Jason
It had been one of the longest nights of my life. I could see the exhaustion on Maddy’s face. I walked her to her door, off-shift, but still in uniform. Her dad answered before she could even touch it.
He took one look at me and asked, “What happened?”
“He saved us,” was what Maddy said, when I’d expected her to say something else like, “Oh, Jason was just doing his job.”
I couldn’t speak.
“It’s what he does best,” her dad answered, and then gave me a nod.
Maddy started to walk in, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her back against my chest.
She slumped against me.
“Stay with me,” I whispered in her ear.
She nodded.
The door closed.
And I was carrying her across the chalk line back to my house. Minutes later, I was starting the shower for her.
She was dead on her feet, so I peeled off my uniform, tried to detach my thoughts of her body from my mind, and stepped in the warm water with her.
I washed her breasts.
I washed her stomach.
I kissed her neck.
I couldn’t help myself.
“It would have been like this,” Maddy whispered against my skin, her lips cold, even with the heat from the water. “It would have been like this, had I not walked away. Nights in the shower together, a partnership… a team.”
I hesitated then tilted her chin toward me. “It can still be like this.”
“Every day?” Her eyes blurred with tears.
“Every day.”
“And the past—”
“Stays where it belongs.”
She was kissing me before I could register what was happening. The soap fell from my hands as her tongue slid past my lips, as her hands clenched my back, her nails raking over my hot skin.
Home never felt so right.
So good.
She was igniting a craving in me, as if I’d been in a deep sleep for ten years, and now, suddenly, she was waking me with every brush of her lips. I tilted her body under the hot water, my lips on her neck, licking her skin.
She sighed, “You feel bigger.”
I smiled against her neck. “Ten years.”
“I know, but…” Her lips parted for me as I stole the next few words from her tongue, the urgency of her touch, even the pressure, my undoing. Maybe even the citrusy taste of her mouth had something to do with it.
Whatever it was, I was a goner.
I was hers.
My body tightened as she ran a feather-light touch of her hands down my chest. I pulled away so I could see her, make sure she was real and not some meltdown I was having, an early mid-life crisis, a dream where I conjured up the one woman who’d gotten away and brought her back to share hot shower sex with her.
“Why are we always wet when we do this?” Her lips were swollen, her voice husky.
With a laugh, I wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her into me, speaking against her lips. “To be fair, you should always be wet, Maddy…”
Her breath hitched, and that gorgeous red stain lit up her cheeks. I’d missed that, maybe even more than I’d missed my own damn heart all these years.
“I love you.” It had sounded more romantic in my head, those three words, but I couldn’t wait any longer to get them out. “I never stopped.”
Her eyes filled with unshed tears. “Then show me.”
“Was the shower and the pool sex not enough? You need more?” I teased, biting down on her bottom lip.
Steam billowed around us as she wrapped her arms around my neck.
I braced us against the wall, my overheated body suddenly frantic to get inside her, to seal what this was between us. To chase it until my eyes burned, and my body demanded sleep. The air was thick with heat and the smell of Irish Spring soap.
“More.” She grinned against my mouth.
I kissed her harder, deeper.
“More.”
I pressed her body against the tile, our slippery skin sliding across one another. Her nipples were driving me insane with each brush across my naked chest. Once, twice. The water drenched us and started to get cold.
“More.”
I couldn’t wait any longer.
Because if we stayed longer, we’d freeze.
“Fast,” I grit my teeth. “This time, I can’t go slow. I can’t. Maddy—” Her name fell from my lips, both as a curse and a yearning.
“And next time?”
“So slow you’re going to beg for it to be faster…”
Her slick heat was velvet against my tip; one smooth thrust, and I was clawing the tile in an effort to get closer, to fuse our bodies so close together that I’d forget I functioned without her.
“Jason!” Her fingers pressed against my collarbone, and then she wrapped her hands around my shoulders, her mouth slightly open, as her drugged gaze locked on mine. “It never felt like this.”
I laughed, pressing her ass firmly against the tile. “I sure hope not. I was only eighteen—”
Her laugh had my body buzzing and zapping with energy, joy, lust. Everything wrapped around us like a warm embrace, as I grinned wickedly at her and pumped harder.
My gaze went from her mouth to the drop of water falling from her chin. My eyes took in her wet hair, swollen mouth, and short gasps for breath. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
And I realized, I’d never really seen anyone but her.
I cupped her face with my hands and kissed her then. I kissed away the anger, the unforgiveness, the betrayal I’d felt. I let it go, laying it across her lips like a promise that I would chase her forever, if that was what it took.
Because she was mine.
She was worth it.
And I wasn’t ever going to give up on us, even if I had to go to the depths of Hell and fight every demon in order to free her.
She cried out against my mouth, and I captured each sound with the flick of my tongue, with the pressure of my lips as I tried to make it last, the seconds where everything felt right in the universe. That was the thing about moments of bliss. They end sometimes before they even have time to begin.
I pulled her from the tile then followed, my body shaking under the cold water as she kept pressing small kisses to my lips, my cheeks.
“So…” Maddy laughed a bit, and then her teeth started chattering.
“Yeah?” I couldn’t stop staring at her. It was harder than hell to turn away, flick off the shower, and grab a towel. I wished we could have stayed there, pressed against the wall.
I slowly wrapped a white terrycloth towel around her body, then grabbed my own. She tucked herself under my arm as we walked out of the bathroom and into the adjoining master suite.
I should have been surprised to see Max standing there, soap in his hair, looking pissed off, but I wasn’t. This was the guy who’d tried to run for mayor of New Haven, just because he’d wanted a reason to make a sign.
So, standing in my bedroom?
Towel wrapped around his waist?
Soap in his hair and, from the twitch in his right eye, maybe there, too?
It should have been expected.
“’Sup, man?” I grinned.
“’Sup. Man.” He pointed at his eye. “You took all the hot water! Do you really think that all of this…” he pointed at his body, “…takes only a few minutes under that heat? I need to cook, Jason! My body demands it! What do you expect me to do?”
“Go to a hotel,” Maddy offered.
“Grab a hose.” My suggestion was less kind.
Max growled, “One does not put cold water on this type of product.” He glared at Jason. “Don’t you know anything?”
“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy with this one, using all the hot water, longer than seven minutes, I’d say.”
Max’s face changed, his one eye narrowing. “Nine minutes, at least. Better than last time. I’ll give it to you.” He grinned, “I take it the graph—”
“Never mind about the graph!” I coughed and pointed to the door. “Now leave.”
He turned and then called over his shoulder, “Get some.” And then finished with a spanking move before I slammed the door and turned to Maddy.
“He takes some getting used to, kind of like when people used to poison themselves to develop an immunity? Max, here, is like arsenic — small, small, small doses, and you won’t die.”
Maddy’s face spread out into a bright grin. “As long as I get you in big doses, I think I’ll be okay.”
“Oh yeah?” I walked over to her. I wish I could say I sauntered and looked sexy as hell; instead, I probably looked too eager to get in her arms again. The sloppy grin on my face wasn’t helping.
“Yeah.” Her eyes darted to mine. “We’re doing this.”
“Yeah, we are.”
I sealed it with a kiss and pulled the towel from her body. I dropped mine to join it in a heap in the middle of the floor.