heaven help me before I completely lose control.
"You know you just ruined that shirt, right?"
"Yeah," he breathed into my ear. "Shut up."
I look up at him -- he's a good five inches taller -- and his eyes entrance me completely. He takes my hands, trails them slowly down his chest and on to his belt, which I unfasten. I tossed the soggy article aside. A heady mix of fresh laundry, aftershave, and lavender shampoo, plus the music coming from outside the bathroom, send me into overdrive. My heart's beating so crazily it's almost painful. I draw him in and kiss him, hard, passionately, as I grab his long, dark, wavy, dampened hair in both my fists. His hands are now cupping my breasts -- it burns everywhere he touches me. The water keeps getting hotter and hotter and soon everything is shrouded in mist. His pants drop to the floor, and he kicks them away, all the while not breaking the kiss. We're too impatient to take his shirt off of him, even though it was already unbuttoned, so we just leave it on.
Before I even know it, he pins my wrists above my head and takes one nipple into his mouth, and I shut my eyes tight and hope my knees don't give way, because he is doing nothing but making me ache between my legs. A big, hot, wet, throbbing ache. Even if I was standing up (and I wasn't sure I could for much longer), he'd reduced me to a whimpering puddle of need.
"Scott...do it. Now."
The words had barely escaped my lips when he obliged to my desperate plea, filling me...and he feels so good. I can't remember much of this part, but I remember I had one knee up, his hand on my thigh, and my ankle digging into his calf. I remember my moaning and screaming being drowned out by the roar of hot water bursting from the shower, and the beat of the music outside. I can't remember exactly what I was yelling, but I do remember that a lot of it was in Spanish. And I remember, oh do I remember, the moment when I came. Hard. I remember screaming his name, and desperately balling my hands into fists as I grabbed onto the dress shirt he was still wearing, and his big hands on my waist, and being too out of it to worry if I would wake the neighbors, and his lips on my lips and on my neck, and feeling so weightless, even with all that hot water pounding down on us.
And then there was the moment after. I was still reeling from it all. I tipped my head slowly back against the wall and closed my eyes, letting the droplets of water run down the length of my neck. My breathing was heavy, my chest rose and fell repeatedly under the weight of his. I felt around for the shower knob and shut off the stream of water. I opened my eyes to see the mist slowly begin to clear, but then closed them again as he continued to nibble and lick the hollow of my neck.
"Is it too weird for me to thank you for that?"
"Not at all," he mumbled into my hair. "And thanks, too."
I blinked my eyes open. "Interesting place for our first time together, don't you think?"
"You've never done it in a shower before?"
"I've done it in a lot of weird places, Scott, but I can't say that I've done it in the shower, no."
"Well hey," he breathed. "Like you said, 'there's sexiness in spontaneity.'"
He grinned at me, satisfied, and retreated to get the towel. The only towel in the bathroom. He waved it in front of me and exited the bathroom with a flourish, leaving his damp pants and belt on the bathroom floor.
I will never look the same way at lavender shampoo again.
-o-
The sun was directly above our building by the time I'd returned to the apartment. Christy shut off the TV upon hearing the door swing open. She turned around and grinned.
"You're wearing the same clothes you did yesterday," she remarked with a grin.
"Uh, yeah."
She started giggling. "Is...is that a hickey?"
"Christy? Shut up."
I stormed into my room to avoid further interrogation, but she could see that I was making a miserable attempt not to smile.
"Come on, Ash!" I heard her muffled yell and persistent knocking at the door. "Deeeeeeetails!"
A/N: I put a lot of thought into this chapter because I wasn't sure how to go about the problem of Raven and Ashley's big...transition. To, you know, a couple that makes whoopee. Haha. So I decided to just go the full 180. This is a very big first for me, since this chapter is officially my first...er...lemon. (You know, full-on sex scene.) Be nice, you guys!