Chapter Twelve

 

The waiting was the hardest part. Summer concluded that as two of the longest days of her life trickled by in a slog of long drives to the other side of the reservation, tutoring reluctant students and working with Georgey on basic reading skills.

The good news was her brother was quite bright. That quickly became apparent as he got sucked into the world of Percy Jackson. He had no trouble following the story, no trouble answering her questions to test his comprehension. What’s more, he was deeply excited about the story—which carried over when the novelizations came in the mail. The graphic novels were a lot of pictures and not very much text, but he was happy to sit down and try reading them, which was, as far as Summer could tell, a first.

She barely saw Tim for two days. He would drag in at seven or eight o’clock at night, looking beat. He’d inhale the dinner she’d made, ask Georgey how he was doing, then crash. It made the long days even longer.

She tried to be understanding about it. He was obviously putting in extra time to make sure Thursday was theirs. But it was frustrating.

She was frustrated. It had been a bit of a drought since her last boyfriend and she wasn’t satisfied with lingering looks and stolen kisses. She wanted more from Tim. Much more.

Finally, Thursday evening rolled around. She hustled Georgey home a little earlier than normal and made sure he ate dinner before she said, “I’m going to take a shower.”

She didn't rush. She shaved and exfoliated and washed her hair twice. She wanted to look great for Tim, which she found vaguely amusing because it wasn’t like they hadn’t been living together for a while. And she'd seen him when he was bruised and bloodied and almost too weak to stand.

But he’d healed. And she wanted to look pretty, dang it.

She was rinsing her hair when the bathroom door opened. “Georgey, give me a few more minutes,” she snapped.

“The kid’s gone,” Tim’s voice came from the other side of the shower curtain. “Jack picked him up five minutes ago.”

Summer froze, then smiled. Who the heck cared about dinner? Tim was here and she was here and she was already naked. Was it too much to hope…

“Do you mind if I join you?” Tim said and Summer’s heart took off at a gallop.

“Not at all.”

She heard the sound of clothing hitting the ground as she rinsed her hair the last time. Then the shower curtain slid back and there was Tim.

For a moment, she just stared at him. She’d seen his chest, obviously, but there was so much more to him. He was well built without being overly large, his dick half-hard against his leg. She moved aside to make room for him, but he didn’t move at first. He only stared.

“Yes?” she asked, fighting the urge to self-consciously cross her arms in front of her breasts.

“You leave me breathless,” he said, finally stepping into the shower.

Water ran over his shoulders, sluicing down the muscles of his chest. Summer exhaled, letting go of weeks of uncertainty and worry and stress so she could just be in this moment. Her breasts tightened as she slid her hands into his hair, tilting his head back so his hair was under the water.

“I thought this night would never come,” she told him, turning him around so she could shampoo his hair. She’d never done this with anyone else and it was oddly intimate, that a man who wore a bulletproof vest and occasionally slept with a gun under his pillow would let her take care of him.

“I’ve been waiting for this since the moment you drove onto this rez,” he said, his arms straight at his side, his hands curled into fists. She could see the tension in his shoulders as she massaged his scalp, but he held himself in check. “You weren’t what I was expecting.”

She laughed at that, recalling her mental image of an older man with white hair and a beer gut. “You weren’t what I expected, either.” She spun him around and ran the water over his hair. When that was done, she kept her hands on him, stroking the soap over his shoulders, down his chest. His dick stood at attention as she got closer, but she didn’t want to rush this. They had all night, and frankly, she didn’t care if she got dinner or not.

Breathless. She’d never left anyone breathless before. She’d dated—of course she had. She was twenty-six years old. But it seemed like most of the sex she’d had in college had been hookups. She was there, the guy was there, they were bored and horny and attracted to each other. It was simple and satisfying—to a point.

But it hadn’t had a lot of romance. Since she’d started teaching high school, there hadn’t been that easy availability. Now that time had passed, she realized she couldn’t go back to casual hookups. She needed something more. Yes, she wanted that shaking, flying feeling of letting go and being completely satisfied.

But she needed something else, too. Leaving Tim breathless was a damn good place to start.

She soaped up his body, learning where the muscles cut in at his waist, that he was slightly ticklish on his stomach, that he had a jagged scar on his right knee that looked like it had been an extremely painful injury. And through it all, he stood there silently, fists clenched at his side, his breath coming faster and faster.

“Turn around,” she demanded from where she crouched in front of him. He did so and she worked her way back up his body, taking the measure of his ass, kissing the scars on his back. Then she reached around and took hold of his erection, pressing her wet breasts against his back. He shuddered and leaned forward, bracing his hands on the shower wall as she explored his length and girth. When she cupped his stones, he groaned. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

She gave him a little squeeze and felt the shudder race through his body again. “Maybe. But it’ll be slow.” She dragged her thumb in a circle around his tip, causing him to gasp. “And you’ll enjoy it.”

Then he moved so quickly that she let out a squeak as he spun in her arms and backed her up against the wall. “You first,” he growled. Growled!

