Double Exposure

* * *

EMMA HAD SURPRISED HIM. For some reason, Kyle had expected Emma to kiss with precision and efficiency, like her office persona, or with a bold passion. He hadn’t anticipated she would be so vulnerable, so feminine, so sweet. She had kissed him back, but she had let him lead, and he found that immensely appealing. She tasted like...willingness.

“So you’re going to keep that a secret?” she asked, the tip of her tongue running along the bottom lip he had just tasted.

The message was loud and clear—Emma was ready to play. Kyle wouldn’t have guessed it of her. But then again, he hadn’t pictured they would wind up in his apartment in the state they were in. If their clothes hadn’t been stolen, he imagined he would have just gone home and showered solo. Whereas now he had a shot at showering with her.

Kyle gave a silent thanks to the thief.

“That’s just the beginning of what I intend to keep secret.”

Her eyes widened and her nose twitched. He had noticed she did that when she was nervous, or considering a response. He found it adorable. Not normally a word he used to describe women he wanted to take to bed, but in Emma’s case, it was very much true. She was stinking cute.

“Maybe this is why you’ve never flirted with me,” she said. “I can’t think of a single appropriate comeback.”

“I never flirted with you because I thought you would rip my balls off.” And because he’d thought she would shut him down so hard it would hurt. Hey, he could admit it. “And just say whatever you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking that I want to see what you look like without the green. Naked.”

Yeah, baby. “Good, because I was thinking the same thing about you.” He gave her hand a squeeze, then took the towels to the bathroom. “You can shower first. Unless you want me to join you?” Hey, you never knew unless you asked.

“Uh, I don’t think so.” She snagged a towel from his hand and held it up in front of her before pulling the one remaining napkin off her chest and tossing it in his wastebasket.

Two steps forward, one step back. Kyle was willing to be patient. For the next ten minutes or so. Then he was going to get another kiss, plus a little more if he had anything to say about it. There was no real reason for him to go into the bathroom with her, but he did, under the guise of turning on the shower and showing her his extensive collection of body gels.

“Here’s a loofah thingie so you can scrub the paint off.”

Emma took it, but she was staring at his shower doubtfully. “This is going to make such a mess. God, I hope it doesn’t stain the marble. Who puts marble in a shower?”

“It won’t stain.” He hoped. But it wasn’t like they had much choice. They were green and that wasn’t going to change until they showered. He winked at her. “Have fun in there.”

There was something about the way she was looking at him, her lips parted, her breasts heaving behind the towel, her toes curling on his cork floor. If he wasn’t mistaken, she did not want him to leave, but she wasn’t going to say that. She was waiting. For him to do it. Be the one who crossed all those boundaries and said to hell with office relations.

Well, they weren’t in the office and he wanted to relate to her on a whole new level. If she wanted him to make the move, be the bad guy in a way, he was more than willing to do just that. Because at the moment all he cared about was getting inside a nice hot shower and then getting inside her.

So Kyle took back the loofah he had handed her. She gave it up easily, her breath a sharp intake of air as he moved in close to her, his hand going to the small of her back. This time when he kissed her, he deftly stroked his tongue in between her lips to mate with hers, a hot rush of lust flooding over him, encouraging him that this was definitely the right move to make. When he yanked the towel out of her hands and dropped it to the floor, she didn’t protest. She let him move his body in alongside hers, the first brush of her nipples against his bare chest causing him to groan.

“I want to feel your real skin,” he told her. “I want to taste you. Let me get in the shower with you.” He was dipping down into the back of her panties, getting a brief feel of her bare flesh where there was no paint, her smooth ass cheek a perfect fit for his hand. He tossed the loofah into the open shower door so he would have two hands to squeeze, to bump her body into his, to make her aware of his fully engorged erection.

Her soft moan indicated she was very much aware of it, as did the fact that she was kissing him deeper and with more urgency.

“Okay,” she murmured.

Kyle paused in kissing her, hands still on her back. “Really?” He hadn’t thought she would agree, but now that she had, he realized it was stupid to question it. Better to just hustle her into the shower.

Before she could respond or change her mind, Kyle stepped back a foot and stripped out of his briefs, tossing them toward the wastebasket.

