Chapter Eighty-Nine

Havermouth, Five Years Before

Cameron lit the candles around the bathroom, the flickering flames reflecting off the old-fashioned tiles. The tap in the sink dripped, the sound of the splash loud and musical in the space. The shower was over the claw-footed bathtub around which there was a metal ring that had obviously been intended to support a shower curtain, though it was bare now.

The bathroom held the floral ghost of the cleaning products they had lined up against the wall like soldiers against grime. Her father never cleaned, Aislen thought, as Cameron started the shower water and laid the bathmats onto the floor to catch the overspray. It was odd to her, as a result, that the Triquetra were so domestic and clean, as masculinity and housework did not coexist in her experience.

Cameron set two towels ready on the wobbly stool they kept in the bathroom for that purpose, and then stripped off his uniform, tossing it into the clothes hamper. The candlelight turned his hair to gilded flames, causing shadows to dance over his skin. Aislen watched him with an ache deep within her, the artist within her recognizing his beauty and wanting to record it in her memory so that her fingers could render it onto paper later.

There was something unfinished to him, she thought, raw potential of youth still in his form, without the final touches of adulthood.

He looked up from removing his underwear and caught her gazing at him, his expression changing, his eyes darkening as he straightened. “Do you like what you see?” He asked.

She looked away, pain spearing through her chest, bracing for another onslaught of mockery, but she remembered his words in the hallway and she looked back at him, her eyes dropping to his feet, long-boned, and somehow vulnerable, the skin fragile and whiter than the rest of him, protected more from the sun by his shoes and socks. The hair on his legs did not have the same red tint as the rest of his hair, growing thickly over his shins but thinning above the knee.

Football, running, and his work on the farm had made his thighs long and leanly muscled.

Rhett was right about the pubic hair, she acknowledged to herself. There was something exotic about his cock standing amongst the red curls. There was a strip of skin from mid-thigh to his lower belly that was whiter than the rest of his skin, the line of shorts, but his chest, shoulders, and arms were bronzed and lightly freckled from going shirtless in the sunshine.

She met his eyes. “Yes.”

He blushed, surprised by the boldness of her answer, his gaze dropping bashfully, and he gave an awkwardly embarrassed half shrug. “Good,” he said, and stepped closer, sliding the straps of her bra off her shoulders, before reaching behind her to release the catch at her back with the ease of practice. “The water is warm enough now.”

With impeccable aim, he tossed her bra into the laundry hamper without taking his eyes from hers, before cupping her shoulders in his hands, his palms hot against her skin. He stroked down to her elbows, and then back up, his breath becoming heavy, and his mind filling with her, the smoothness of her skin, her curves, her scent…

His desire washed over her, her body heating and softening towards him as he leaned down, his lips resting on her forehead. He breathed in, taking the scent from her hairline and holding it in his lungs. (Mine…) He followed it to the curve of her cheek, his satisfied sigh brushing over her skin. She leaned her head to the side, her eyes losing focus, her body molten with shared enjoyment.

He ran his fingers through the gloss of her hair, crumpling it up in his grip, admiring how it wrapped around his fingers, and pressed his face into it, breathing in again. Her nipples brushed his chest as he moved closer, and his cock nudged against her stomach.

He lifted her and she clutched at his arms in surprise, feeling his biceps bunch and release as he set her into the bathtub that was beginning to fill with the flow of water. He had left the plug in, letting it fill, so he could fuck her with the warm water falling over and surrounding them.

He stepped in after her, into the spray, his russet hair darkening, while rivulets ran down his face and chest. She slid her palms up his stomach, catching the water in the v of his thumb and index finger, watching as it pooled and then overflowed.

He kissed her, the water flowing into their mouths and becoming part of the experience, their tongues lapping it from each other’s lips. She pressed herself against him, the slip of wet skin adding to the sensuality. His fingers kneaded her arse as he rubbed his cock between them with a groan.

She broke the kiss and licked the water from his shoulders and chest, following its path down the centerline that defined his stomach muscles before dragging her tongue over the end of his cock. He watched, water dripping from the tip of his nose and chin, running from the ends of his hair, and beading in his eyelashes, as she sucked upon him and explored the hang of his balls within the heat-loosened sack.

“Lie back,” he rasped out, and she splashed back into the water, moving up the bath and parting her legs as he knelt between them. He used a finger to indicate for her to turn, and then guided her arms onto the rim of the bathtub, so she knelt using the edge to brace. “That should work…”

“You haven’t done this before,” she realized from his thoughts.

“No,” he took the statement as a question. “Does it make you feel good that you’re taking my bathroom cherry? I’m guessing I’m taking yours too,” he guided his cock into her, gripping her hip in the other hand, and then leaned his chest onto her back as he gripped the lip of the bathtub to either side of her elbows. “Brace or your face will hit the edge of the bath and I don’t want to knock your teeth out.”

“Shit,” she rested her forehead onto her hands.

He began to thrust with a grunt. “Fuck, yeah.” In his mind, he recalled the last time they had fucked, in a similar position, after he had whipped her arse. He pushed it down and away, uncomfortable with the memory, trying to replace it with a more pleasant experience. His hand stroked down from her hip, over the bruises, feeling the residue of the arnica cream as it melted away under the water. (Am I hurting her?)

“It’s fine,” she told him. “They don’t hurt.”

He didn’t question her words, relieved, and curved his arm around her hips, finding her clit with his fingertip and grinding in a circle against it. (Come… I want you to come… I need you to come) there was an edge of despair to the thought, images of the past flicking into his mind, interspersed with the present.

“God, please,” he said, his voice overloud, echoing off the ceramic. (Make it alright…)

She forced herself to moan, trying to reassure him of her pleasure, trying to convince herself of it.

He pulled out abruptly, and turned her, the water sloshing over the rim as she slid and cried out in surprise. “Sorry,” he lifted her onto his lap. “I want to do it like this,” he pulled her so that she straddled him, chest-to-chest and kissed her as she wrapped her arms around him, sinking down upon his cock.

He groaned into her mouth. (Better…) The fingers of one hand cupped her skull whilst he gripped her arse in the other, thrusting up into her. The position meant that every thrust pressed against her clit, and she felt her orgasm tightening within her. She gripped him tightly, their kiss interrupted by gasped moans, but their lips lingering, neither of them willing to break it entirely.

Her orgasm wasn’t the sharp break of a string, but a roar of hearth fire through her, warming her heart as her body throbbed and clenched around him. She felt him follow, his face lowering to press into the curve of her neck, and his breath coming in panted gasps.

For a long time, they stayed joined, wrapped around each other with the bath water building around them, and then he reached out and pulled the plug. “I’ll wash your hair for you,” he said. “If you’ll wash mine.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’d like that.”

“That was good, wasn’t it?” He asked, as he lifted her from him, and they both stood on legs unsteady. "I think that was the best sex that we've had so far.”

“Yes,” she agreed and smiled shyly, her heart dancing with a sudden rush of hope. “It was good.”