And there he was in a low-slung towel.
And not a damn thing else.
My poor libido took a sucker punch it never saw coming as my gaze followed a single bead of water from between his chest, down underneath the towel.
“Lulu,” he said, jerking back a bit.
Was that suspicion? Or just surprise?
It was gone too fast to tell which.
“I, ah, I came to tell you that dinner is ready,” I told him, feeling lame. I mean, he’d just seen that dinner was almost ready. I should have just, I don’t know, been washing my hands or something.
My own insecurities about my excuse seemed to be pretty damn obvious to Valen, too, because his brow rose up.
“Yeah? That’s why you’re here, standing right outside where I was taking a shower?”
“What other possible reason could I have to be here?” I asked, making my tone disinterested. To hide my guilt at snooping through his phone, sure, but also the way my body was reacting to his near nakedness.
To that, his gaze went positively molten as his arm lifted, and his finger snagged the centermost part of my pants, using it to pull me forward an inch.
I’d like to say I pulled back, but I totally didn’t.
I didn’t put up any fight at all, in fact.
“I can think of a few reasons,” Valen said, that sultry gaze of his moving down over my body.
“Really? I can’t,” I said, jerking my chin up a little bit, but it probably came off more like a challenge than actual defiance.
“No?” he asked. “Maybe I should remind you of one,” he said even as his hand slipped inside my pants, pressing against me.
“Seems like your pussy had other things in mind than dinner,” he told me as his fingers slipped under my panties, finding me already wet for him.
I couldn’t think of anything snarky to say back to that, any way to deescalate the situation either.
Because we were both intimately aware of the truth right then.
Despite whatever history and hard feelings there may have been between us, there was no denying that our bodies still ached for each other.
I had to admit that, despite my determination to hate him forever, mine probably always would.
Valen moved forward, forcing me back against the sink vanity between the bathrooms as his thumb teased up my cleft to work my clit as his other fingers slipped down and surged inside me.
It wasn’t long before my own hands were getting greedy, lifting from my sides to slide up his arms, over his shoulders, then down his back.
My fingers teased over new scars that I wanted to know the stories of. Like the one he had on his elbow from falling off his motorcycle for the first time, skinning the whole area raw. Or the group of them going up the front of his leg from when he’d broken a bone from jumping off onto a trampoline on a dare, shattering his tibia and needing surgery. You could still count the little staple marks left behind.
I needed to know all the stories.
I wanted to know what had made him into the man he’d become like I knew the stories that made up the boy I had known.
“Try to tell me you don’t still want me, Lulu,” he said, his lips teasing over my ear at the words, making a shiver course through me.
I couldn’t say that.
But I also couldn’t tell him just how desperately I wanted him, how much I’ve always wanted him, even when I tried to convince myself I didn’t. Those long, lonely nights in hostels with my heart and body aching for him, despite the years and space between us.
So my head just lowered instead, my face pressing into his neck as he continued to work me.
“Thought about this a lot,” he murmured into my hair as his fingers got a little slower, making sure I was paying attention to each deep stroke. “Always fucking missed the feel of you,” he added.
The feel of me, I reminded my foolish, romantic, sappy-ass heart. Not just me. The feel of me.
And I absolutely could not let myself fall heart-first for him again because he missed my damn body.
Still, my walls tightened around his fingers, begging for more.
A rumble moved through his chest at that, making his fingers pull out of me, then out of my pants, both hands moving out to work my button and zipper free then wiggle my pants down my hips.
My greedy hand slid down the muscles of his chest and stomach before snagging the tuck of the towel, and flicking it loose.
The growl that moved through him then reverberated through my chest, making my sex clench hard.
He’d always liked it when I took charge.
And I’d always got even more turned on by taking charge.
My hand slipped down, finding his straining cock, and closing my hand around it, stroking him to the hilt.
Whatever control we’d been holding onto disappeared at that moment.
Valen’s hand went behind my neck, grabbing hard, yanking me forward, and sealing his lips to mine.
Nothing slow or sweet or reminiscent.
This was hard and deep and hungry, full of the intensity that came from our complicated situation.
Teeth nipped, tongues met, and lips bruised into one another.
Valen’s hands slipped under my shirt, teasing over my belly before he yanked down the cups of my bra, and grabbing my breasts, squeezing almost to the point of pain, making a ragged groan escape me.
My own hand started to work his cock again with the same firm pressure but slower pace I knew he loved as his fingers found my hardened nipples and started to roll them into tighter buds.
The whole world fell away as we touched each other.
Gone were the years of separation, the nights of aching longing, the heartbreak so painful that I felt it in my teeth, in the strands of my hair, in the very blood running through my veins.
All there was at that moment was him. Fucking wonderful him. With the scent I remembered, the knowing touch I remembered, the way we always seemed perfectly moved together, knew what the other wanted without having to ask.
Valen’s lips ripped from mine as my hand left his cock. His fingers sank into my hips, grabbing me, turning me so I faced myself and him in the mirror.
My arm shot out toward the glass container on the counter.
A condom jar.
Provided, it seemed, by Billie. Who’d made a craft day out of it, having three little cartoon penises on it. One with a condom like a halo over the top, the next with the condom halfway down, and the third with a completely protected one.
Below it in flowing, feminine script were the words All the fucks you will give.
I’d had a laugh about it the first time I’d seen it.
Ever since, though, I found myself watching the contents of it, wondering how many condoms were missing each day. And who was taking them.
I’d never been jealous.
Well, no.
That wasn’t true.
Back when I’d had Valen as my own, I’d been possessive and jealous.
But ever since, I never really cared enough about someone to care who he was fucking aside from me.
Since coming back to the club, though, it was heavy on my mind, and those old feelings reared their ugly heads.
Grabbing the condom, I passed it back toward Valen who took it and slid it on, his gaze moving to mine when he was done as his hand slapped down on my ass hard.
Before I could even fully register that sting, he was slamming inside of me, taking me deep, both of us letting out a gasp at the sensation, at all the memories it brought back.