Chapter 5: Wet

The photographer wanted us in bed at nine in the morning.

"Casual," she said. "Like you just woke up."

We had, in fact, just woken up, so it wasn't hard.

I sat against the headboard in a white robe with a mug of coffee.

Declan lay beside me in sleep pants with his head in my lap.

"Look down at her," the photographer said to him. "Pretend she's the best thing you've seen all day."

"I don't have to pretend," he said.

She took forty pictures of him looking up at me.

By the end my face hurt from not smiling, and my thigh was warm where his cheek rested.

She left at ten with her gear.

The door clicked.

Declan rolled off my lap, took my mug and set it on the nightstand.

"I need a shower," he said.

"You showered at six."

"I need another one." He stood and held out his hand. "You're coming."

"The photographer said we're done."

"She's done. I'm not."

He led me into the bathroom with the big glass stall.

He turned the water on and let the steam come up.

Then he untied my robe and slid it off my shoulders, and it fell to the floor.

"This is going to be fast," he said, "because I've been hard for an hour."

"You were lying in my lap."

"I know where I was."

We stepped under the spray together.

The water ran down his chest and over the ridges of his stomach, and I put both palms flat on him and felt him breathe.

He turned me, gently, and pressed my back to the cold tile.

I gasped at the contrast.