CHAPTER THREE
Havoc
The hot spray of water beating down on my shoulders is doing its best to loosen the tension I have weighing there, but I have tension in other places too. Namely the space between my legs where I’m hard as a fucking rock. The tension has been there for weeks, and I can’t help but try to relieve the frustration. Grasping my cock, I play for a few seconds, stroking it up and down, dragging my hand along the length. I know it’ll never fully be gone until I can bury myself balls deep into the woman who teases me every day, but until then, this is the best I can do.
I grunt harshly as I curl the fingers of my free hand into a fist, beating it against the tile of the shower. Sometimes a little bit of pain makes the pleasure sharper. The hand holding my cock picks up speed and I grip the base a little harder on each down stroke, curling my palm around the head on every upstroke. I’m sensitive and so fucking ready to blow, but I hold off, knowing the orgasm will be stronger if I can edge it out just a little bit longer.
My chest is screaming with agony as I beat myself off, but the shower is the only place I can get any relief. Being near Leighton, sleeping with her every night, and listening to her moan as she experiences whatever she does during her dreams is enough to drive a man insane. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve wanted to say fuck it, position myself between her thighs, and wake her up to the best ride of her life.
Take last night, for example. She moaned like she was having the most intense orgasm of her life. Her legs fucking shook. The thing is, I know she’s asleep. Every time I have to fight with myself – do I want to wake her up and offer to ease the ache, or do I lie there and deal with my own ache? I can’t make the decision. Which is why I’m jerking off in the shower.
I close my eyes tightly, picturing her in my mind. She has the most expressive eyes, and her body is so damn responsive. I bet she has absolutely no idea how often her nipples harden against those thin t-shirts she likes to wear. If she knew how I walked around this house in a state of half-arousal every single day she’d probably call me a pervert. But hey, I’m a red-blooded man and I appreciate her body. Immediately my mind goes to my favorite fantasy staring the two of us.
In my head, I can hear the bathroom door open; I can feel her eyes on me, even through the cloudiness of the shower door. My skin breaks out in awareness as I hear her coming closer.
“Holden?” Her voice is hesitant, but soft and husky with the slightest hint of arousal. Like maybe she wants this as much as I do.
Reluctantly, I let go of my cock and force the door to the shower open. I turn to face her, letting her see my own arousal, inviting her with the tilt of my head to join me if she so chooses. The sharp intake of her breath and the flaring of her nostrils is enough to tell me what I want to know. She’s interested, but I can also tell she’s unsure. Maybe she’s scared of where escalating this attraction will take us, maybe she’s afraid I won’t pleasure her, or she won’t pleasure me. Those thoughts have never crossed my mind, and now it’s time for me to man up and take fucking control of the situation.
I step out, not caring about the water I’m tracking all over the tile floor. My focus is on one thing in the room, and that object is the woman who’s been driving me nuts since she moved in with me almost a year ago. Putting a ring on her finger didn’t help anything either, possibly made it worse, because I have a claim on her I’m not sure I can ever act on. When I look down at that piece of metal and diamond on her finger, it’s a struggle to not beat my chest and tell the whole world she’s mine.
Because she’s not really. I’m kind of borrowing her until it’s safe for her to live the life she wants.
“Holden?” she questions as she inches back toward the vanity, gripping the edges of the sink as it stops her from traveling any farther away from me. I don’t know if she’s running away from me, or her feelings. I’ve noticed she does both.
“Leigh.” My voice is full of gravel and lust, harsh and seductive in its tone. I feel like I’m about to lose control and I haven’t even touched her yet. In my mind, I tell her I want her, but what comes out of my mouth in this dream sequence is something cruder than I intend for it to be. “Let me fuck you. Let me bury this hard cock inside what’s undoubtedly a sweet pussy and show you just how good it can be for us.”
She closes her eyes and pulls her bottom lip in between her teeth. Those responsive nipples pebble against the material of the t-shirt she’s wearing, and I decide I’m going for it, consequences be damned. Maybe I’ll never have another shot like this again, and I’m not okay with not taking it.
Shoving the fingers of one hand through her brown locks that she’s curled today, I use my palm to maneuver her mouth to my liking. Tilting it to the side so that we’re almost sharing the same breath, yet not touching her lips. I show her what a tease I can be, trying to give her a little of the tease she’s given me. With my other hand, I grab her hip, pulling her fully into my body. I groan as I realize she’s still wearing clothes and I can’t feel her naked body against mine.
My mouth can no longer wait for a taste and it has a mind of its own as I once more adjust the tilt of her head and dive in for a kiss. The first one we’ve had since we got married. The first real one we’ve had since that night in the bar so long ago. It’s not so much a kiss as it’s a possession. My lips take control, my tongue tangles with hers, and she leans back at the ferocity of it for a split second, seeming to gather herself before she springs into action.
In the span of five seconds, she’s climbing me. Her fingers are gripping my waist, nails digging into my flesh and she’s trying to hook her legs around me. I hear a moan, a sound of frustration from her throat, and it’s enough to make my cock jump where it’s resting against her belly. I feel the same goddamn frustration, have felt it for months. I’m glad we’re on the same page, finally. The hand on her hip snakes down to the globe of her ass where I palm it and lift, encouraging her to wrap her legs around my waist before turning us around and taking us back into the shower.
Once there, I crowd us into the wall, loving the feel of her bare feet digging into my ass. The water saturates her shirt, giving me a glimpse of everything I’ve always wanted to see without having to take her shirt off. It molds to her skin, giving me an erotic view of both everything and nothing at the same time. I don’t think I’ve ever been as hot for another woman in my life, as I am for her.
“Holden, here,” she gasps as she grabs my head in her hands, pushing it toward her tits. “I need you here.”
