He turns.
Full front. Directly facing the tub. Directly facing me.
I make a sound that I will be taking to my grave.
He is… hard. Not just semi-hard, but fully, aggressively erect, jutting out proudly. Thick, the head flushes a dark red. The sight of him sends a violent, liquid pulse straight through me.
He makes no move to cover himself. He just stands there under the spray, letting me look, his face an impassive mask, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere above my head. But I know. I justknowhe turned on purpose. This is a show. For me.
I genuinely consider slipping below the water and staying there.
I am going to die,I think.I am going to die in this bathtub and it will be his fault entirely.
"Stop looking," I bite out.
"I'm not looking at anything," he says, eyes still on the wall above me. “You’re the one looking aren’t you, Little Gia?”
True. I’m the one staring like a starved woman.
"You turned around on purpose."
"It's my shower."
"You turned around on purpose and you know it and I want you to know that I know it and I am completely unaffected."
The corner of his mouth moves.
"Completely," I repeat myself just in case he didn’t hear it.
A muscle feathers in his jaw. The corner of his mouth, just for an instant, twitches.
My face is an inferno. My nipples are so hard they ache, tight little pebbles pressing against my own arms where I hold my knees. My core throbs, a steady, needy beat. I am completely, utterly affected, and he can definitely see it.
I look very seriously at the faucet, which is an excellent faucet, very well-made, very interesting, absolutely worthy of my complete and total attention.
It’s of no use though. The image is burned into my soul: the length of him, the thickness, the way it looks so fuckingheavy. I imagine how it would feel in my hand. In my mouth. Pushing inside me. A full-body shudder wracks me.
Five years. It has been five years since I have wanted anyone. Since the wedding, the blood and the aftermath, I shut that part of myself down so completely I'd started to wonder if it was just gone, if the wanting had been buried with everything else from that day. Five years of proposals I refused, men I smiled at and felt nothing for, a body that was numb.
And then Rafael fucking Caruso walked in.
I can’t stay here.
I stand up so abruptly I almost slip.
Water pours off me in sheets. My breasts, full and heavy, swings free, the water running in rivulets down the deep valley between them, over my tight, dark nipples. I feel his gaze on me, hot and possessive, as I reach for the white robe.
Don’t think about it. Ignore him.
I shove my arms into the sleeves, the thin, soaked silk clinging instantly to every curve, plastering itself to my wet skin. Everything is clearly outlined, the peaks of my nipples pushing against the fabric as I yank the belt tight. The robe does nothing to hide me. It makes it worse, a translucent second skin.
I want to scream.
I turn around.
Rafael is stepping out of the shower and we are suddenly approximately one foot apart.
Water drips from his hair, down the hard line of his jaw, over his collarbones, tracing paths through the hair on his chest. A towel is wrapped low around his hips, but the thick outline of his cock is still visible, a prominent bulge pressing against the terrycloth.
