“Is this okay?” I found his flat, dark brown nipples and brushed my thumbs across them back and forth, until the soft erectile tissue pebbled.
Tanner’s lips parted and his eyes flickered, a tiny ember of arousal waiting in whatever dark place he’d retreated to. He leaned into my thumbs. “Yes.”
I moved my hands down the front of his chest until I could cup the underside of his erection. I slowly tightened my grip.
“That’s okay too.”
Chapter 17
I wanted to explore Tanner with my mouth. His breath caught as I lowered my head, licked his length, and sucked the tip gently into my mouth. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and tugged.
“What?” I asked, once the head, rounded and aroused to a deep reddish brown, popped from my lips. I gave the underside another lick and sighed. I was blissed and, at some level, all too aware our time together was ticking away.
Tanner grabbed me under the arms, flipped our bodies like I weighed next to nothing, and hovered me above him.
I went limp as the dishrag I’d left on the kitchen faucet. I pushed my hair out of my face, and giggled. “I can’t move.”
I finally opened my eyes to see Tanner staring up at me, his arms straight, my knees brushing his hips.
“You’re a mess,” he said. “A fucking beautiful witchy mess.”
“Can I be your witchy mess?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” he said, breaking into a smile and lowering me onto the front of his body. “I thought you’d never ask.”
There was a musky, sexed-up male underneath me. His quiet matched the quiet inside the house, and out. I wasn’t sure what was next.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
“No,” he said, holding me closer. “This is what I need right now.”
Chest-to-chest, our breathing synced. We both might have dozed off.
I pushed my hair out of my eyes and checked the time. Much as I wanted to lie there, everyone was due back soon. I nudged Tanner. “Shower?”
“Probably a good idea,” he said, “because you smell like you’ve been rolling around in bed with a naked druid.”
Water sluiced over my shoulders. I handed a washcloth to Tanner and asked him to soap me up.
“You trust me to stick to your back?” he asked.
I nodded, trying to keep my hair out of the shower spray. “I trust you to have my back too.”
I rinsed off the soap. Tanner’s arm appeared around my side, washcloth and soap in his palm.
“I trust you to have my back,” he said, “especially if you scrub it first.”
I lathered the cloth and set the bar of soap in the metal wire holder. The phrase we’d repeated back and forth, about trust and having each other’s back, had given me an idea.
“Tanner,” I said. I steadied myself by holding on to his shoulder and used my other hand to scrub circles down his spine and across his shoulder blades and ribs. “I want to get a tattoo.”
He planted his palms on the walls in front of and to the side of the tub. Water splashed everywhere. For once, I didn’t mind.
“What inspired that idea?” he asked.
“You did. Well, your tattoo.” I scrubbed his butt, cautiously gliding the washcloth over the seeds implanted in the branches of his sepia-colored tree. I loved the unusual shade of ink. Moving the cloth back and forth, bumps glided under my fingertips. I stopped. Swept my fingertips over the design again. Chills rippled up my arms. I pressed my palm between Tanner’s shoulder blades to keep myself from slipping. “Tanner?”
“What, Calli?” He tried to turn around.
I kept my hand where it was and stared at the tree.
“Does this tattoo have anything to do with your connection to Jessamyne? Is this tree…her? Because if it is, I…I can’t do this with you.” I dropped the washcloth and wiped my eyes, soap adding to the sting of my suspicion.
Tanner turned off the faucets, bumping into my front as he bent forward and reached through the shower curtain for a towel. He wiped his face and handed the towel to me when I tugged.
“What the hell just happened, Calliope?” he asked, cupping my face. “Look at me.”
“I can’t,” I mumbled. “Soap. Eyes.”
“Switch places.” He let go of me, turned the water back on, and gave me room to stand under the water.
A few seconds was all I needed. I stayed a few seconds more, eyes closed, until I knew the question I wanted to ask.
“Is your tattoo connected in any way to your relationship with the Apple Witch?” Crossing my arms only accentuated my breasts and nipples. I went to cover them with my hands and ended up feeling even more awkward. There was no way to have an emotional conversation while showering.
“Early in my druidic training, I had a dream about Yggdrasil, the tree of life.” He reached for the bar hanging from the ceiling, his arms spread wide. The metal shower curtain holders clanked. “Because dreams hold weight within certain Magical circles, it was suggested to me that I wear a rendition of the tree somewhere on my body to remind me of the dream’s importance. I chose a tattoo.”
Tanner shifted his weight to one side. Standing this close to him, with his arms up and out, I could see every defined muscle from the deep V rising from his groin and flaring over his hips to his ladder-like abdominals and rock-hard pecs. I wanted to mimic his relaxed, confident posture. If only his past would reveal itself to me as clearly as his musculature.
I dropped my gaze from his face to navel and below. His arousal was clearly not affected by my concerns.
He continued. “The seeds I agreed to carry under my skin are part of an agreement I have with someone you have never met, someone with whom I
