The Alpha's Fine Print novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Slow

The clawfoot tub in the upstairs bathroom was big enough for two, and he filled it himself.

"Hot," he said, testing the water with the back of his wrist. "Not too hot."

"There's lavender in the cabinet. Bess put it there when she heard you were coming."

"Bess did that?"

"Bess hoped you'd be a woman who took baths."

I sat on the closed toilet lid in his gray T-shirt and watched him bend over the rim.

His long back flexed, and his sweatpants hung low on his hips.

Steam curled up around him.

It was nearly midnight, and the day had been two kinds of exhausting, the legal kind and the other kind.

I had spent hours on the phone with the county clerk.

I had four pages of notes on Dahl Timber's logging permits.

And I could not stop looking at his back.

"Are you going to just watch?" he said, not turning around.

"I'm enjoying the view."

"Then come in."

"Will you ask me properly?"

He straightened, slowly, and turned.

He had a smile I had not seen before, small and crooked and private.

"Tilda Quarles," he said. "Would you do me the honor of getting naked and sitting in a bath with me?"

"Yes," I said. "I would."

I stood and pulled the T-shirt over my head.

He watched me undress with that gold in his eyes, and I let him, and I felt no shame at all.

When I stepped into the tub, the hot water rose around my hips and breasts, and I sighed so loudly it echoed off the tile.

"Oh, God."

"Good?"

"It's heaven. Get in."

He shoved down the sweatpants and climbed in behind me, and the water sloshed over the rim.

He settled with his back against the curved end of the tub and drew me between his legs, my back against his chest.

His cock pressed hard against the base of my spine.

I felt it, and I held still.

"I won't do anything," he said into my ear. "Unless you ask me."

"Wash me, then."

"Yes."

He took a bar of soap and worked it between his palms.

Then he began to wash me.

He started at my shoulders, slow, with strong thumbs working the knots out of my neck.

He washed down my arms, one at a time, and then my hands, finger by finger.

"Lean back," he said.

I leaned my head against his shoulder.

His soapy hands slid around my ribs and up to cup my breasts, and I arched into them.

"These are mine tonight."

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