“Green.” I tip my chin, letting the spray stripe my face. “And if I want more, you’ll hear it.”
“Clear,” Conrad says, quiet and absolute. It sounds like a vow.
There’s the rustle of fabric, the soft thud of shoes kicked aside. Atticus moves first, yanking his shirt over his head like it offended him, dropping it on the tile. The others follow, belts unbuckling, pants sliding down, boxers going with them. They strip with a speed that would scare me if I didn’t want them so bad my teeth ache.
I watch in the blur of glass and steam as skin appears—broad shoulders, ink, cords of muscle I know from the way they feel holding me, scars I’ve traced with my eyes but never like this.
Atticus steps into the shower without waiting for an engraved invitation. Water sheets over him, plastering his hair to his forehead, sliding down the lines of his chest. Heat rolls off him, thick as the steam.
He brackets me without crowding, arms caging me against the tile becauseIput myself here. His chest is a furnace at my back. His mouth finds my shoulder, a hot brand where neck meets muscle. His touch is deliberate—mapping pressure points, adjusting angle and pace until my breath catches in exactly the right places.
“Look at you,” he murmurs against my skin. “Driving us insane and doing it on purpose.”
His hands skate down my sides, grip my hips, then ease, waiting for the smallest flinch. I don’t give him one. I press back instead.
Storm comes in next, sliding into the shower behind Atticus. One big palm finds the small of my back, warm weight and quiet claim. He’s close enough that I feel the heat from his body even before he touches me.
“Here,” he says softly, like the word is a hand on my heart, and some knot I’ve been guarding loosens like it just heard its name.
Maverick stays just outside the main spray, stepping up onto the dry tile. He drops to his knees, water spotting his shoulders, hair damp and messy. He settles back on his heels, altar-boy posture, blasphemous eyes.
“Let us,” he says, voice gone hoarse. “Worshiping you should be an entire fucking religion, Phoenix.”
Conrad lingers in the doorway, one shoulder against the jamb, arms loose, hands open. Steam curls around him, blurring everything but his gaze. He’s naked and still like a storm waiting on the horizon, eyes fixed on my face.
He doesn’t move. That’s how I know he’s hanging on by threads.
Touches stack like chords—Atticus at my shoulder and hips, Storm’s fingers drawing small circles at my spine, Maverick’s hands skimming my calves and knees, thumbs stroking the sensitive notch behind them. Each contact is a question. Every answer is mine.
“Eyes on me,” Storm says when my lids start to drift, voice like velvet over steel. “If it gets to be too much, I want to see it coming.”
I twist my head, find him through the steam. His eyes are pinned on mine, the blue gone dark, the corner of his mouth hitched like he’s proud and ruined all at once.
Atticus rewards me with low, filthy praise that tastes like power. “Good girl. Stay with us. Take what you want.”
Maverick drops a string of absolutely obscene endearments that makes a laugh break free from my chest—half humor, half need. The sound shudders through me and tips me over a clean, hot edge.
Water, heat, hands—everything narrows. Fingers learn the map of me like they plan to write an atlas. I gasp, curse, demand, and they obey like kings on their knees for their queen.
When I say, “Enough,” they ease back.
When I pant out, “More,” they give it to me.
When old ghosts try to creep in at the edges, Storm’s palm pins steady warmth to my ribs, Atticus’s voice grinds out praise, Maverick makes some stupid joke that slices fear off at the knees, and Conrad’s gaze stays right on me—solid, grounding, a tether I didn’t know I needed.
The shower becomes a crucible, heat and water and want burning everything else away. Time stretches, bends, turns strange.
At some point, I’m panting, muscles trembling, head tipped back against tile. Atticus’s lips brush my ear as someone touches my clit.
“Bed,” he rasps. “You’re gonna wreck your knees in here.”
It makes me laugh, remembering. “You like me wrecking my knees, though.”
He laughs, too, and slaps my ass.
Storm answers with a grunt of agreement. Conrad straightens. Maverick looks vaguely offended at the idea of stopping—and then his eyes flick to my legs and he nods like fine, okay, he loves my joints too.
Atticus shuts off the main spray, leaving only the rainfall trickling warm and gentle. Storm is all practical efficiency for a minute—hands finding towels, wrapping one around my shoulders, another around my waist, like he’s reassembling something precious and breakable.
