CHAPTER FIFTEEN
KATE
There are precious few things in my life that I haven’t been able to settle while in the tub. Big tubs, big bubbles, hot water and a glass of wine, maybe something stronger, have the capability to make everything seem less toxic, more manageable. Tonight, I’ve got bubbles up to my eyeballs.
“Maybe I just need to become a nun.” I say to my bright white bathroom tiles and take another sip of whiskey. “The opposite sex is clearly a disease.”
Outside of my sanctuary, someone bangs on my front door. It’s a commanding knock, not a timid one, and it immediately sets my teeth on edge. The last time I heard that knock, it was the night before mediation and…
I shudder. Not a place I’m willing to return. Instead, I sink deeper in the bubbles and pretend no one is there.
They knock again, louder. And again.
It is destroying my Zen vibes in the bathroom and that’s enough to make me angry.
“This LA apartment may look comfortable, but the walls are thin and I need whoever the hell is outside to go away.” I call, stepping out of the tub and wrapping my dripping body in a towel. I carefully skirt through the water puddles so I don’t slip and fall. “It’s the middle of the freaking night and I—”
My voice dies. The peephole doesn’t show David. It shows Eric Stevens. Looking disheveled, sexy and almost manic. I don’t remove the chain, but I turn the top lock and crack open the door.
“What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Okay.” I have no idea what he wants and my entire body is on edge from it. He is painfully sexy in this light, with him so clearly flustered. It’s a powerful, manic energy. But we also haven’t spoken since we had sex in Lily’s hotel and, you know, that’s awkward. “Talk.”
He narrows his eyes at me. It’s not menacing. It’s panty-dropping. If I were wearing them.
“Kate, open the door.”
I stare him back down, but my resolve edges away. Our business is not for my neighbors’ ears, and my thin apartment walls are still better than the hallway. Me being in a towel, however, is not exactly ideal. I slide the chain off the hook and hide behind the door.
“I was just in the bath, so first I need to—”
I don’t even know what I was going to finish saying, because as soon as Eric crosses the threshold of my apartment, he kicks the door shut and envelopes me with his entire body. My words die in his mouth, between his lips and his tongue. His hands take my hair and my waist and he claims me like something out of a black and white movie: with total absolution.
Just like that, I’m lost in the feel and smell of him. He tastes like beer, but I taste like whiskey. His body warmth cascades down me and thaws every piece frigid from getting out of the bath. Eric is more aggressive than ever with his kisses. He bites, pulls and sucks like he’s desperate.
I can feel myself slipping. It’s so easy to give in to him, to his power. He commands the entire room with his presence, but this was so unexpected that I have no choice but to obey anyway.
He moves to my neck, biting and sucking while making my towel disappear. No longer cold, I’m burning hot and need him to stop the swell within me. I need Eric to touch me in all the most intimate places so I can get relief, relief, relief.
“Eric.” I finally find my voice and fight against the growing need within me. “What are you doing?”
“Tell me to stop if I need to stop.” He mutters against me. I’m thrust and lifted against the wall so he can take my breast in his mouth. He sucks hard and I gasp from the pain and heat of him.
“I—” The words die in my throat, because I can’t speak. I’m naked, pressed against a wall, with my nipple between the teeth of the man I couldn’t stop thinking about. Nothing within me, nothing, could tell him to stop.
He looks up at me with intense, heavy dark eyes. I have nothing to say but yes, please, now.
Eric carries me across the living room, his tongue massaging my nipple as he walks. My body illuminates under his touch. All I want is more. No talking, no thinking, just primal urges satiated in the candlelight of my apartment.
We bump into the couch arm and he sets me down, fingers digging into my skin as I move against him and the thickness in his pants. Eric spins me around and spreads my legs with one hand while the other cups my breasts. He draws circles across my inner thighs, leaving me lightheaded and dizzy at his touch.
He’s so close to what I need and yet so far. The perfect metaphor of whatever fucked-up relationship it is we have.
The firm head of his cock presses against my opening and I cry out in desperation. I don’t wait for him to tease or for him to find me. Reaching back, I guide him into me and engulf his cock with my wetness.
“You are a fever in my veins.” he grunts as he thrusts into me.
Our first time together, we had sex for hours. After every orgasm, we kissed and licked and touched until he was ready to slip himself back inside me. Four hours passed, easily. Not once in that time did he fuck me the way he is now.
The intensity radiating out of him spills into the way he loves me with his cock. Because there is no other word for it in this moment. It’s not a sweet love, it’s not a cherishing love, it’s dominating.
I’m a fever in his veins. The words send chills through my body and make everything heightened. I wasn’t supposed to hear it, I know I wasn’t. Eric Stevens doesn’t show weakness around me. Tenderness, certainly. But not weaknesses.
I reach behind and give his balls a squeeze. He stops mid-thrust and groans, his head to my back. His breath is heavy because as much as he acts in control, he’s desperate. And that is incredibly liberating. Sexy.
My hips grind against him and his fingers dig into my softness. He leaves a trail of hot kisses along the back of my neck and throws himself into me. I lose myself to the motion of our bodies. I stop thinking, stop breathing and just survive on the rhythm between us.
At some point there is a misstep and we topple sideways. He picks me up and presses me against the wall, his cock back inside me before I feel fully righted. This is more intimate than anything we’ve been in and my brain can barely comprehend it.
“You asked me once what I saw when I looked at you,” Eric breathes against me. Our bodies continue in a perfect carnal dance but my chest tightens and my vision blurs. I can’t hold out much longer against him like this. His voice tightens, like he’s feeling the same thing. “The answer is perfection.”
I am no longer Kate and he is no longer Eric. We are bodies of energy that fly apart and come back together as one.