Nick’s eyes roamed me so hungrily I didn’t think he was going to be able to wait for this whole striptease to finish.
He stepped toward me and my breath caught, but he reached into the shower only to start the water. Now we were only inches apart. With him standing so close, I could feel the heat rushing away from his skin. God. He was like a furnace.
“Bra,” he said.
I held up my hands playfully. “I thought you were too jealous of these to let them have all the fun. Or did you forget?”
He made a deep groaning sound as he pushed me against the wall and pressed his mouth against my neck. With skillful, quick fingers, he undid my bra and tugged it away from me. He didn’t even take time to admire the view before plunging his mouth down around my nipple.
I sucked in a surprised breath and felt my neck arch back all on its own. Nick was always so deliberate and measured that seeing him this animalistic was unbelievably hot. I threaded my fingers through his hair, gripping hard and pressing his mouth against me. When he groaned, I could feel the vibrations run through my chest, spreading a wave of intoxicating heat all the way to my core.
“I think you got hot faster than the water,” he said, grinning up at me, almost boyishly.
I knew I was blushing, but I didn’t care. “You too.” I half breathed the words because it was all I could manage. I felt like I was in the middle of a marathon—like my brain was starved for oxygen and running at only a tenth of normal speed. In reality, I suspected every available ounce of processing power was getting sent to recording and enjoying as much of Nick’s touch as I could. I was savoring it like it might be the last time his hands were on me, because for all I knew, it would be.
He backed me into the shower, helping me balance as I stepped over the ridge of the small tub.
“I’m still—” I started.
“Fuck the clothes,” he said.
“I think that’s actually the opposite of how this works,” I said.
“Smart-ass.”
The water made a pattering sound against Nick’s pants and soaked straight through my thong. He didn’t even bother with our remaining clothes before hiking my legs up around his waist and pressing my back into the wall.
I put my hands on his cheeks and stared at his face, mesmerized by the rivulets of water tracing his carved features and running off his parted lips. “Tell me one thing,” I said.
“Anything.”
“What would you have done if my name was on that poem seven years ago?”
“I always wanted you, but I wanted you so badly I was too afraid of screwing it up. Seeing your name on that poem would’ve been too much to ignore.”
I ran my thumb across his lips, marveling at how soft they were. “It’s a little ironic, isn’t it? We both wanted to be together so badly that we had to convince ourselves it was hatred instead of—” I cleared my throat. The awkwardness I felt broke the spell of his presence. I realized what I was about to say. Hatred instead of love. I hadn’t been back in Nick’s life long enough to throw around a word like that.
I couldn’t read his expression, but Nick saved me the embarrassment by pretending he hadn’t noticed. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess we’re both just cowards hiding behind false confidence, aren’t we?”
“Something like that,” I agreed.
His eyes started to get heavier again, almost like I could see the thoughtful, rational part of him retreating deeper inside. “Now,” he said deeply. “If you’re all out of questions, I need to fuck you before I explode.”
“Is there an option where you don’t explode? I’ve kind of started to like you.”
“We’ll have to work on the ‘kind of’ part,” he said.
I let out a small surprised moan when he emphasized his words with his hips, driving the hardness of his erection into me in just the right place.
“These need to go,” he said. With what seemed like no effort at all, he pulled my thong free, snapping the material in the process.
“Are you planning to replace those, Mr. King?” I asked.
“I’ll buy you an entire lingerie company, if that’s what it takes.”
I smirked. “No. I don’t want your money. I just want you.”
Nick’s eyes met mine for a moment, almost searchingly. He kissed me then, grinding himself into me until I could barely contain my need.
I couldn’t reach to help him with his pants because he still had me pinned with my legs wrapped around him, but with one hand he managed to strip them and his underwear in seconds. They flopped to the floor of the tub, and he kicked them out of our way.
“I’ve been dying to taste you,” he said. “All of you.”
I put my hands on the wall to steady myself as he raised me up and positioned my thighs over his shoulders. Wow. I had only a moment to marvel at how high I’d been lifted before the sensation of his hot tongue between my legs snapped me into focus.
Nick King was eating me out. The thought felt so bizarre that I had to replay it a few times before it stuck. I gasped and tightened my legs around his head. Before Nick, my experience of having a man’s head between my legs had been largely unpleasant. One guy acted like he was trying to dial a long distance number on an old-school rotary phone with his tongue. Another used his tongue like an exploratory probe, and he wasn’t sure which button turned the thing on, so he just slung it around without any form of plan or strategy. In both cases, I’d been left staring at the ceiling with a confused, slightly disturbed look.
Nick knew exactly what he was doing.
It was almost as if he could feel what I was feeling—like every time he found a rhythm or spot that drove me over the edge, he knew exactly how long to keep it up. Hottest of all was just the ferocity of his movements. I could feel the pent-up sexual frustration he must’ve had for years and years, and it was all getting channeled into me like an intravenous shot of bliss.
As much as I wanted to stay there all night while he explored me with his tongue, I couldn’t wait any longer. “I want you inside me,” I gasped.
Nick didn’t wait for me to ask twice. He slid me down to his hips and let me guide his length into myself. It was big, and I had a moment of panic at the idea of trying to make that fit inside me. But he took it slowly, easing himself in inch by inch.
I threaded my fingers behind his neck and reveled in the sensations of our slick bodies sliding together—of him filling me more deeply than anything I’d ever experienced.
I caught glimpses of him as the steam rose from behind his head, and it was like something out of a dream. He was too perfect to be real. This was too perfect to be real. Maybe that was why a finger of dread snaked its way into my head, even as I was gasping and moaning his name.
People thought my life was perfect, but things like this didn’t actually happen to me. There was going to be some kind of catch, and I needed to prepare myself for it.
But I couldn’t think of that now. He was burying his face in my neck and breathing hard with each thrust. His hands were like iron around my waist, pulling me onto him so that he was completely buried inside me.
“I’m on the pill,” I breathed into his ear.
He stopped just long enough to catch my eye and wait for me to nod.