Tilting my head back, I let the water pelt my skin. Before I moved in, I had the shower redone with four ceiling shower heads, so it’s like a rainforest in here. But I need it. After practice when I can barely move, I crawl in here and my muscles can find a little reprieve.

But tonight my body isn’t what needs help.

Breathing in the steam, I close my eyes and try to figure out what just happened. I know I’ve been telling myself this is casual, that we’re just friends—really good friends—but my relationship with Maddie feels anything but casual right now.

Christ, the way she looked at me with tears trailing down her pale cheeks, I thought my heart was going to rip out of my chest. Usually, Maddie is fierce, tough. It’s one of the things I love about her.

Not that I love her.

Well, I obviously care about her. A lot. Probably more than I should at this point, but I admire the hell out of her. The way she gave herself over to covering stories that make a difference instead of inconsequential football games. She’s more than just a beautiful girl with an awesome laugh. More than a sexy woman with a great personality. She’s just… more.

It’s a little bittersweet to think about how things could have been different.

She was one of the only girls to ever turn me down in high school. At least that was how I thought about it then. I figured she had blown me off, and now I feel like a giant douchebag.

Fuck, I was full of myself. The girl lost her dad that weekend. Of course she wouldn’t have thought twice about some idiot jock.

And having so much unresolved shit with my own father makes me feel like a bigger dickwad. I know I need to call Mason and sort through our shit, but the very thought sends a wave of exhaustion through my bones.

I rest my palm on the tile and breathe in the steam and try to clear my head. The click of the door handle startles me, and I turn to see Maddie standing in front of my open shower.

“I’m cold too.” Her wide blue eyes are red, and her cheeks are flushed, but she’s still a fucking vision. She bites her lower lip, something I’ve come to understand is a sign of her nerves. Which is funny because she never does it when she’s on air. She tilts her head, an uncertain look in her eye. “Can I join you?”

The expression on her face does me in, and even though the smart part of me says we should get some space from each other, that this has gotten too intense too fast, a bigger part of me wants that closeness, and I want it with her.

We haven’t slept together all week, and my fist is getting old fast. But when she came over last weekend and made me dinner, I knew our rules had changed. Because I wanted to get to know her better, and now that I do, I don’t think I could stop our trajectory even if I wanted to.

I nod, and a beat passes before she shakes out her dark mane and loose waves fall around her face. It’s like she’s moving in slow motion, my anticipation growing as she reaches down for the hem of her t-shirt and pulls it over her head. A minute later, she’s bare before me, shivering in the cold.

Her vulnerable expression tugs at something in my chest, and it’s almost overwhelming.

“C'mere here, babe.”

She steps in, and water sluices over her pale skin, down her shoulders and across those lush breasts. She closes her eyes and tilts her head back, and I catch my breath as her lips part, everything losing focus but that beautiful face.

When I am old and gray, I want to remember this moment and the girl before me. I’m not a religious man, but if I believed in angels and signs, I’d be tempted to think the vision before me is beatific.

Her sky-blue eyes open and search my face, and it’s this moment that makes me fear she’ll find me wanting. But she smiles, and it’s unguarded, and it digs into the part of me that I swore I’d never open to another woman again.

She seeks my embrace, and my arms wrap around her and fit her soft body to mine. My lips rest on her hair, her cheek pressed to my chest.

I’m fighting this hard-on, but I can’t help it. She’s curvy in all the right places and wet. Her plump breasts are pushing against me, and she’s pressing her lips to my neck, which only sends the blood rushing to my dick. And before I know it, everything aches, and my fingers itch to yank on her hair while I sink into her.

I expect her to push me away for being an insensitive asshole, so when she presses her hips harder into me, I’m unreasonably elated. So I let my hands roam her back, drifting against her wet skin, and when I tug her closer, my thumbs drag against the sides of her breasts and her nipples pebble against me.

Maddie’s head tilts back, her lips seeking mine, and my hand grips her hair. She moans into my kiss, opening herself, stroking her tongue against mine.

Her taste is so sweet, it makes the ache worse. And then she tilts my dick between her legs and squeezes her thighs as she slides across me, back and forth, slick and hot, her bare skin like satin.

“Fuck, Maddie. You feel good.” I grab her ass to control her movements and revel in the little panting sounds she makes. “I’ve missed you this week.”

She looks up, blue eyes dark, her pupils wide, and with a shy smile says, “You’ve seen me.”

I shake my head before I nibble on her plump bottom lip. “That’s not what I mean.”

She swallows as I kiss down her neck and palm her full breasts that are slick with water. Her back arches into me while she continues her dirty slide on my cock, the one that makes me want to throw her down on the tile and fuck her hard.

