The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum
Aremu wasn’t sure what he’d expected, exactly. He enjoyed it, Aurelie’s squirms and little sighs as he massaged the shampoo into her scalp, fingers circling slowly and carefully beneath her fine hair. She didn’t have much in the way of knots – he wasn’t sure what he’d expected, exactly – and he could run his fingers all the way through, careful and easy, without fear of pulling her hair out.
All the while, he kept his right arm out of the way; he didn’t use it, not to balance or hold, not here any more than he did when they were in bed together. It was easier, he thought, to keep it well out of the way, to avoid the temptation to rest it against her, and he tried not to think more on it than that.
Once they’d rinsed the last of it from her scalp, Aremu set to work diligently on the rest of her, her back first, everywhere he could reach with the washcloth, soaping her up and rinsing her clean. When he couldn’t take it any longer, when he thought there couldn’t be any grime left on her from the trip to the city, he set the washcloth aside and leaned down and kissed her once more; his hand slid over her and curled around her side, the light pressure of his arm just enough to hold her in place.
He kissed her again, and again once more; he kissed her as if he could make up for all the time their lips had held apart, this little while, though he’d enjoyed all the washing for its own sake, and regretted it not at all. His hand crept lower, tracing over her hip; his thumb settled into the crevice of it, stroking delicately over the smooth soft skin there.
The water was growing cold, though it wasn’t there yet; Aurelie shifted, squirmed against him, and Aremu let out a choked noise into her mouth, his eyelids fluttering. He kissed her again, all the more firmly, and his fingers crept a little lower – slow, as slowly as he always did.
He almost didn’t break the kiss to ask, this time, though he thought of it; he wanted, Aremu thought, to trust her to tell him, to stop him. And then he thought how foolish that was, and he stopped, instead, fingers hovering over her skin, and kissed her again. “May I?” Aremu asked, looking down at her, smiling. If he’d had another hand, he thought, he’d have brushed the damp hair from her face; instead, he could only admire the soft red strands of it against her freckled cheek, and for once he couldn’t quite mind it.