I don’t require any more encouragement as I lift her higher, putting her rack even with my mouth. My lips grab hold of the puckered flesh through the clothing and I pull tightly against the cotton, using my tongue to swirl around the hard nub. The smooth material against the abrasiveness of my tongue is a turn on all by itself, and I can only imagine how she’s feeling right now.
“Yes!” she arches in my arms, pushing her chest deeper into my mouth and pressing her middle harder into my cock.
As she begins to writhe against me, I begin to grind on her, letting her feel the evidence of my desire. The hard length presses into her and I groan loudly when she lets go of my head, reaches down and grasps my girth in her small hand, squeezing slightly. Closing my eyes against the pleasure, I ride along the edge for a few seconds, before I realize if I want her to do anything else I need to tell her.
“Holy fuck,” I ground out against the clenched teeth at her tit. “Fist it harder, rougher.”
My chest is heaving, panting like I’ve run five miles and done the obstacle course. Already feeling like I could come if a gust of wind hit me the right way.
Her small hand jacks me up and down, covering the head and squeezing the base, just the way I like it. I don’t know how she knows this about me, but fuck it feels good. Maybe it’s kismet, she knew me in another life and I’ve just found her again. We all think that sometimes, huh? The whole soulmate situation. The verdict on whether it’s true or not is still out, at least for me.
I can feel a tightening at my spine, and I’m thrusting against the tight ring of her hand. Biting down roughly on the nipple in my mouth, she makes a crying noise of pleasure and that’s all it takes for me to come all over the hand grasping my cock. “Leigh! Fuck, don’t stop!”
When I open my eyes, I’m back in the shower by myself, coming against the tile wall, biting my knuckle as I squeeze my flesh tightly in my hand. “Shit,” I breathe slowly, trying to settle my breathing down, and escape the ringing in my ears. If Leighton and I ever do get naked, alone, and willing, it’s going to blow my mind. My heart is pounding against my sore chest, and I’m trying to shake away the stars I see behind my eyelids.
“Holden, are you home?” I hear the voice of the woman I just jacked off fantasizing about as she makes her way through the house.
Damn, I hope I wasn’t loud. It’s not like I don’t necessarily want her to know what I was doing; my hope is one day she joins me, but it makes me feel a little skeevy. Especially since she wasn’t home, and I knew it. “Yeah, almost done in the shower. Be out in a minute.”
I finish this shower quicker than ever before. As I get out and dry off, I realize I only brought a pair of shorts with me, and no shirt. I hadn’t really wanted her to see the bruise on my chest, but I guess there’s no way around it, considering I’ll have to walk through the kitchen to get back to the bedroom.
Opening the door, I brace myself as I prepare to see the woman I just blew my load to the thought of.
Leighton
“Holden, are you home?”
I hear him answer me from the bathroom, at the same time I hear the water in the shower. Good, that lets me know I have a couple of minutes before he gets done. Quickly, I take the few bags I have, put them on the counter, and then head back to the bedroom to change into a tank top and a pair of shorts. When I bend over, the shorts almost show the curve of my ass – I know because I’ve looked. Fair? Probably not, but I’m learning as a woman you have to sometimes play the game to get what you want. If I’m honest with myself, I wear these clothes because I want Holden to notice me, yet I’m not sure he does.
“How does hamburgers on the grill sound to you?” I ask, bending over to get the lettuce, tomato, and cheese out of the bottom of our fridge.
“Sounds good. I can grill them for us as long as you take care of the sides.”
His voice surprises me, closer than I anticipated it would be. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and goosebumps to appear all over my body, in the most pleasurable of ways. Holden’s voice is one of the sexiest things about him. I love when he calls me on the phone instead of texting me. It’s a privacy I enjoy, a little thrill no one else knows I get except me. Regardless of whether it’s on the phone or not, I love talking to him and the intelligent conversations we have with one another.
Purposely, I shake my ass before lifting up from my bent-over position. Making a bit of a show of it, I place the stuff I got out of the fridge onto the counter. That’s when I get my first good look at him. A dark bruise covers almost his entire pec, and I immediately get a sinking feeling in my stomach. It’s hard to discern from the tattoos he has covering his body, but I can make it out, looking like a bullseye, right over his heart. I hope my family had nothing to do with this. I’ll never forgive myself if they have. “Oh my God, Holden! What happened to your chest?”
He rubs his hand across his pec, drawing attention not only to the already purpling bruise, but the solid strength there. He grimaces slightly, but I don’t know if it’s from the movement or the pressure he puts on the skin. Sometimes when I’m tired of fighting the fact I’m attracted to this man, I let myself rest against his bare skin, and knowing he’s hurt right now hurts me. Reaching for the beer I put on the counter, he pops the seal with his big hand.
“I’m okay,” he assures me, taking a drink of one of the Coronas I picked up at the store. “A bullet got me, but my vest stopped it – the exact way it’s supposed to. It did its job, just like I did mine.”
I freeze, stop everything I’m doing and look at him. How can he be so collected and calm about this? Obviously if there hadn’t been a vest there, he would have taken a bullet to the chest. He very well could have died. I don’t know why, but I’ve never thought of it that way before, never imagined what he did had him truly in danger. I guess in my mind, I thought he sent other people out instead of himself, but that’s not really Holden Thompson, is it? That’s not the kind of man he is. “So, you got shot at?” I ask carefully.
“Kinda part of what I do, sweetheart.” He takes a drink of the beer and levels me with a gaze, the side of his mouth tilting up.
The gaze is enough to stop my heart, the intensity in his eyes cause butterflies in my stomach, something I’ve never felt before. In the blink of an eye, I realize how much I’ve come to count on that gaze, and something else hits me like a ton of bricks.
Today is the day I truly realize just how dangerous Holden’s job really is.