Chapter 35

Dallas

The three of us were quiet the whole way home. I knew I should be celebrating, that I’d won the greatest fight of my life today, but I was too emotionally exhausted to tell between winning and losing. I mourned for the parts of me I left in that house. I wondered how our lives would go from here, and if we could honestly achieve our dreams now that we didn’t have Preston and Wes holding us back.

We each took our own bikes home, and Dad idled his in the driveway when we reached his house. Shane and I were halfway up the drive before we noticed he hadn’t followed us.

I turned to question him, but he beat me to the punch.

“I’m going to spend the night in my shop,” Dad said. “I think you guys could use some time alone.”

“Thanks, Dad. Are you okay?”

He grinned, and it was the first genuine smile I’d seen from him in a long time. “I’m great. Superb. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, and we can figure out what to do about all this.”

He saluted and rode off. Shane threaded his fingers through mine, and I looked up at him. He was smiling down at me, and even though his face was caked in blood, I couldn’t resist the urge to press up on my tiptoes and kiss him.

He hissed as my lips grazed a cut on his lips.

“Wuss,” I mocked.

Shane’s arms circled my waist, and he hugged me tight against his chest. “You’re far too nice a girl to be using such language.”

“Bite me.”

His eyes sparked with lust. “Oh, I think I will.”

I laughed and pulled away from his grip, grabbing his hand and leading him inside. “Come on then. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Moments later we were in the bathroom, stripping down to nothing as the steam began to rise from the shower. I inspected the bruises on Shane’s body with care, running my fingertips over them like I could brush them away. His muscles quivered at my touch. I traced up his abs, over the swell of his pecs, and to the powerful curve of his collarbone. His cock stiffened and brushed against my thigh.

“This is the first time it doesn’t have to be a secret,” I murmured.

Shane chuckled and held my face in his hands. “I expect there are going to be a lot of firsts in our future.”

His eyes stood out, vibrant green against the rusty blood. A purpling bruise extended from his cheek to the bottom of his right eye. He couldn’t have looked more beautiful.

Shane kissed me. His mouth was gentle and soft as he explored mine, teasing with his tongue and massaging my lips. I leaned into him, the steam bringing back the dreamlike quality of our first time.

We stepped into the tub and pulled the curtain closed. I reached for the soap and directed him under the spray, then began to lather his chest, his arms, his powerful thighs. He held still as I washed the blood from his face and out of his hair. I didn’t stop washing until the water ran clear down the drain.

Shane took the soap from me, and we switched places. He rubbed the bar along my shoulders first, working down my arms to the tips of my fingers and in-between. It tickled my palm, and I giggled, but Shane gave me a stern look that told me to keep still. I held my breath as he guided the soap down the valley of my breasts, then passed it behind my back. He stepped close to me, pressing his hot body against mine as he washed my back carefully and with a kind of delicate touch that was hard to imagine coming from such a big, brawny man. At first, I thought he was going a bit overkill with the attention to detail since I wasn’t actually dirty, but then I realized what he was doing.

Shane was washing away the past three years. He was washing away Wes and Preston, and all the parties and burlesque shows and dinners. He was washing away the pain.

I tipped my head back, and the water pounded on my face. Nothing had ever felt so cleansing as this shower, and as strange as it sounds, I knew when I came out I was going to be a different person.

Shane worked all the way down to my feet, which he had to crouch to reach. When he finished, he put the soap on the side of the bath, and I expected him to come back up. Instead, he went to his knees and grabbed my ass in his hands.

I was instantly awake. His eyes carried a smoldering intensity, and he locked them on mine as he pulled my sex to his mouth and dove straight in.

I grabbed onto the side of the shower for support as Shane licked me, swirling his tongue in such a way that I thought the world would end if he stopped. I moaned and squeezed my breast, reveling in the heat of the shower. He complemented the pleasant slipperiness of his tongue by adding one rough finger. My knees nearly buckled right then and there.

His pursuit of my pleasure was primal in its intensity. He feasted on me, making little moans of pleasure that vibrated against my clit and made me see stars.

At times it felt like his firm hold on my butt was the only thing holding me up. Liquid heat pooled in my core and I dug my fingers into the back of his head, urging him to keep going. He growled seductively, and I threw my head back so hard I nearly slammed it into the tile. I wouldn’t have even cared. All that mattered was my imminent explosion. And I was, well and truly, about to explode.

My body quaked. Shane inserted another digit inside of me and began to twist and work his fingers expertly, and I squeezed my eyes shut as the wave crashed over me.

For a moment, everything turned black. Then it was an explosion of color behind my eyelids. My body pulsed and throbbed and I cried out in rapture, utterly lost. And then I opened my eyes and saw Shane grinning up at me, kissing the insides of my thighs, and I was found.

He stood and wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me to him and supporting my rubbery legs. His erection throbbed against my belly. I leaned up to kiss him and undulated my hips to rub against it, timing each sway with a dart of my tongue into his mouth.

Shane groaned. He fisted his hand in my hair and mashed his mouth into mine in a bruising, dominating kiss that made my toes curl. I was still coming down from my orgasm, but my nerves sat up and took notice, ready for the next round of carnal delight.

He reached behind me to turn off the shower, then opened the curtain and stepped out, extending a hand to help me. I joined him on the bath mat and grabbed a towel from the rack.

Wordlessly, I began to dry Shane off. I rubbed the towel everywhere but the place he most wanted it, dragging the scratchy material up the insides of his thighs, just grazing the shaft of his cock before moving on to his belly. Shane bit his lip as he watched me but didn’t intervene. He loved a good tease.

After I finished his upper body, I moved back down and toweled his butt, the backs of his thighs, all the way down to his feet. I looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes and smiled.

Apparently, that was more than he could take.

Shane grabbed me by the arm and hoisted me up, kissing me passionately while backing me toward the door. We stumbled into the hallway, and I guided us down toward my old bedroom, which my dad hadn’t changed since I moved into Preston’s. We fell onto the bed in a tangle of naked limbs.

Shane kissed me everywhere. He sucked my nipples and trailed nipping kisses down to my ribs, then worked to my stomach, my thighs, worshipping my body with his tongue. We’d been so close to losing each other forever. Now we could lose ourselves in each other forever, and that was a more seductive fantasy than any other I could imagine. I just wanted Shane. Full stop. And he didn’t hold back from showing me how much he wanted me too.

We made love like two dancing flames. Sometimes we flickered quickly, others we took it slow and burned deep into our souls. His long, hard cock speared deep inside of me, rubbing along the most pleasurable areas of my body. Sometimes he kissed me, and others he stared into my eyes and smiled at my blissful expression as he claimed my body over and over again.

My second orgasm hit even more forcefully than the last. I couldn’t be sure if I’d screamed out loud or not. I fell into the abyss, and Shane’s powerful thrusts grew frantic as he lost himself to the pinnacle of lust, which demanded wild abandon and promised ecstasy.

Soon he pulsed inside of me. Then he collapsed, lying still until our breaths synced and the sweat and residual water from the shower began to chill.

Shane rolled onto his side and propped me up on mine. He looked deep into my eyes and smiled

“Dallas,” he murmured. “I love you so much.”

“I love you so much.” I reached up to kiss him, but he pulled back. My brows knitted in confusion.

Shane thumbed my cheek. “Dallas,” he murmured. “Will you marry me?”

I answered without thought or hesitation, and I meant it from the bottom of my very soul.

“Yes. God yes.”

We kissed, and the memory of my torment at the hands of Wes and Preston dimmed even further, receding into the back of my mind to wither and die.