“You know I can walk, right?”
“I spent decades dreaming about carrying you around, just let me have this, Wildcat.”
Something about his words makes my chest ache for all the time we missed. Years we could have spent together if one of us had been brave enough to admit our feelings. But maybe it just wasn’t the right time. Maybe if we’d been together when we were younger, things wouldn’t have worked out.
“Fine,” I murmur, dropping my head to his shoulder and enjoying how the water soothes my sore muscles.
We stand under the spray for long minutes, neither of us saying a word. I still have so many questions, so many concerns about the logistics of our match, but for right now, all I need is him.
THIRTY-FOUR
COLTEN
For the fifty-third time since I undressed Lexi, I beg my dick to settle the fuck down.
It’s not the time to be so hard I could cut diamonds. Not when my girl is injured and traumatized.
There will be years for us to get acquainted with every inch of Lexi’s body, for right now I’m just content to hold her.
Begrudgingly, I lower her feet to the tiled floor, holding onto her for extra seconds just to make sure she doesn’t fall before reaching for the sponge and squirting a liberal amount of shower gel onto it.
It’s her favorite, and therefore it’s mine.
It’s not a conscious choice to like everything she does, but it’s come naturally over the years, which is how Twilight became my favorite movie when I was a teenager, and how the Jonas Brothers became my favorite band around the same time.
I start with washing Lexi’s shoulders, dragging the sponge over her skin as gently as I can manage.
The leftover blood from her ordeal washes away as I clean her as clinically as possible.
But once again, my dick did not get the memo.
He’s excited that the only woman he’s ever taken notice of is naked in front of us, allowing us to touch her impossibly soft skin.
Lexi watches me from beneath dark lashes, her eyes tracking my every move as she does the one thing that doesn’t come naturally to her.
Letting me take care of her.
If I could bring Santiago De Luca back from the dead just to kill him again for one thing, it would be the way he treated his daughter. She was expected to be a robot, to be emotionless and independent the same way Cruz was, but that’s not who my wildcat has ever been.
She’s soft and gentle, saving her fierceness for when it really matters, and I’ve always admired her for that.
When I’ve washed every speck of the day away from her skin, I move to wash the sponge beneath the water, but she stops me.
Lexi’s hand grasps it and gently moves it over my chest, her eyes flicking between the task at hand and my reactions.
Everyone knows how much I loathe human touch. It’s one of the most irritating lingering side effects from my childhood and likely one of the reasons I’ve never been interested in any woman aside from the one in front of me.
She’s one of the only people I’ve ever been able to stomach having their hands on me.
The sponge moves over my arms before descending lower.
My breath stutters in my chest when she carefully crouches to wash my legs.
“Lexi, your knees,” I breathe, my voice shaking from how close her face is to my cock.
Fuck. I might come just from seeing her on her knees for me.
“They’re feeling fine right now,” she tells me, dragging the sponge down one leg just to bring it up the other.
