Hugging my colourful breasts, I backed up as he stepped into the shower and held his head under the stream. The thick yellow in his hair instantly diluted to water colours, flooding his chest and face in liquid lemon.

Rubbing his eyes clear of the sluice, he looked past the steam to where I stood by the vanity. I waited my turn, very aware of my nudity and the remnants of sex between my legs.

I wanted to be by myself. To piece myself back together and harden my heart after being shattered all over again.

I need to be alone.

A by-product of being lonely for so many years.

But he held out his dripping hand, his skin slick and delicious. “Get in.”

I shook my head. “I’ll wait.”

Not wasting words, he climbed from the shower and marched toward me. His footprints left colour-swirls dancing on droplets as he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the warm embrace of the spray.

The moment the water hit my face, I sighed, rubbing at the stickiness of pigment, running hands down my body to remove any trace.

Gil stood behind me, his looming presence growing ever more intense the longer I stayed under the heat.

I jerked as his heavy hands landed on my shoulders, kneading me, slowly cascading down my spine. His fingers traced the lines and shadows of my tattoo, following the bumps of scar tissue and valleys of torn muscles.

My body locked in place as he took his time, touching and learning.

I wished I could see his face. I wanted to spin in his embrace and study whatever emotion he felt.

But I didn’t.

I stayed bound beneath the comforting water, goosebumps contradicting the heat as he continued to inspect the most personal part of me. The part that was almost a shrine to our childhood.

He cleared his throat as if heavy painful things lodged there, making it impossible to swallow. “There’s even an ocelot in here.” His finger worshipped me as he followed an owl’s feather and found the tiny wild cat.

I squeezed my eyes against the memory, slipping back into the past.

He’d slowly started running out of things to call me starting with O. One day, in the library during lunch, while we hid from other students, he’d claimed a dictionary and sat beside me while I’d nibbled my ham and mustard sandwiches. He hadn’t taken a sandwich, saying I fed him too much already.

As I swallowed a mouthful, he’d smirked and stabbed the pages with a finger. “Ocelot. You’re an ocelot.”

“I’m a what now?”

“A feral spotted cat.”

I took another bite. “I suppose that’s better than a fruit or a monkey.”

He leaned closer, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “Does this mean you have claws, my fuzzy little ocelot?”

I grinned, pretending to swipe at him like a cat. “The sharpest.”

“I’ll remember that.” He captured my hand, kissed my knuckles, and continued reading the dictionary as if nothing had happened. All the while, my heart soared, fluttered, and plummeted deeper into love.

Gil’s touch dragged me back, making me shiver.

He stole the air right out of my lungs, and I couldn’t do this anymore.

“Stop.” Twisting in his hold, I faced him with water plastering my hair to my shoulders and paint still staining us. I said what he’d said to me, begging him for space. “Please, don’t.”

Our eyes caught.

I sucked in a breath.

How could I admit that he was the soul-mate who got away?

I can’t.

Pure and simple.

The boy I was in love with wasn’t the same as the man, and my heart sank. It sank to the shower floor and slithered down the drain because I didn’t have the courage to tell him to either commit to us or leave me alone.

He didn’t utter a sound.

Utmost silence apart from the hissing shower as his hands cupped my hipbones, his fingers bruising me.

He stopped breathing as heat and history flared between us. So many things lurked beneath the surface. So many things trapped us from truth and stopped us from being honest, and it hurt.

It hurt way, way too much.

It hurt him too.

Pain glimmered in his eyes the longer he stared.

Standing in the cramped shower with the faint hint of strawberry on the steam, we washed in vulnerability and fragility. Two very breakable things because we were two very breakable people.

We did our best to seem unconquerable and brave, but in that moment, that heart-stopping, life-ceasing moment, we were the same.

Doomed.

His features shadowed with confliction and a heavy dose of self-loathing. With aching tenderness, he slipped his touch up my waist, caressed the sides of my breasts, and cupped my throat. His thumbs stroked me with irreparable reverence.

I didn’t want to.

I fought against the pull.

But I tripped a little.

I fell into him.

Literally and figuratively.

My body into his body; my heart into his heart.

I fell out of sanity and into lunacy because I had no right to feel this way. He had no right to make me feel this way.

His lips captured mine in the sweetest, softest kiss. His fingers braided through my hair, cupping the back of my neck. With our mouths touching, he paused as if giving me the chance to pull away.

I tried to.

I tried to stop loving him.

But my lips parted and the tip of my tongue requested more. A butterfly-inducing more.

His fingers tightened, holding me firm. He deepened the kiss, touching his tongue to mine, tasting me, dancing with me, slowly, gently, lovingly.

The shower disappeared.

The past and present blended, and I kissed him back.

I kissed him like he kissed me...with devotion, idolization, and a cold gust of fear.

This was truth.

This was authentic and legitimately real.

We kissed forever.

Our heads choreographed in their seduction, our mouths a perfect fit, our tongues meant for each other.

My hands swooped up his naked chest.

He flinched and kissed me harder as my palms felt his thundering heartbeat beneath the mixture of paint and flesh.

We couldn’t stop.

We couldn’t end whatever spell cast around us, dragging us deeper, confusing us, ruining us. I’d slept with Gil twice. I’d loved him for years. Yet there was something singular about this kiss.

Something unique and special and absolutely terrifying.

This wasn’t about sex.

It wasn’t about power or passion.

This was deeper and darker and dangerously raw.

His soft groan made my heart bloom like a rose, its petals straining for whatever sustenance he could offer. All while the tangle of thorns in my stomach warned me not to fall. Not to put myself through the pain of Gilbert Clark again.

His body tensed as he tried to pull away. His tongue retreated and his lips thinned, and I prepared to withdraw from the most spectacular kiss of my life.

Only...as space encroached on our togetherness, he pulled me back. He jerked me into his arms as if he couldn’t bear to let me go, and I moaned in agony.

Couldn’t he see neither of us were equipped for whatever fallout would follow?

Locking our lips together, he kissed me with a desperation that burned. Our sex had been explosive and almost angry. Both times. But this...this was totally different. It wasn’t playing games with our lust but with our hearts.

And I was unbelievably scared.

A snarl built in his throat as his tongue lashed mine. Then, with a haggard groan, he forcibly pulled away.

Keeping his eyes downcast, he scrambled from the shower and ripped a black towel off the rail on the wall. Wrapping it around his waist, he stalked from the bathroom without a word.

* * * * *

“You can wear these,” Gil muttered as I stepped from the bathroom in a matching black towel. “Seeing as your clothes are, eh...”

“Torn and painted?”