But then she grabs my face to kiss me, and she stares into my eyes while she sucks my tongue in a way that makes me a little insane with lust. I’m about to hoist her into my arms when she falls to her knees and takes me into her mouth.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I want to say it’s her hot, wet tongue that unravels something inside me, but it’s the expression in her eyes as she watches me that has my chest expanding in new and uncertain ways.

Her lips drag over the length of me before her tongue takes long, slow licks at my head. I tangle my fingers through her long hair, and she leans sideways into my palm. Closing her eyes, she takes me deep, and I could come right here, but this isn’t what I want. What I need. What I think she needs.

“Maddie.” Her name rushes from my lips. “Need to fuck you, babe. Hard.”

She nods, and I haul her up and spin her around, placing her hands against the tile.

Condoms. I need condoms. The asshole in me wants her bare, something I’ve never considered before, but the bigger head in me prevails, and I step away before I do something stupid. I remind myself that wearing condoms was one of her conditions when we first started hooking up, and right now when she's vulnerable is not the time I want to ask her to reconsider.

I kiss her neck and delight when she shivers. “Be right back. Don’t move.”

My feet trail water across the bathroom floor, but thankfully I find what I need quickly. When I turn back, I find Maddie peering at me over her shoulder, a sultry smile tugging on her lips as she watches me grip myself to roll on the condom. The appraisal in her eyes makes me harder, so I let her watch as I stroke myself. But I’m selfish, standing here, jerking off so I can see her reaction.

Her mouth parts and her eyes widen as my hand moves down my cock, and she’s standing there with her hands up, ass out, like she’s about to get frisked. Fuck, yes.

Steam rises all around her while her breasts heave, and wet tendrils trail down her porcelain skin. Breathtaking. She’s just breathtaking.

Some Neanderthal urge to toss her over my shoulder and lock her in my room forever takes residence in my chest. This girl. God, she just does it for me in a way no one has before.

Suddenly, the idea of this being casual is painful. Because there’s no way in hell I’m letting go of Maddie.

I make quick work of the condom and stalk back toward her. Gripping her hips, I tug her ass toward me, and she arches. Christ. I want her.

My hands grip her breasts while she drags herself against my dick. She’s tall for a girl, but she’s the perfect size for me.

“Don’t drop your hands, Wildcat,” I whisper in her ear. A shuddering breath leaves her, and I pinch her taut nipple between my fingers. She arches more, and I thrust along the cleft of her ass, which only makes her pant. Damn, I love that sound.

I reach down, dragging my fingers between her legs. A groan rumbles in my chest when I feel how wet she is, how swollen and ready, and I push two fingers into her.

“Daren. Yes.”

Fuck, I love when she says my name.

“What do you need, baby?”

“Y… You. I need you. Inside me. Now.”

She’s panting and pushing against my hand, and my dick is angry from not having a turn, but that’s too bad because I need my mouth on her first.

I kneel behind her and take a long lick up her swollen slit.

She gasps and bucks backward. “Fuck, Daren. Fuck.”

That’s all the encouragement I need, and I rub her clit with my thumb as I caress her slick folds. But it’s when I lick farther up against her tight rim that she screams and falls apart, her swollen nub throbbing against my hand. Interesting. I file that away for future reference as I stand.

Keeping the pressure with my hand, I stand and nudge my cock into her snug pussy, and I’m rewarded by her frantic thrashing as she presses back into me and bucks.

Goddamn, she’s so tight. I thrust harder, pushing to the hilt, and she’s screaming, “Yes!”

Within minutes, she’s coming on me again, pulsing hard, and I’m swelling into her.

Then my mouth finds that silky expanse between her neck and shoulder, and I bite and suck because I need more of her. All of her.

She stills, and I pause to feel the race of her pulse against my tongue, appreciating how my heart is beating in the same rapid-fire rhythm.

“Baby,” I whisper against her ear, and she turns to kiss me. I tilt my hips and drag against her, and she moans.

Not to be outdone, my little wildcat reaches down and wraps her hand around the base of my cock as I continue to push into her, and I am done.

Tugging her hips up, I damn near lift her feet off the ground when I come with a shout because she’s the best thing I have ever felt.

She’s gripping the shower rail with one hand and laughing at how carried away I’ve gotten. We’re both gasping and out of breath and somehow sweaty in a shower.

Eventually, I set her on her feet and gently ease out of her before I turn her around in my arms. “That was… wow.”

The smile on her face makes my heart beat just a little faster. She nods slowly, a shy expression on her face as she glances down. “I could get used to that wow.”

When she looks up, I stare into those bright blue eyes, feeling a little lost and a little found, confused as fuck and like I’m staring at my answer. And then I tell her in all honesty, “I could too.” Because no matter what, I’m not letting go.