“Fuck,” I groan, my head tipping back as my spine tingles and my balls draw up tight. My grip on the shower wall tightens, knuckles white, as I feel the end barreling toward me. “I’m going to come.”
Her throat tightens around me in response, swallowing me deeper, and that’s it—I’m gone. My hips still as I spill into her, my orgasm ripping through me with a force that leaves my legs shaking and my head stunned.
She swallows once, then twice, her eyes never leaving mine, drinking down every last drop of me like it’s her lifeline.
When I finally still, spent and panting, she pulls off my cock with a soft pop, her lips swollen and glistening. She doesn’t stop there, though, her tongue darts out to clean up the sides of my shaft, leaving me in awe in her wake.
She smiles up at me, wicked and proud, and I can’t help myself. I yank her up to stand, pulling her into the stream of water and crashing my mouth against hers. I kiss her deeply, tasting myself on her lips, the mingling of us driving me wild all over again.
“You’re going to make your brother mad at me,” I murmur against her mouth, my forehead rests on hers as I try to catch my breath. Thoughts about what this means. About all the lines I set that we’ve blown past this weekend start to crowd my thoughts.
I promised her I wouldn’t jeopardize her promotion. I swore I’d be on my best behavior and support her dreams, but then she fell into the lake. And she scared me. And suddenly all of those promises didn’t matter if I’d lost her.
And then she told me she wanted me too.
It’d be so much easier if she didn’t feel this, but she does. And we both know it.
She laughs and gives me a gentle shove. “Go meet with my brother,” she says, light and teasing. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
I linger in the shower, anyway, caught between the need to talk this out and the very real understanding that Cain is not someone I can afford to screw around with.
“When I get back,” I say carefully, “we need to talk about this.”
The shift is immediate. The warmth in her eye’s fades, replaced by something guarded, unreadable. My chest tightens instantly.
Does she want to pretend last night and this morning didn’t happen?
She doesn’t answer me and after a few seconds of guarded silence she gives me a small nod.
I step out of the shower, toweling off slowly. I can feel her watching me the entire time. Every movement. Every inch I dry her eyes track it. I pull on a pair of discarded sweatpants and a T-shirt, shake the damp from my hair, and only then do I go back to her.
I lean into the spray where she’s still standing, cradle her face in my hands, and kiss her deep and unhurried, like a promise I don’t intend to break. Because I don’t. I’m not going to break this. I’m not going to break us.
“I’ll be back,” I murmur against her open mouth before I pull away.
Chapter 32: Rosie
“Banana! That’s a ba-nan-a!” Rhiannon coos excitedly to Piper, who’s nestled in my arms. Piper squeals, her little hands smoosh my cheeks together while reaching for the banana that’s in my free hand.?
I laugh and hold it closer, giving her a tiny bite. She chomps on it with dramatic enthusiasm, her cheeks puffed out as she smacks loudly.
Then, as if the joy of the banana wasn’t enough, she claps her hands together and immediately starts squirming to be let down.
“Alright, alright, you little wiggle worm,” I say, crouching to set her on the floor. The second her tiny feet hit the worn tile, she drops to all fours and takes off, crawling under a rack of tablecloths and disappearing.
“She’s quick,” Rhiannon says with a grin, bending down to grab a stray knick-knack that's fallen before Piper can add it to her personal collection of baby "treasures” she loves to collect.
“Too quick,” I agree, straightening up and eyeing the row of end tables lined along the perimeter of the shop. “You guys got some new inventory?”
“You know Gabriel can’t pass up on a good deal,” she says, running her fingers over the smooth edge of a nearby table. “That, and I think he’s channeling his work frustrations into this. He’s been throwing himself into projects he actually enjoys. You know how much he loves working with his hands, fixing up old pieces. He’s been doing a lot more restorations with Eden than normal the past few months.”
I raise a brow. “What’s going on with his job?”
Gabriel, Rhiannon and Eden’s older brother, is the overachieving Carpenter sibling, though I suppose they all are in their own unique way. They each have impressive work ethics which is saying something given Cain and I were bread to not blink at one-hundred-hour work weeks being a regular occurrence.
Gabriel’s currently working as a senior project manager for a massive construction company in New York City that builds all the new high rises that are going up. Last I heard, he was overseeing office buildings and apartments in the Manhattan area, the type my father loves bragging about because his law firm occupies half a floor in one of them.
I know that he hasn’t been happy with the long hours and weekend shifts, but that’s the extent of what I’ve heard from him.
