The Institute, Daddy Issues(63)

More loved, whispered a little voice in my head. But I pushed it away. That was silly—I couldn’t love Salt and he couldn’t love me. We were part­ners and that was all we were. All we could ever be. Right?

Right, I told my­self as he squeezed more peach body wash on the cloth and pre­pared to scrub my bare breasts.

But the minute the wet terry­c­loth made con­tact with my sens­it­ive nipples, I winced and jerked away.

Salt was in­stantly alert.

“Prob­lems?” he in­quired anxiously. “Did I hurt you?”

“Not you ex­actly.” I frowned at the wash­cloth. “It’s that damn cloth—it’s really rough.”

“Oh?” Salt frowned and rubbed the terry­c­loth between thumb and fin­gers. “Feels all right to me.”

“Be­cause you’re just touch­ing it with your hand,” I poin­ted out. “Look, I can’t help it, Salt. I’ve al­ways had very…very sens­it­ive nipples.” I felt my cheeks get­ting hot but went on any­way. “It’s a prob­lem some­times when I’m try­ing to find bras. And in the shower, I never use a sponge or scrub­bie on them.”

“Then what do you use?” he asked and I could hear the frown in his deep voice even though I wasn’t look­ing at him dir­ectly.

“Well,” I said awk­wardly. “Just my hands, mostly.”

“Do you wish for this?” Salt mur­mured. “For me to put down cloth and just use my hands?”

I bit my lip, ima­gin­ing how that would be—hav­ing my part­ner’s big, warm hands all over my bare breasts. I had never ad­mit­ted it to Salt and had tried to for­get it my­self, but I’d ac­tu­ally had sev­eral erotic dreams about my part­ner that went along those lines.

You shouldn’t, whispered a voice in my head. It’s cross­ing the line. But wasn’t that a line I had already crossed when I took Mandy’s dare to suck my part­ner un­der the table at din­ner? How much worse could it be to let him wash my breasts? And after all, we had to do this for the case—we had to make it look real, I ar­gued to my­self.

“Andi…mishka?” Salt asked in my ear and I real­ized I was tak­ing too long to an­swer.

“Yes,” I whispered, nod­ding my head. “Yes, Salt, just…just do it.”

“As you wish,” he said simply, hanging the cloth over the side of the tub. He drizzled a few drops of the peach body-wash onto his fin­gers and rubbed them to­gether un­til they were slip­pery. Then, gently, he cupped my breasts in his big hands.

I sucked in a breath as I felt him stroke up­ward, lightly brush­ing over the outer curves of my breasts. Even that barely-there caress had my body hum­ming and I found I wanted more.

Hardly aware of what I was do­ing, I pressed my breasts for­ward, more fully into his hands. I was hop­ing that Salt would un­der­stand what I wanted.

To his credit he seemed to get it. Long fin­gers traced del­ic­ately around the wide pink bands of my are­olas, al­most but not quite touch­ing my nipples. He was either try­ing to be very care­ful or he was teas­ing me on pur­pose.

“Salt!” I pro­tested breath­lessly as his fin­gers slowly circled me. “It’s okay—I told you I won’t break! You can…can touch me—I mean wash me—harder than that.”

“Like this, do you mean?” He stroked firmly over my aching nipples, mak­ing me moan.

“Yes,” I gasped. “Just…just like that. Only more.”

“As you wish, mishka.” He took my tight, pink peaks between his thumbs and fore­fingers and tugged gently but firmly.

A sud­den bolt of light­ning seemed to go through me and I groaned and threw my head back against his broad shoulder. I pressed my breasts up and out, try­ing to get more of his ad­dict­ive touch.

Salt made a soft, deep noise of ap­proval low in his throat. He pinched my tight buds care­fully, teas­ing me with the sen­sa­tion—he seemed to know ex­actly how I wanted and needed to be touched. And I swore that every move­ment of his big hands on my breasts res­ul­ted in an equal bolt of pleas­ure shoot­ing down to my pussy as well.

“Do you like this, mishka?” he mur­mured in a low voice as he stroked and teased my sens­it­ive nipples. “Do you like to feel my hands on your sweet, full breasts?”

“You…you know I do,” I whispered, un­able to lie.