Playing Adult | ✔ | 18+

Chapter 24 - Cold Comfort

Author's Notes:

If you'd like to hold off on the angsty stuff until the happy ending is published, don't read the last paragraph (it will be clearly marked).  Things should be back to good again in chapter 30.

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Rose POV:

No matter how angry I was with Lissa, it was hard to ignore Dimitri when I saw him. He had been so handsome in his dress shirt and pleated pants, his long hair tied back so flawlessly, that it almost took my breath away. I couldn't compare, looking like a drowned rat, completely sopping wet with no makeup, wearing my grimy and worn workout clothes, and flustered from my angry rants at our closed door.

When Dimitri let me in his house, I was freezing, but I tried to hide my shivers. I felt almost rude asking to shower the first time I was in his house, but I was just too cold and needed to get warm.

I shouldn't have second-guessed it because Dimitri was reliable and kind as ever, finding me a change of clothes and a towel, even offering to dry my wet clothes. He was so thoughtful and caring, not giving a second thought to himself. He even spent a few moments going through a very private-looking drawer of his sister's old underclothing that probably emotionally scarred him for life.

I gave half a thought that a guy wouldn't know how to care for my expensive French lace panties properly in the dryer, but they were just too wet to put back on and I didn't want to leave them sitting around where Dimitri's father would see them. Besides, it would do us both some good for me to tease him a little with them. Maybe I could move us a little closer to being naked together in the same room.

When I got in the bathroom, I rummaged around for a minute, smelling Dimitri's soap and after-shave and finding the right way to turn the knobs to get the temperature right. His soap was clean and manly and his after-shave had a wonderfully spicy smell to it, reminding me of the way his chest and neck had smelled when we had been kissing. The shower was hot and the pressure was good, so I lingered under the warm water, relishing in it, just glad to be warm again.

When I got out, I went to Dimitri's huge fleece sweatpants first. They felt so soft and I thought to myself how nice it would be to run my hands along the outside of them while he was wearing them. It might sound silly, and certainly could've been kind of gross if they weren't clean, but I smelled them, hoping that they would smell like him, too. To a certain extent, they did, but not like the soap had.

I pulled them on, and they immediately fell back down again, quickly pooling at my knees. I laughed to myself, saying, "Well, that's certainly one way to get my pants off," and then moved on to the t-shirt he'd given me.

The tag on the shirt said Medium, but it didn't look like a size medium. The thin white t-shirt was a Maroon 5 concert shirt with a tall, skinny 'M' stretched across the whole front of the shirt, and it barely went over my head. Considering how wet and dripping my hair and body were, the shirt was pretty transparent. Once I had it over my breasts, it seemed kind of pointless, considering it clung to my curves so well that it looked like I had no shirt on at all - and I still had nothing to cover my bottom half.

I definitely didn't mind him seeing me that way, but especially after Friday, I thought I'd rather it be by his choice for him to see me naked and not an unexpected surprise due to a wardrobe malfunction. I would keep throwing him hints, but wait until he was ready for us to have sex together.

I yanked it back off, covered with the towel, and padded out into the hallway to see if Dimitri could give me something else. I hadn't even thought about the fact that I was only wearing a towel until I saw his heated gaze on me. I could practically feel his eyes caressing my skin, and boy, did I enjoy it. At that moment, I thought maybe I should have come out in the skin-tight see-through t-shirt with no pants on, after all.