“Come for me,” he ordered, dark and deadly. “Right here. Right now.”
And she did.
Her cry shattered through the steam, her body breaking open in his arms, slick and trembling and so fucking his.
He held her through it, never letting go, never easing up—because she needed to know.
This wasn’t just sex.
This was a claim.
And when she collapsed against him, panting and ruined, he pressed a kiss to her temple, his voice rough with reverence.
“We’re not even close to done.”
The air between them crackled,heavy with want, with restraint barely hanging by a thread.
Gideon’s gaze dropped, slow and reverent, and then snapped back to hers like he couldn’t look too long or he might lose it entirely.
But the damage was done.
His breath caught.
His jaw flexed.
And when he moved, it was with purpose.
He backed her out of the shower and toward the counter, crowding into her space with the heat of a man unraveling, but entirely in control.
“You’re going to kill me,” he murmured against her mouth.
“Then die knowing it was worth it,” she whispered back, dragging her teeth across his bottom lip before pulling him down into a kiss that had nothing to do with patience and everything to do with possession.
Steam curled around them, the hiss of the shower forgotten as he lifted her onto the cool marble counter, the contrast biting against her bare thighs while his hands burned along her skin.
His mouth found her throat again, trailing fire along the delicate column of her neck, down to the curve of her shoulder. She arched, legs tightening around his waist, grinding against the thick, aching evidence of how badly he wanted her.
“Arden,” he rasped, his voice breaking.
She pulled him closer and managed, “Bed.”
That single word shattered what was left of his restraint.
It was a gasp. A warning. A plea.
But he wasn’t stopping.
He was claiming.
By the timehe lifted her again, she was trembling—breathless, dizzy, wrecked.
He carried her like a man who could ruin her, but refused to.
The backs of her thighs hit the edge of the mattress, and he laid her down like she was the most breakable thing he’d ever held.
The sheets were still warm when he laid her down, but the heat between them burned hotter.
She reached for him, pulling him down with her, legs parting, bodies aligning like they were made for this—like this moment had always been coming.
