Running her hands slowly over his shoulders, between his shoulder blades, she told him, “You have a very nice back.”
“Thank you,” he mumbled into his pillow.
“You have a nice front too.”
He laughed softly.
“How do you stay in such good shape? What do you do?”
“Nothing much.”
Her hikes and yoga classes and terrible YouTube tabata workouts collectively gasped. “Seriously?”
With a chuckle that vibrated through her hands on his back, he said, “Fucking drummers, am I right?”
“I guess drumming is pretty hard work,” she conceded.
“Fame and fortune aren’t the only perks of the job.” He craned his neck, peering up at her over his shoulder. “There’s also strength, stamina, dexterity…”
While the way blood shot to her core wasn’t gentle, the way she pushed his head back down to his pillow was. “Aside from overdoing it, sexy rock god, how was your first day alone with the guys?”
“I think it went okay. They were all nice to me, even though I’m fairly clueless. Fuck, that’s amazing,” he groaned while she ran her thumbs up and down his neck.
Moving to his shoulders again, squeezing, she winced. “I think you have rocks in here.”
“I know. It’s so bad.”
“It’s a good thing you texted me to come over.” His skin was so warm it made her warm everywhere she touched him—her hands, her thighs, between her legs. “You needed someone to take care of you.”
After a quiet moment while she tried to soften his knotted muscles, he asked, “How long do I have you tonight?”
“I should probably head back in a few hours.”
“Hmm” was all he said, but the way he said it was so dirty, so filled with promise, that heat coursed through her veins. Seriously, she was on fire.
“Is it hot in here?”
“It’s definitely hot,” he purred. “You should take off your shirt.”
“You want me to take off my shirt?”
“It’s all coming off eventually, sugar.”
Another surge of heat flared over her skin, between her toes, her breasts, up her throat. And if her body chose this particular moment to have a hot flash, she was going to lose her shit. After unbuttoning her blouse and slipping it off her shoulders, though, her internal temperature cooled to a low simmer.
“What happens in a few hours that you need to be back for, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Returning her hands to his back after pouring another few drops of oil into her palm, she said, “It’s shower night.”
“Shower night?”
“For Mom. She forgets to shower unless we remind her. Usually, she’s okay with the schedule, the reminders, but sometimes, out of nowhere, she gets really pissed about it and yells at me for treating her like a child. I always try to be home before she goes to bed on shower nights so Ian doesn’t have to be the one to remind her. I hate it when she loses her temper with him. She never used to.”
“Can I ask you a question?” he said while she turned her attention to his lower back, digging the heels of her palms into the bars of iron along his spine.
“Sure.”
“I know you had a dad and a stepdad, but you’ve never told me where they are now.”