I swallow, hoping it’ll slow down the emotion welling behind my eyes, rising in my throat. “Well, you did a good job.” His eyes light with a quiet pride as I step out of the shower, drying off and sopping up the excess water still in my curls. He heads toward his dresser, pulls out a pair of underwear, and I press up behind him.
“What are you doing?” I say, wrapping my arms around and sliding my hands down to where he clearly needs my assistance.
“I wanted to take care of you,” he tells me, the muscles of his back tensing as I move my hand up and down thelength of him. When I come around to face him, I realize his jaw is set, his molars grinding against each other.
“And I want to take care of you.” The feel of him in my hand has me breathing harder, has me peppering his chest with kisses.
“I don’t want you to think you have to give me anything.”
And I feel protectiveness for him wash over me, feel like he deserves to know that he can want things from me. That he doesn’t have to prove himself by never asking for anything in return.
“I happen to love giving you things. Isn’t that convenient?”
His breaths are shallow and ragged as I feel my way down him, lowering until I’m licking the length of him, the hard heat of him causing a twinge of need between my legs.
“Is that okay?” I ask him, my desire to make him feel the way I felt winning out over my naïveté. I keep my eyes on him, taking him in more fully.
Bracing himself with a hand against the wall, he curses under his breath. “It’s perfect,” he grits out, his free hand now resting on the back of my head in this show of intimate reassurance that has my body tingling. “Look at you,” he says, gazing down at me. “Fuck, Gen.”
The praise has me moaning around him, and he pulls out suddenly, his strong arms lifting me to him and I wrap my legs around him on instinct, rubbing and wriggling, seeking the friction I need.
His lips crash into mine, and nothing else feels like this; nothing ever has. I hear the tearing of a wrapper, only feel the loss of him for a moment, and then I’m pressed into hissheets, lost in his woodsmoke, digging my fingertips into his back as he buries himself inside me.
“Don’t be careful this time,” I breathe against his ear, craving the relentless side of him I know is there. His thrusts turn rougher, more frequent, as he reaches between us, taking what he needs from me in a way that has me barreling towards my climax. Pleasure pools between my legs, grows until I feel it wrap around the base of my spine, feel it implode on itself. Hot sparks of pleasure shoot through my core as I spasm around him. He’s unraveling too—I can feel him pulsing, the motion sustaining my own orgasm. With his head against my shoulder, I hear him exhale. Like he needed that, too.
When he rolls off me, he takes me with him so my ear rests against his heartbeat. I listen closely, breathing with it in tandem, until it feels like my own.
“Sloane called me your girlfriend.”
His low hum reverberates through me. “She did.”
There’s a smile in his voice that has my stomach fluttering.
“Is that…what we’re doing now?” There’s a deep intake of breath, a shallow exhale, and then a pause.
“If a label feels rushed or too much?—”
“It’s not?—”
“I just need to be yours. Doesn’t matter to me what you call it. But you’ve been feeling like mine.” Relief washes over me as I wrap myself around, brushing my hands across the rough touch of his grown out stubble, pouring every ounce of my feelings for him into his gaze.
“That’s because I am.” I lean in, gently reeling him into my kiss, and let the truth of it seep into me through his touch before giving him a quick final peck. I climb off him, knowing we could easily spend the rest of the night like thisif I don’t peel myself off him. And Sloane is bound to come back.
“Where did Sloane go, anyway?” I pull my brush through my hair, running my curl cream through the strands once they’re sufficiently detangled.
“She didn’t say,” he says off handedly, and the vague memory of Sloane mentioning Connie has me changing the subject.
“How’re things with the team?” The question inevitably has me thinking about Will. I start pulling on my change of clothes, pausing when I see the sweatshirt Grant had on when I arrived. Cocooned in his scent, Will drifts to the back of my mind and out of sight.
“Tense,” he says on an exhale. “Ben and Will won’t speak to each other, but they’re both still captains. So.” He pauses over Will’s name, and I force myself to appear unfazed.
“Is having two captains even like, advisable?”
“Probably not,” he laughs, uneasy. “And I don’t see it getting better if Ben keeps sneaking around with Liv.” I feel my face drop at her mention. “You know, I feel like you’d actually like her.” I feel bad about the way my eyes roll at this, but I do it almost unconsciously.
“I don’t care ifyou’refriends with her,” I lie, trying my best to appear genuine. His head tilts, like he knows I’m bullshiting. “We’ve just never gotten along. Some people don’t jive.”
“It just doesn’t make sense to me, especially now.” He means now that Will doesn’t stand between whatever friendship we could’ve had.
