The water soaked her instantly, turning the sheer silk slip completely transparent and plastering it to her flushed skin like a second layer of ice.
David jerked violently, startled. He spun around, his back hitting the marble wall as he wiped the water from his eyes. For a split second, looking at her dripping wet and entirely vulnerable in his space, he looked utterly terrified.
“Rose,” he gasped, his chest heaving. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer right away. She stepped fully into the heat of the water, closing the distance until she could reach out and rest her hands flat against his wet, muscular chest. She could feel the frantic, rabbit-fast beat of his heart under her palms. It wasn’t the steady, calm heartbeat she knew. It was racing with panic.
“I miss you,” she whispered, her voice raw, echoing in the confined, tiled space. She looked up into his dark eyes, desperately searching for the man who used to worship the ground she walked on. “It’s been over a month, David. Over a month since we really touched each other.”
David swallowed hard, the muscles in his throat working. A flicker of something deeply uncomfortable—something that looked dangerously like guilt—passed behind his eyes. He looked away, staring at the tile next to her head. “Rose, the firm... this merger is bleeding me dry. I’m exhausted.”
“I know,” she murmured softly, sliding her hands up his slippery chest to cup his jaw. She gently, firmly forced him to look at her. “I know you’re working hard. But it’s okay. What matters is that you’re here right now. We’re here.”
She leaned up, pressing her wet body flush against his, and captured his mouth.
For a terrible, agonizing second, kissing him felt like kissing a statue. He was entirely stiff, his lips unresponsive, his body rigid as stone beneath her hands.
But then, with a jagged, broken breath, he kissed her back.
It wasn’t tender. It was frantic, hungry, and entirely desperate. He gripped her hips with bruising force, pulling her hard against his erection, his hands sliding roughly over her slick, wet body. Rosália let out a soft sigh of relief into his mouth, her fingers tangling in his dark, damp hair. This was what she had been starving for—the heat, the physical anchor, the undeniable proof that her husband still wanted her.
He gripped the thin straps of her ruined silk slip and tore it down her arms, letting it pool around their ankles. He didn’t bother turning off the water, nor did he reach for a towel. He grabbed her hand, practically dragging her out of the bathroom, leaving a trail of water across the floor as he pulled her onto the mattress.
The heavy silk sheets instantly soaked up the water from their skin, the cold air of the bedroom clashing with the flushed heat of their bodies.
Rosália lay back against the pillows, her breath coming in shallow pants. She parted her legs, anticipating the deeply intimate, familiar routine that had defined their sex life for a decade. David had always been a meticulously generous lover. He was a man who worshipped her body, who would always sink to his knees, taking his time to taste her, tracing her skin with his tongue to ensure she was completely unraveled and begging before he ever took what he wanted.
But tonight, he didn’t even look down at her.
He crawled over her wet body, positioning himself roughly between her thighs, and pushed inside her with a hurried, singular, almost violent focus.
Rosália gasped, her back arching off the mattress as her hands instinctively gripped his broad shoulders. He was deep, but it was incredibly rushed. There was no build-up, no reverence. She reached up, hooking a hand around the nape of his neck to pull his face down to hers, desperate to ground the connection with a kiss.
He met her lips, but the rhythm of his hips was entirely wrong. It was jerky, frantic, slightly offbeat, as if he were trying to match a tempo playing in his own head—a rhythm completely out of sync with her body.
Before she could adjust to the jarring sensation, David broke the kiss. He tore his mouth away, breathing heavily, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“Turn over,” he rasped, his voice strangely thick and unrecognizable in the dark room. He gripped her waist, practically lifting her. “Get on your hands and knees. It’s better this way.”
Rosália blinked, deeply disoriented by the sudden, commanding shift. They rarely had sex this way unless it was the culmination of a long, slow buildup. But she complied, desperate to keep the heat alive. She rolled over, pushing up onto her hands and knees in the center of the damp bed.
The moment she was in position, facing the dark wall, David gripped her hips with a bruising, territorial force and pulled her back flush against him.
He drove into her hard, the pace instantly doubling.
“Yes,” he hissed out, the sound sharp in the quiet room. His chest slapped against her wet back. He reached around, his hands groping her breasts with a greedy, rough urgency that completely lacked his usual tender reverence.
He leaned forward, his mouth hot and open against her neck, his breath ragged as the dirty talk started spilling out of him.
“Fuck, you’re so hot,” he panted, his thrusts deepening, entirely selfish. “So fucking hot.”
Rosália squeezed her eyes shut, trying to sink into the physical pleasure, but a strange, icy disconnect began to bleed into her veins.
“You’re so hot,” David groaned again, his fingers digging painfully into her hips.
A few seconds later, before Rosália had even begun to find her own rhythm, David let out a harsh, guttural shout. He completely let go of her, collapsing onto the mattress beside her. His chest heaved as he dragged in oxygen, the abrupt end to the encounter leaving the room echoing with his heavy breathing.
Within a minute, his breathing leveled out. He rolled onto his side, turning his back to her to face the window, and went perfectly, terrifyingly still.