Her eyes widened. “Oh, my God.”

At first he thought she was impressed with his stature, because hey, he was no gherkin. But then her lip started to twitch and he realized she was trying not to laugh.

“What the hell is so funny?”

“Your skin is just so white where there’s no paint...and then your erection...” She giggled, her hand indicating something jutting out.

It was a good thing he had a healthy ego or this very well could have damaged him for life. But Kyle had a sense of humor, and glancing down, there was no denying it was an interesting picture. “I imagine the back looks even more ridiculous. Turn around and pull down your panties and let me see your bare ass.”

“No!” She laughed and took a step backward. “There is no way. In fact, I’m getting in the shower like this.”

Which she did. Panties and all, the spray hitting her body, sending green rivulets immediately to the floor of the shower. She sighed in pleasure. “It feels amazing.”

“You’re going to ruin your panties showering in them,” he teased her. “You should really take them off.” But he was okay with her leaving them on for now. It wouldn’t be long before she’d be out of them, anyway. He could ease her into full nudity.

Not a problem.

“Ha-ha.” She put her face directly under the spray and scrubbed at it with her bare hands.

“I don’t think it’s going to come off that easily. You need a washcloth.” Kyle grabbed a pair of them and stepped into the shower, closing the glass door behind him. Despite the fact that water was running off her in a green deluge, the paint wasn’t really leaving her body. The first thing he did was to take one cloth and scrub his face hard, feeling grateful to get the paint off his lips and eyelashes. He wanted to taste her lips, her body, in a natural state.

She shifted a little forward when he moved in behind her, angling her body slightly away from his. Her nervousness was clear and Kyle wanted her to relax. So he squirted a blob of shower gel onto one of the cloths and moved it to Emma’s shoulder, rubbing gently.

His touch caused her to jump and give a little squawk. “What are you doing?”

“Getting this paint off you. You can’t reach your shoulders and back to scrub them.” If he were matter-of-fact, maybe she wouldn’t balk. Plus, he was basically massaging her shoulders at the same time, and he could feel some of the tension immediately leaving her body.

“I have to admit, that does feel good.” She sighed.

Turning slightly to the right so she wouldn’t get poked in the ass with his throbbing erection, Kyle continued to put pressure on her shoulders, working his way down her back. The water was bouncing off him, steam rising, tendrils of her hair starting to curl in the heat. The smell of the gel and her skin as it was reclaimed from the paint was intoxicating, and Kyle was feeling languid and aroused, in no particular hurry to reach his destination because he was definitely enjoying the sensual journey.

Though that feeling was tested a little when she reached forward and braced her hands on the marble wall in front of her. Kyle’s body tensed at the gorgeous vision she made, back arched, legs slightly apart. He wanted to kick her feet farther apart because it was the perfect position to enter her from behind. The idea took hold and he had a hard time shaking it. To distract himself, he kissed the shoulder that was now squeaky-clean and free of paint in front of him.

Then he went for the shampoo. “Here, let me wash your hair for you.”

“No!” she immediately protested. “That’s creepy.”

“Creepy?” Kyle laughed. “Emma, I think you have a funny way of looking at things.” Actually, he was starting to think she had intimacy issues, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud. She’d stomp off in a snit, and hell, who could blame her? He didn’t exactly want his character flaws pointed out to him, either. Especially not when he was naked.

“Well, it is,” she insisted. “It’s too parent-child.”

Way to make him feel gross. Talk about a mood killer. He let his erection nudge her, his hands snaking around her chest to brush over her nipples. “Honey, nothing we’re doing here is even in the same hemisphere as parent-child, so we’re just going to forget you ever even said that. I mean, think about it. When the stylist at the salon shampoos you, does it feel like your mother doing it?”

“No,” she admitted. “Not at all.”

He nibbled on the back of her ear, enjoying her sharp intake of breath. “Then let’s leave your mother out of this altogether. Because I’ve never met her, but I think it’s safe to say I wouldn’t want to do this to her.”

Kyle turned her around and gave her a searing kiss before going down on his knees and peeling off her panties despite her exclamation of shock.

Parent-child his ass. He was going to make her forget she even had parents.