The Best Years: Year One, Part Two

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I leaned against the desk watching him undress completely careless that I was there. His body was art, even the patches of skin between the tattoos. I imagined each tattoo with a memory behind it and tried to figure out each one. My eyes drifted down watching his hands push his black skinny jeans down his legs. Even his legs were covered in art. He carefully took off his rings setting them down on the night stand. He looked down with my hand in his hair like he forgot something.

Maybe me? Being here?

I forced myself to be less distracted long enough to bark out, "Are you gonna talk to me?"

He walked into his bathroom and I heard the water hit against the tile of the shower floor. He leaned against the door looking finally, "No Layla. I'm not gonna talk to you. I just lost someone important because I couldn't help myself from being an asshole. So you can take off your clothes and get in the shower with me, or call a Lyft."

I didn't want to be the girl who killed Elizabeth's hope. Now I was forced to not be the girl who killed her hope for no reason.

I didn't break eye contact as I unzipped and unbuttoned my jeans. I wiggled out of them biting my lip as I remembered his touch again. Those invincible goosebumps pushed over me in waves. I peeled my top off exposing my bra again.

He wasn't done being cruel, "You can't really play the shy card when I've been inside you."

I wasn't playing anything. He wasn't wrong though, the contradiction of being shy in front of someone that made me orgasm felt foolish.

I let my bra fall to the hardwood floors and stepped out of my panties. I felt his eyes analyzing my body as I walked by him into the shower that was exactly how I liked it. A temperature you could burn all the unwanted feelings off. I let the water pour down my chest standing right under the water.

I felt his hands graze over my hips, squeezing as he pulled me back against him. I turned around slowly facing him not sure how this would work in the shower. I rationally thought about one of us slipping or getting hurt.

He looked at me pushing his palms against the shower wall stepping into the steaming water, "Touch me Layla."

I swallowed so hard I thought he could hear my nerves flare up with his words. I didn't know how to touch someone else. I didn't know what he liked or didn't, how to please someone, or not embarrass myself. I couldn't help but look down at his body. Every toned muscle glistened from the water, his tattoos almost glossed over. His abs tight and everything below the waist exposed to me.

I felt myself heat up in my face while my body malfunctioned shrugging and shaking my head no.

"You have to learn eventually," as he closed the gap between our bodies lessening my ability to gawk at his body.

I let my hands touch his chest as the all too familiar shiver crept up my spine begging for more. He smirked looking down at my shyness. I could still smell the faint scent of his cologne and cigarettes. I was finally in front of Oliver, vulnerable, and Hunter wasn't my first thought.

I clenched my teeth realizing this counted as thinking of him. He haunted all my vulnerable moments. I would mentally punish myself later for not just talking to him last year and feeling this relief sooner.

I still had to forgive him or decide not to. His goodbye seemed so casual like he wasn't done with any of us.

I let my hands slide down the front of Oliver still overwhelmed with nerves and over thinking when he huskily whispered, "It's pretty impossible to be bad at it."