He kisses me. Pulls me against him, and my hands are on his bare, hot skin. He’s heavy and thick against my stomach, and it’s too much.He’stoo much.
“Oh-m’God,” I say, but my mouth is crushed against his, and it comes out smothered. His hands are tugging. Unbuttoning. Slipping. Before long, I’m topless against him, skirt and panties around my ankles, andGod, it feels so good to be naked against him at last. My mouth seeks his warm skin, teeth sinking, and his sharp grunt of pleasure permanently lodges itself in my long-term memory bank.
Clumsy in our haste, he walks me backward into the shower, and the hot jets of water make me gasp against him. I open my eyes and come face-to-face with my own bite mark on his large pectoral. Right over a simple linework tattoo of a heart-shaped diary lock—the kind I used to have as a little girl.
“I’m sorry,” I say, kissing the mark. Sucking it.
“Fantastic,” he pants, pushing my wet hair back from my face. “Want to make it up to me?”
I look up at him, and he’s so mind-wipingly beautiful like this—with a million sparkling droplets clinging to his high cheekbones and long lashes—it’s indecent.
“More than anything,” I answer him breathlessly. I drag my hand lower. “How’s this?” I ask.
His head falls back with a groan when I slip my hand around his cock for the first time. There’s precum gathered at the tip, and when I spread it over the broad head, my hand feels so small. Insignificant.
“Fuck,” he whispers thickly, watching me work my hand down his length, stomach muscles rippling under the sheen of water. I wet my lips, suddenly starving for him, but he covers my hand with his.
“Baby, wait. Please,” he says hoarsely. “There is something else. Do you think—” He stops, exhales roughly, and this time, it’s his turn to look bashful. It turns me on beyond belief. “Could I just—”
I take in his flushed cheeks, and the way his gaze skims over my hair, and a memory slots into place. Heat forces its way into my abdomen, where I’m rubbing him against my wet skin. “You want to wash my hair?”
His eyes find mine, almost furtive. “Only if you’d like it. We don’t have to,” he’s quick to say, voice tight. But his cock flexes against my hand and stomach in protest, his slick throat moving in a hungry bob. And that’s when I realize he’s ashamed of this part of himself. Ashamed of his urge to take care of me like no one else has ever wanted to.
A lump inexplicably forms in my throat, and I press up on my toesto reach another tattoo, this one below his collarbone. An iron poker. “I love your hands in my hair,” I say. “Remember the first time?”
He exhales hard. Twists to pump shampoo into his hand like he’s envisioned this exact scenario a million times. “You mean that time I nearly got a boner at my grandmother’s funeral?” he says flatly. “I try not to.”
I laugh, mortified, but it turns into a garbled moan when his fingertips sink into my hair, working soapy circles into my scalp. My neck becomes a noodle.
“God, your hair,” he says, voice desperate. “You have no idea.” Suds spill down my breasts to my stomach, where he’s hot and slippery in my grip, thrusting involuntarily.
I’m drunk on his touch, and the words slur out of me before I can catch them. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
My regret is instant, and my hands still. I shouldn’t care if he’s done this a million times with other women. I said no strings. But then he responds with a broken laugh.
“Christ, no. I’ve never—” He blinks rapidly, hands slicking shampoo down my wet back.
Something leaps in my stomach, and my hands flex possessively around him. “You’ve never what?”
His thick lashes shudder, his breath catching. “Being with anyone else has always felt like playing house—not the real thing,” he confesses. “They leave in the morning, and it’s easy—so fucking easy to get on with my life.” Water sluices down the muscles flexing in his chest as his voice turns helpless. Frustrated. “But I can’t with you. You’re all I ever think about, Gracie. Talking to you. Touching you. Just fucking looking at you. But even when you’re right in front of me, it’s neverenough.”
This last word is almost a growl, and when he wraps his fist in my sopping hair, I groan, unable to tell him that my heart is covered in his fingerprints, too.
“There are no other partners,” he says, as I bring my arms around his waist, closing the space between us. “Not since I saw you in that church and everything fucking stopped. I’ve been right herein this goddamn shower every night, imaginingthis. Over and over and over again.”
At his confession, and the hard, wet roll of his hips, I suddenly feel so empty, my stomach aches. “I’ve touched myself, too,” I tell him, voice hushed beneath the roar of the water.
He curses, and a hard tug against my scalp sends a bolt of need down my body. I gasp as I’m forced to look up at him, my lips dripping with hot water.
“How often?” he demands, slowly pulling me along as he walks backward.
“Every night,” I gasp, nipples pinching tight. “Sometimes in the morning, too.”
His exhale sounds painful. “And you think of me sometimes?”
I could laugh. Or sob. “E-every time.”
He lets out a sound that’s half-curse, half groan, and then lowers himself to the bench. He sits with his head back, long legs thrown wide, and his veined hand gripping the base of his erection tight. “Sit,” he orders.
