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He hummed a little, the sound mock-annoyed, then ignored me, choosing instead to undo the button on my jeans. I sucked in a shallow breath, because having Taavi undoing my pants was all but guaranteed to turn me on, and this moment was no exception.

He crouched as he pulled them off me, not that he needed to do too much pulling, since I hadn’t managed to put all the weight back on that I’d lost, despite my mother’s best efforts.

But now I had Taavi kneeling in front of me, easing one foot at a time out of my jeans, then tugging off my fluffy socks so that I stood barefoot and in my boxer briefs with him looking up at me, dark pupils wide in his mismatched eyes.

I swallowed, knowing he could both see and smell how much I wanted him.

When he stood, he trailed his fingers up the outside of both legs, and I reached out a hand to grip the towel bar beside the shower to steady myself.

“Okay?”

I nodded.

“Tell me if you aren’t.”

“I’ll be fine.” I wouldn’t be if he didn’t go back to touching me.

“Promise?”

“Yes, Taavi, just…please.”

He laughed again, softly, breathy, and low. Then he hooked his fingers in the waistband of my boxer briefs, and I sucked in another breath.

He stepped a little closer, not pulling them down yet, but sliding his hands inside, down the outside of my thighs, then around to my butt, pulling my hips against his. I bit my lip to suppress the groan that wanted to come out of my throat, painfully aware that even with the fan going, if I made too much noise, someone—more likely Elliot than my parents, but either way, ew—was likely to hear me.

I was already mostly hard, and I could feel the bulge of Taavi’s half-erect cock through his jeans, which only made me want him to strip off both our clothes even faster. But he wasn’t having that, and I was at his mercy.

He ground against me a little, and I couldn’t help the soft whimper I made.

Then he repeated the same motion he’d made with my jeans, pulling down my underwear and easing my feet out of it, leaving me completely naked while he still stood there fully clothed.

The mood dampened a little when I saw his gaze skim over the dressing on my side. I was allowed to remove it and wash the injury itself today, albeit very carefully, but it wasn’t going to be particularly pleasant. Neither was pulling off the waterproof dressing.

Wound care isn’t particularly sexy.

Then Taavi noticed the shift in my mood and chose to address it by sliding his hand between my legs, gently cupping and squeezing me while pressing a kiss to my bicep. I drew in a sharp breath, the blood returning to my groin as he gently massaged, distracting me from other, less pleasant thoughts.

Then he stepped back, letting go of me to pull his shirt over his head, then undo and drop his jeans to the floor, toeing off his socks, then turning, giving me a very nice view of his round butt as he bent to turn on the water in the tub-shower. I moved close enough to run one hand along his spine, starting between his shoulder blades and ending at the dimpled cleft of his ass.

He laughed softly and moved away from my fingers. “You first.”

I could hardly object.

With the water warming up, he pushed open the sliding door, revealing the very un-sexy shower seat my parents had purchased because I hadn’t been strong enough the first few days to stand through a whole shower and was too stubborn to put up with just washcloth baths. I also wasn’t allowed to submerge my stitches, so I couldn’t just take a bath, either—to say nothing of the painful logistics of getting me down in a tub in the first place.

Taavi shoved it up against the far end of the shower—away from the faucet and showerhead—and then held out a hand to help me get in.

I wanted to be all macho elf and not take it, but while I might have issues with my own masculinity and sense of self-preservation in the face of rioting crowds, I am not completely stupid, so I put my hand in his, let him take my elbow, and allowed him take some of my weight as I stepped over the side of the tub. Then he followed me in, putting his back to the showerhead.

My parents’ guest shower wasn’t designed for two people, even if one of us was Taavi-sized. In this situation, however, that was a noticeable advantage.

It put Taavi’s naked body very, very close to mine. Too close for me not to reach out and grab his hips, pulling him up against me as the water from the faucet swirled around our feet, warm, but not quite hot.

Taavi, on the other hand, was plenty hot, in every way you wanted to take that word. I slid my hands around to his back, pulling even more of him flush up against me as goosebumps formed on my exposed skin. I could feel his half-hard cock pressing against my upper thigh, my own against his belly.

One of his hands—the one on the left side of my body—slid up my side and to my chest, where it was joined by the other. “Cold?”

Around our ankles, the water was getting warmer. It was a fairly old hot water heater, and it was bloody cold outside. This morning it had been one below zero, so it was taking the water a few minutes to warm up. “Getting warmer.” I pulled him tighter against me.