Page 20 of Burden of Proof

And I’d liked it. I’d really fucking liked it.

“Come on,” New Ethan said, leading me out of the bedroom and down the hall to the bathroom.

Even the guest bathroom had the same vibe as the rest of his apartment, dark jewel tones, golden light, and comfort. Fuck, his apartment was comfortable.

“How do you like the water?” he asked.

“Hot,” I said, clearing my throat. “Sir.”

He paused, halfway to the taps.

“You don’t have to call me Sir anymore.”

“What if I’m trying to get used to the feel of it?” I asked.

Ethan turned on the water, waved his hand under the spray to check the temperature, then moved out of the way so I could climb in.

“Do you plan on calling someone else Sir?” he asked quietly.

I pulled the curtain closed halfway, and Ethan sat down on the closed lid of the toilet, his sticky cock now soft against the top of his thigh. He rested his elbows against the back of the toilet tank, leaning toward the wall so he could still see me in the shower.

“I don’t know,” I said, grabbing what looked like a clean washcloth off a small rack by the soap. “Can I use this?”

“It’s clean.”

Off the bat, he hadn’t struck me as the kind of man who had clean towels at all times in a guest bathroom, but if he hosted often, it made sense for him to be prepared. I wasn’t sure how that made me feel, so I did what I did best and ignored the feeling. Instead, I squirted some body wash onto the cloth and lathered it in my hands.

“I’ve made some assumptions tonight based on your cagey answers that you prefer to be dominant in the bedroom,” he said.

I washed my armpits, then reached back to clean the place on my back where he’d painted my skin with hot stripes of his own cum.

“And out of it.”

Ethan made a thoughtful—if disbelieving—noise.

“That’s why I wanted to try this,” I told him. “I hooked up with a guy a few weeks ago, and he…I don’t know. He was playful about it, but the whole time we hooked up it felt like the tables kept turning.”

“And you didn’t like that?”

“I did like it,” I said. “That’s the problem.”

I lowered the soapy cloth to my cock and balls, washing them gingerly as to not accidentally turn myself on again. Not that I could come again if I wanted to. Ethan had wrung three orgasms out of me, and the last one was barely anything but air. If I came again, it would be nothing more than thoughts and prayers between me and God.

Ethan frowned at me, his hair falling over his face when he cocked his head to the side.

“Why does that stress you out so much? Can’t it just be fun?”

I thought about Silas and Marshall. I wondered if Silas found the things they did fun or if he found them necessary. Ethan posed a fair point, though. I’d been single for so long, was it really that important to me? I’d clearly lived just fine for all the weeks at a time I went without it. Why did I make such a big deal of it when I did finally get it?

“I don’t know,” I answered, rinsing out the washcloth and returning it to the hook. “Maybe.”

I turned and tipped my head back under the water, slicking my hair away from my face and letting the spray wash over me.The soap raced down my body, and I did a turn under the water to make sure I was fully clean.

“I had fun tonight,” Ethan offered.

I swallowed hard, impressed I’d made it through the shower without crying again while knowing if he’d left me alone, I would have. Fucking subtle-ass, aftercaring motherfucker.

“I had fun too.”