"Don't move," I ordered, still paging through the documents. "I can't feed you breakfast in bed if you're not in bed."
Zelda linked her arms around my waist, rested her head between my shoulder blades. "I don't need room service. Forget about that."
I turned, taking her in my arms and dropping a kiss on her forehead. "Then what do you need, my love?"
She blinked up at me, her eyes still swollen and bloodshot. I didn't like seeing that, didn't like knowing she returned to this room alone last night and cried. It left me ragged on the edges, empty and aching in the middle.
Zelda ran a hand through her hair. "Let's start with a shower."
"Sure. I'll get the water warmed up for you."
"After you do that," Zelda started, "will you join me? In the shower?"
"Yeah," I said, nodding. I bit back the tease waiting on the tip of my tongue because I didn't need to remind her of the times she'd declined my offers. She knew all about that and she knew today was different. "Of course."
That was how we ended up in the shower together, Zelda's head tucked under my chin and her arms linked around my waist while the water washed over us. We didn't care about the time we stood there, doing nothing but holding each other and ignoring my dick's desire to be the center of attention.
Until Zelda swayed against me, her hips pressing into mine in a fatally soft move that eliminated all questions ofifshe wanted me this morning and replaced them withhow.
Her lips found my chest, my neck, my jaw, my arms—every bit of skin I had to give her—and she covered it all in kisses, licks, timid bites. She was like a baby vampire, unsure of precisely how she planned to kill me, but the truth was she'd already done it. I'd been hers from the start.
When the kisses and littles bites no longer fed her desires and her body seemed to tremble with need, I brought my hand to the back of her neck. "I'd love nothing more than to pick you up and fuck you until there are grout lines on your back but—"
"Don't you dare," she cut in. "Not until you stop groaning in agony every time you put on a suit coat."
"That's why I need you to turn around and put your hands on the wall, love." I held her tight, my fingertips pressing into the corded muscle of her neck. Her breath caught and her lips parted on a sobbed sigh but she didn't move. "If I have to stare at those lips a minute longer, I'll come on your tits and leave you squirming the rest of the day. Do as you're told and put your hands on the wall. Understand?"
There was a yawning second where Zelda's eyes flashed with defiance, resentment, exasperation, and interest—in that order. It was then that I knew why I'd played that card, why I hadn't opted for some gentle petting or a sweet, safe fuck void of these rough-scraped commands. It was because she pushed her wet hair from her face and planted her hands on the wall, steadying herself in place while shimmying her ass at me. She didn't need anything sweet or safe today. Her ex was an abusive prick and I had to get over that fast because he didn't get to rob her of the intimacy she deserved—even if it was rather rude and depraved.
I ran my fingers down her spine, over the dragonfly tattoo at her waist, between her cheeks. "I'd prefer it if you responded to me with words, Zelda."
Arching her back, she tossed a glance over her shoulder. "Yes, Ash. I understand."
Despite the teasing in her tone, her message to me was clear.
You can tell me what to do but I'm always in charge.
You have my body and more importantly, you have my trust.
You get to have me because I chose you.
It was exactly what I needed to hear.
"Good girl." I dragged my fingers down the line of her ass again, massaging her there because it turned her on like nothing else. Truly, her body could singe sheets when I played with her back channel the right way. If we played like this for a couple of minutes, she'd boil the bathwater too. "I didn't come prepared, my love." She rocked her hips against my hand, silently ordering a finger inside her. I complied. "If I leave you here a moment, can you promise you won't move?"
We'd had a brief conversation the other day on the matters of protection when Zelda mentioned needing to find a pharmacy to transfer her birth control prescription. We discussed an appropriate amount of health history to decide we couldgo forwardwithout condoms when the time was right.
"I will not give you a second. Not even one," she replied as she worked herself over my finger. With this view, I wasn't certain I'd last more than two, three thrusts once I got inside her. As if that was anything new. "I want you right now and I don't want to wait."
My cock had a pulse and I could hear it pounding in my ears. I closed the last breath of distance between us as a growl climbed up from the bottom of my chest, low and primal like it was meant to warn my prey to take cover. However, my prey knew exactly what I was capable of and she loved it.
"You want me to fuck you without anything between," I said, tipping my head to the side to get a better view of the swollen lushness of her cunt. "That's how you want it?"
Instead of answering me, Zelda reached between her legs and took my shaft in hand, notching my crown inside her. Taking what I'd planned to give and turning up the pulse in my head until I could hear nothing, nothing but white noise fractured by throbbing bass and the echo ofmine, mine, mine. Yet it had nothing to do with the absence of the condom. That was merely a fringe benefit.
"What did I say about putting your hands on the wall?" I asked, coiling her hair around my hand.
"You told me to put them thereonce," she replied, a moan peppered into her bratty words. "You said nothing about keeping them there."
