He gives me a probing look, then hums. “I see.”
Confused, I grasp his shoulders as he walks out of the bathroom and switches off the light. “What do you see?”
“I need to be firm with you.”
The dominance rolls off him in waves, thick and delicious. I feel my body softening around his, eager for him to walk just alittle faster and give me other orders in that same gravel tone. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Why my bedroom and not yours?” I ask as he steps inside and turns on the light, pushing the door closed behind us.
His eyes flick to mine after he’s finished his task. “In case Ben needs you and can’t find you.”
He’s the perfect mix of gruff and sweet that I can’t help but kiss him again.
Far too soon, he pulls away with a groan, breathing hard. “Enough of that now.”
I pout. “You don’t like it.”
He cradles the back of my neck and gives me a bruising kiss. “Like it too damn much. That’s the problem. Come on. Let’s get you dry.” He walks over to my bed and stops beside it. “I need you to stand, sweetheart.”
I unwind my legs from his hips and get to my feet. The second I’m standing, he pulls my towel off me, fisting the damp sheet as his eyes roam over me.
Far too late, it hits me: my rounded belly, the stretch marks on my hips, the dimples on my thighs. All the flaws the light is illuminating.
Cheeks hot, I dip my head.
He catches my wrist and gently pulls my hand away from the parts of myself I tried to hide. “Every part of you is so beautiful—so fuckingperfect. I ache to be inside you. Don’t hide yourself from me, sweetheart. Not from me.”
With my heart pounding loud and heavy in my chest, I keep my eyes pointed at his ear. “I don’t believe you,” I say, voice low.
He pulls my right wrist toward him, between his thighs, and through thick denim, I swear I feel the hard ridges of his cock against my palm.
My eyes fly from the bulge in his pants to his face, and I swallow hard.
He meets my gaze calmly. “You feel what you do to me?”
Wanting to strip away his pants to see, struggling to believe he can want me that much, I nod. “Yeah.”
He lifts my hand from his cock, lowers my arm to my side, and casually starts drying my body.
My hair was up in a twist, so it didn’t get wet, and the mat caught most of the moisture from my bare feet when I got out of the bath. But Murph takes care to dry every part of me, dropping into a crouch in front of me and gruffly ordering me to lift my right leg, then my left to get my toes.
I stand with my hands on his shoulders for balance, wondering how he can be so slow and methodical in patting dry every inch of my skin after I felt the size of his erection.
Why is he not tackling me to the bed and fucking me already?
“What did you mean when you said that you needed to be firm with me?” I eventually ask, his slow drying warming my skin, and all this waiting heating the blood in my veins.
He rubs the towel over my hips, an area he’s covered before, but clearly feels he needs a little more attention. “What did you think I meant?”
I shrug as if I’m not desperate to know, as if my heart isn’t thudding so loudly in anticipation that I’m surprised he doesn’t hear it. “Um, that you would be firm with me… sexually.”
I startle as he drops the towel onto the floor with a thump.
The molten fire in his eyes as he gets to his feet sets off something hungry inside me. My heart races, and the tension in the room skitters across my bare skin, electric and hot.
“Get on the bed.”
