I want to bite it back immediately when he doesn’t respond.
“Or not,” I say, just to close the space.
“Okay,” he says. He grins at me. “You talked me into it.”
I roll my eyes. “You needed so much coercion.”
“If you tell the Reeds how easy I am, I’ll never live it down.”
“I’m going to tell them you put out on the first date.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “This isn’t our first date.”
“Okay, third date.”
“Putting out on the third date is okay.”
We go into the hotel room and I go straight to the big tub and start the water. “Are your legs sensitive to hot and cold?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. Why do you ask?”
I shrug. “I’ve been doing some research.”
He grins at me. “Seriously?”
I nod, heat creeping up my cheeks as embarrassment paints my face. “A little. I know some people have sensitivity to hot and cold.”
He shakes his head again. “Not me. So make it comfortable for you and I’ll deal with it. I plan to have you between my thighs in two seconds flat.”
I startle. “You do?”
He looks uncertain. “Unless you’d rather stay on the other end.”
I shimmy out of my panties and he eyes them where I kick them across the room with my toe.
“Those are so hot.”
I giggle. “They’re kitten paw prints.”
“Hot.” He doesn’t say more. Just that one word. “Or maybe that’s in my head because they touched your pussy.” He shrugs. “I don’t know.”
My heart starts to thump. “You say the dirtiest things.”
He lays a hand over his chest. “I do try.”
I test the water with my toe and then sink down in it. I had added bubble bath, so I don’t feel strange at all about pulling the wet T-shirt off my body when I get in. I let it thwack against the floor. He looks at me, hidden beneath a mountain of warm bubbles. “You sure it’s okay if I join you?”
“You can join me,” I tell him. I point to the other end of the tub. “Over there.”
He transfers to the edge of the tub and then lowers himself into the water using the handrails. He gets in with his bathing trunks still on.
“You can take those off,” I tell him, letting my lips play against a lump of bubbles.
“I’m good.” He splashes me and I blink the water from my eyes.
“I mean, really, I’ve already seen it. Had it in my mouth and everything.”
He groans and throws his head back. “Will you stop talking about it?” He pretends mock outrage.
He reaches into the water and pulls my foot into his lap. He gives it a little jerk and my bottom bounces along the bottom of the tub as I scoot closer to him. He starts to knead my foot. “Does this feel good?” he asks.
I nod. “Yes.”
His thumbs press into the softy, meaty arch of my foot and I let out a little whimper. “Can I assume that still feels good?”
“Yes.” I close my eyes. His hands leave my foot for a second and I open my eyes to find him reaching for a bar of soap. He lathers his hands up with it, and my insides clench up tight. I can barely breathe.
“Just for your feet,” he explains. Then his soap-slickened hands start to slide around my foot. He slips between my toes and rubs down my heel. “Your feet are so damn pretty.”
“Don’t tell me you have a foot thing.”
He growls again. “I have a thing for every part of your body.”
I bend my head and play with a mound of soap bubbles with my lips, for lack of anything earth-shattering to say.
“Does my chair bother you?” he asks suddenly.
I glance over at where he left it. “It’s not in the way.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” His fingers dig into the soft part of my foot and it feels so good that I let out a little mewling sound. He must like it because he starts to smile.
“My legs. My paralysis. Does it bother you? Make you feel strange at all?”
“Sometimes,” I admit.
His face falls and he drops my foot into the water.
“Wait,” I say, holding up a hand to stop him. I can tell I just hurt his feelings. “It’s not because you can’t walk. It’s just because I don’t know what all you need. What I can do to help you, or not do. You can be kind of touchy about that stuff.”
His left eye narrows. “Touchy?”
“Yes, touchy.” I pick up the bar of soap and hold it out to him. “Go back to what you were doing.” I grin at him and he soaps his hands up. I lift my foot from the water and he takes it into his lap again.
“I’m not touchy.” He puts emphasis on the last word when his knuckle digs into my heel.
“Yes, you are. You probably don’t even realize it.” I take a breath. “In fact, I’m sure you don’t realize it. Just like I probably don’t realize how fast I leave a room full of men. Or how I don’t like it when casual acquaintances put their arms around my shoulders. Peck pointed it out to me one day. She was right, but I didn’t like hearing it. Not a bit.”
His fingers travel up the back of my ankle, ghosting around the sensitive skin, and a delicious shiver crawls up my spine when his fingertips walk up my shin.