Summer bit her lip to keep from smiling at him as her back made contact with the cool tile wall. “What did you have in mind?”

He leaned back just far enough that he could stare at her breasts, his eyes dark with hunger. “For starters, these.” Then he bent his head and licked her right nipple.

Summer rested her head against the wall, losing herself in the sensation of his tongue swirling around her nipple. He sought out the other breast with his hand and began gently tugging on the tip until both were rock-hard. Steam filled the air as the water ran and ran, but she didn’t care.

He was going to kill her and it would be slow and perfect and she would absolutely enjoy it.

He went from licking her breast to sucking on it, then he added teeth and began to nip at her. She couldn’t help the little sounds that escaped her mouth. But she didn’t care because they were alone in this house and if she wanted to moan and cry out as he worked her body, then she would.

The heavy weight between her legs grew heavier until she was close to the point of pain. “Please,” she whimpered, lacing her fingers through his long, wet hair. “God, Tim—please.”

He looked up at her, a wolfish grin on his face. “Please what?”

“You’re driving me crazy,” she told him, trying to pull him up so she could kiss him.

“Not the right answer,” he said then he knelt in front of her. “Be specific. It makes things so much simpler, don’t you think?”

“Are you lecturing me?” she asked in disbelief even as he pressed a kiss against her stomach. “Really, Tim.”

He looked up at her and waited.

She shifted her hips, the tension inside her rising. “Fine. I need to come. There. Are you happy?”

“You always this bossy?” he asked as his hands dipped between her thighs and spread her legs apart.

“I am a high school English teacher,” she reminded him but anything else she was going to say died on her lips as he pressed a kiss against her clit.

Summer shivered as waves of desire began to crest. His hair was wrapped around her fingers as she held him against her. With one hand, he spread her apart and nestled between her legs more fully. With the other, he stroked up and down over her opening.

“Oh, Tim—yes,” she gasped as he began to lick her, his tongue moving in a slow, steady pace over her sex. She braced herself against the wall because otherwise, she might very well lose her balance and slide right to the floor of this shower.

“Hm,” he hummed against her sensitive flesh, the vibrations driving her even more insane. One finger slipped inside, and she almost came right then. But he withdrew too quickly and she whimpered.

“Patience,” he murmured, nipping at her thigh before turning his attention back to her swollen clit.

Patience? It’d been at least eight months since she’d last gotten lucky. She was completely out of patience by now, and he was reducing her to nothing more than a tightly coiled spring of want and need.

But before she could find the words to tell him this, he slipped two fingers inside of her. Her muscles clamped down on him, and she felt like she was downing. He began to thrust his fingers in time with the movements of his tongue—a slow, maddening pace that was going to drive her over the edge. It was too much and not enough all at once. Her hips bucked against him as she pulled on his hair. “Tim,” she demanded.

“Still not specific enough,” he teased, then sucked her clit between his teeth, gently tugging on it until a cry pulled free from her chest.

Somehow, he held her up—because she sure as hell wasn’t standing on her own anymore. Her legs had given out and all she could do was stare down at where his face was buried against her sex, his mouth surrounding her, his fingers driving into her. Then, without breaking the contact with her skin, he looked up at her through his dark lashes, and smiled against her skin, and without warning, the crisis broke and she came against him, wave after wave of desire washing over her.

Oh, it was a damn good thing he was holding her up. When her eyes focused again, he was still down there, still smiling against her skin, although he was now kissing her softly, his fingers slipping free of her.

Panting, she tried to smile but nothing seemed to be working quite right. “That was,” she said, trying to untangle her hands from his wet hair, “amazing.”

He smirked at her and said, “Babe, we’re just getting started.” Then he kissed his way back up her body, nipping at the soft skin underneath her belly button, lingering for long, glorious moments at her breasts. Finally, he brought his mouth back to hers. “You are the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted,” he told her, his voice shaking. Then his tongue swept inside her mouth.

She could taste herself on his lips, taste him underneath that. They tasted so damn good together.

His erection was hot and hard against her stomach, but he was in no hurry. And that too, was something different. In all those hookups in college, there’d been foreplay, sure. But…mostly it was her giving oral and very rarely receiving it. Guys her age didn’t know how to seduce a woman properly. After all, there wasn’t much seduction in Tumblr porn gifs.

But this? This was seduction, pure and simple. There was no hurrying before a roommate came back, no fumbling trying to find her clit. Tim was a man who knew what he was doing and how to do it well. He stroked his hands over her wet skin as he kissed her, tweaking her nipples and skimming between her legs, but he gave her time to come back down to earth.

It simply wasn’t fair he was going to be good in bed—that he was already this good in the shower. It wasn’t fair he cared about kids like Georgey, and this reservation, and the whole tribe, whether they wanted him to or not. It wasn’t fair he was this gorgeous and intelligent and seemingly hell-bent on protecting her, on protecting them all.

God, she could love this man.

It simply wasn’t fair she couldn’t stay.