The only thing breaking the silence in the bathroom is the gentle lapping sound of Jordan lazily dragging his hands through the water. I'm captivated by the way the strong muscles of his back and shoulders shift with the movement of tracing swirls onto the rippling surface, barely containing the urge to run my hand over them. I imagine what it would feel like to trace the grooves of his back—and how it would feel for the featherlight touches skimming over the steaming water to be dancing across my skin instead. To feel the steadying weight of his body settle on top of my own as the lips that are currently relaxed in a neutral pout crash into mine. It isn't too hard to picture that—vividly—considering that he's lazing in a bathtub in front me, naked safe for the black swimming trunks he wore. A small mercy, because I doubt that I would have been able to convincingly feign nonchalance at his nudity—just the few glances that I'd caught of the general outline of his dick over the course of the forty minutes we'd been in here had driven me close to insanity. Five years of friendship, and we still hadn't seen the other naked—although I didn't need to in order to tell that he was considerably large. Before I could stop it, the image of getting teased and fucked by his cock materializes in my mind. I try to clear it away with a swift shake of my head, but it is as if it has hooked unyielding iron claws into my imagination, insistent on staying there. I lick my lips and shift uncomfortably as I notice the fast-approaching, familiar feeling of pressure pooling in my core that seems to surface whenever I'm around Jordan. Lately.
It's weird, because it never used to be like this. Fine, our friendship had started with a romantic intention on his end, but it never got further than Jordan's failed attempt of asking me out after he'd witnessed my drunk-off-my-ass dancing (which was weird to me because it usually scattered guys within a four mile radius) right after I'd been dumped by my shitty ex-girlfriend. In fact, the romantic interest had faded completely, and in its place was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of bond—the kind that you don't fuck with. Over the years we've gotten together with a bunch of other people and it was never an issue. It was sort of an unspoken agreement between the two of us that we would never cross that line of hooking up, but lately that line has started appearing blurred to me. We never took it past 'harmless' flirting, although with the chokehold that his words have on me, I'd hardly describe it as such. Sometimes I wonder whether he notices or reads into the fact that I'm perpetually restless around him, and that most of our interactions happen with my legs crossed or clamped together tightly. Either way, it's an effort to tear my gaze from his back and focus it instead onto the way that the rising smoke clings to the windows, obscuring the view of the starry sky outside.
Jordan is conventionally attractive—frustratingly so, although I'd never admit it to his face. The only difference between him and the other guys who are too is that he doesn't have an ego to match. Outside of our regular banter, he is actually quite humble, but you'd never guess that just by looking at him. He's mixed—black on his mom's side and white on his dad's—and has been blessed with every good gene that there is to have. Caramel skin and full lips that always seem stretched into a smile that went higher on one side and deepened the dimple on his right cheek. A jawline so sharp it could probably cut a block of ice and thick (but not bushy) angled eyebrows. A dark tattoo that runs down his throat to his pecs, that he got for his 21st. I love the three piercings on each of his ears, and that he paints his nails from time to time without making a problem out of it. I love that he doesn't stand by and laugh or ignore it when there are guys who do.
And yet I'd still gone almost five years without being attracted to him. What changed?
Sitting perched on the lip of the tub behind him, I continue to work the shampoo through his hair—all the while being overly conscious of the fact that I have one leg on either side of the expanse of his broad shoulders, essentially straddling him. It's just a few inches of space separating us.
