Free Six Month Rule (Kingston Ale House) by A.J. Pine Page A

her pelvis to his. She’d felt him hard against her. She knew he wanted exactly what she did. Okay, well, she couldn’t confirm that he was going through a dry spell, too, but he wanted her. That much she knew.
    Shit.
    She stalked to the bathroom and turned on the faucet so that water rushed out in a loud, whirring splash. Then she stripped herself bare and adjusted the temperature before changing the water source from bath nozzle to showerhead. Holly stepped over the lip of the tub and pulled the curtain shut, letting out a resigned sigh.
    The water hit her face, her neck, her breasts—nipples still sensitive and hard just from brushing up against him. She imagined Will’s velvety voice asking, May I kiss you? May I touch you? May I…
    Holly lifted the showerhead out of its cradle and adjusted the setting to her favorite combination of pulse and vibration. She gave it a pointed look.
    “Do you have any secret children you’d like to tell me about before things go any further?”
    The showerhead said nothing, but she knew what it was thinking. I’m it for you, sweetheart. I’ll always be here, and you’ll always come back to me. We’re meant to be.
    Well, they were meant to be for this evening, anyway.
    She let her head fall against the cool, tiled wall and dropped the hand holding the showerhead between her legs. Eyes closed and shoulders finally relaxing, Holly let her hips pulse to the rhythm of the water, and she let the water do what she needed it to do.
    Only, her H 2 O lover wasn’t doing his job. She shifted her stance, but it still wasn’t right. Maybe it was placement? But no, adjusting placement did nothing to uncoil the tight heat from her core. Then, understanding the risks, she did the unthinkable. Desperate times called for desperate measures. With her thumb resting on the small lever at the base of the head, Holly swiveled it forward just a notch—and changed the setting.
    “Shit!” she yelled, throwing the nozzle against the wall. It bounced and sprayed hot needles at her torso, her face, and then the shower curtain. She grabbed it before it nailed her in the face again, not wanting another aggressive facial.
    Note to self—
    Next time you want to change the showerhead setting, remove said showerhead from between your legs first!
    Holly’s much-needed release was going nowhere fast, so she nudged the dial back to where it was—or where she thought it was—and attempted to get back to business. But it was no use. The pulse was too weak, the water streams too thin. She tried again, and then again, prodding the dial just enough to enact the smallest change, but she couldn’t get it back to her original setting.
    Her greatest fear had been realized. Her showerhead setting had lost its sweet spot, which meant her sweet spot was to remain unsatisfied.
    She groaned and slammed the water off altogether, feeling bad for the pint of Häagen-Dazs waiting in the freezer that only had moments left to live before she devoured it without mercy.
    May I kiss you and leave you aching between your legs, reminding you that there is better out there than the six-speed Turbo Elite?
    “Why, yes, Will Evans,” she said aloud, wrapping herself in a towel. “It appears that you can.”

    Halfway through her pint of pure, untampered with chocolate ice cream, Holly still couldn’t find anything to watch on TV that would distract her from the crazy that was this evening, so she tightened the belt on her robe, grabbed her phone, the remainder of her ice cream, and a spoon, of course, and headed out to her balcony.
    Will had called her a star. He’d called her a star, kissed her, and then walked away because he knew that whatever was between them couldn’t go any further . And something was definitely between them. Holly could admit now as she sat in her small wooden chair, laying waste to the rest of her dairy savior, that she was not , in fact, lactose intolerant. She was Will Evans intolerant, and if this