Marlowe smiles slow, wicked. “It’s not porn, it’scliterature.”
Bridger chokes, standing abruptly. “I think I need to leave before I try and fuck your girlfriend.”
I growl, stepping forward.
He raises his hands in mock surrender. “Chill, man. I saidtry. She’d probably kill me first.”
“Probably?” Marlowe says, walking past him. “Definitely.”
She disappears down the hall and comes back a moment later, tossing a paperback into Bridger’s chest. “Read this,” she says. “But don’t get my pages sticky.”
Bridger catches the book, stares at the cover, then back at us. “This place is unholy.” He heads for the door, muttering as he grabs the handle. “I’ll wait for you downstairs so we can finish this conversation.” He steps out and pulls the door closed behind him.
Marlowe turns to me, towel shifting dangerously low. “You’re leaving?” she asks, stepping closer, voice husky. “What kind of conversation can’t happen up here?”
I move before she can say another word.
My fingers hook into the edge of the towel, and I yank it loose in one smooth motion. It falls to the floor with a whisper, pooling at her feet like a surrender.
Her gasp stutters in the air between us, but I don’t give her time to protest. My hands find her waist. Her skin is still warm, soft, slick from steam. I bury my face in her neck, breathing her in, letting the weight of what’s coming disappear under the need rising fast in my blood. She smells like heat. Like comfort and sin. And all I want is to lose myself in her until the rest of the world burns out around us. “I’ve been thinking about you in that tub listening to that book,” I murmur against her throat, my voice rough, strained.
Her body arches toward mine, her fingers grabbing at my shirt. I can feel her pulse under my lips, wild and frantic.
“Damian…” she breathes.
I slide one hand down, over the curve of her ass, and lift her with ease. She wraps her legs around my waist, her bare chest brushing mine through the thin fabric of my shirt. “My cock has been hard since chapter three.”
The audiobook is still playing on her phone, the narrator’s voice low and filthy, describing something about a hallway, a man’s hands pinning the woman to the wall, telling her to shut up and take it. I don’t even hear the words—just the tone. It’s all heat and pressure, and it only feeds the tension roaring through me. Bridger is going to have to wait. I can’t think straight when I need her like this.
She silences it as I carry her down the hallway and set her down on the edge of the bed, pushing her back gently with a hand on her chest.
She laughs, breathless, but her eyes are glassy with want. “I didn’t think it was that loud.”
“I heard every filthy little thing.”
I sink to my knees between her legs, watching her as I drag my palms up her thighs, spreading her open. She hums a small moan. I kiss the inside of her knee, then higher, then higher still,my lips trailing heat across every inch of her, savoring the way her muscles twitch under my touch.
“Look at you,” I murmur, my breath brushing the soft skin at the top of her thigh. “All wet from your little audiobook.” I glance up, and her eyes are needy. “All those filthy words making your pulse race, and you knew I could hear every goddamn one.”
She swallows, lips parting like she wants to defend herself. But she doesn’t.
“You like those stories, huh?” I say low. “Letting some smooth-talking narrator put ideas in your pretty little head while you soak in the tub. You think about me when you listen to that?”
She nods, almost imperceptibly.
My lips twitch, not quite a smile. My hands tighten slightly on her thighs. “You’re such a little book whore, Lo.” I lean in, close enough that my words ghost against her skin. “Filling your head with dirty little fantasies when I’m just in the other room.”
Her breath shudders.
“You didn’t even try to be quiet,” I go on. “You wanted me to hear. Wanted me to know exactly what you need me to do to you.” My thumbs stroke up and down her inner thighs—teasing, slow—the kind of touch that makes anticipation coil tighter in the air between us.
I press my mouth to her skin, just shy of where she wants me most, and her thighs tense beneath my hands.
“Put it back on,” I murmur against her clit. “The audiobook.”
She blinks down at me, color staining her cheeks.
I meet her eyes with a slow, deliberate drag of my thumb over the inside of her thigh. “Go on. Let’s see what that filthy book tells you to do next. I’ll help you follow every word.”
