The water beads on her skin, tracing lines I can’t follow without losing what’s left of my control.
“No,” she says. One word. Calm. Absolute.
“Cassie—”
“I’m not leaving.” She steps closer, steam blurring the edges of her, but not the intent in her eyes. “You don’t get to order me away and pretend this isn’t happening.”
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“I understand exactly what I’m doing.” Her hand comes up, fingers closing around my wrist—not stopping me, groundingme. “You’re the one pretending.” Her fingers are inches from my cock. So close. So achingly close.
My breath turns shallow. Too fast. My body betrays me again, tension coiling tighter with every second she stays.
“Look at me,” she says.
I don’t.
Her fingers slide up my arm, slow and deliberate, mapping muscle and restraint and the places I’ve been holding too tight for too long.
“Look. At. Me.”
I do. I take her in. The water slicks her hair back. The drops running down her throat, over her breasts. The hunger in her eyes matches my own.
Her chin lifts. Defiant. Unafraid. Choosing this.
“Tell me to leave, if you can,” she challenges softly. “But if you do, say it like you mean it.”
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out.
She steps into my space. Steam. Heat. Her body so close I feel it before I touch it—feel the pull, the gravity, the inevitability of what I’ve been fighting since the kiss.
“That’s what I thought,” she murmurs. She reaches down, her fingers curling around mine.
I grab her waist—hard enough to bruise, desperation clawing its way out.
“You need to stop.”
Her other hand fists in my wet hair. She pulls my head down.
“Make me.”
That’s it.
The last thread snaps.
I haul her up against me, the kiss crashing in rough and hungry, all restraint burned away in the collision. Her gasp issharp, startled—and then she’s kissing me back just as fiercely, mouth opening, breath breaking between us.
“Fuck,” I breathe into her mouth.
Her legs wrap around me instinctively, like she’s been waiting for permission I never meant to give. I lift her without thinking, her body fitting against mine like it knows exactly where it belongs.
The water beats down around us, loud and relentless. I press her back against the wet tiles, my forehead dropping to hers as I fight for breath. I grind my hips against hers, the friction unbearable.
“This is a bad idea,” I say, even as my hands roam over her slick skin, memorizing the curve of her spine, the swell of her hips.
“Then stop,” she challenges, breathless. “Right now.”
