Page 186 of Reckless

“Sage?” She starts walking toward the en suite. “Where are you going?” She glances back over her shoulder, reaches for the hem of her pajama shirt, and peels it over her head before letting it fall to the floor. “I’m having a shower.” She hooks her thumbs into the waistband of her shorts, arching a brow at me. “You coming?”

I blink at her exactly once, then I’m moving.

“Well, when you ask that nicely…”

She laughs as I all but launch myself off the bed, dragging my T-shirt over my head while following her into the bathroom. By the time I reach the doorway, she’s already stepping beneath the spray, steam curling around her as the water splashes against the tiles.

I kick the rest of my clothes somewhere behind me and step beneath the spray after her.

Heat rolls over my skin, washing away the grit of the day, and for the first time since this morning, my shoulders loosen.

Sage turns toward me through the steam, droplets catching in her hair, her smile softening for the briefest second when our eyes meet.

I close the distance between us. My fingers find her wrist, drawing her gently toward me before I lift it to my mouth and press a kiss against the inside of it.

Her pulse flutters beneath my lips.

I feel it.

Feel the tiny hitch in her breathing as my thumb brushes across the inside of her wrist.

When I look up, something in her expression has changed.

She’s not soft when she looks at me like that.

She’s issuing a challenge.

“You planning on being gentle all night, or is there a version of you that doesn’t run a risk assessment first?”

I don’t answer right away. Instead, I let my hand drift down the curve of Sage’s waist, over her hip, until my fingers find her clit, and I watch her jaw tighten when I don’t give her what she’s asking for yet. I circle slow, barely there, and her hips buck forward chasing more contact.

“Ghost.”

“I like to be thorough.”

“I’m aware. I filed the complaint weeks ago.” Her hand fists in my hair, dragging my mouth down to hers, and she bites my bottom lip hard enough that I growl against her mouth. “Quit thinking so much.”

That does something to me low in my gut, something that snaps whatever restraint I was holding onto clean in half. I grip her hip hard enough that she gasps, and I turn her, pressing her front against the tile this time, my chest flush to her back, my mouth at her ear. “Careful what you ask for, Objection.”

She shivers at the name, arches back into me, and I run my hand down her spine, over the curve of her ass, between her thighs, and she’s already soaked for me, water or not. She rocks back against my hand, impatient, and I chuckle low against her neck.

“Ghost.”

“Yeah?”

“I said quit thinking so much, not be smug.”

“Didn’t hear a complaint in there.”

I slide two fingers into her without warning, curling them just right, and whatever comeback she had loaded dissolves into a moan that echoes around us. I work her slowly at first, feeling her tighten around my fingers, feeling the way her knees start to shake, and just when she starts chasing that edge in earnest, I pull my hand back.

“Ghost, I swear to God—”

“Consider it revenge.” I press a kiss to the back of her neck, my voice rough at her ear. “Every time you’ve walked off half-dressed just to watch me suffer.”

“That’s not revenge, that’s just mean.”

“It’s efficient.”