Page 104 of The Ones We Fight For

“When your body doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, the way every body is designed to, you start to think that maybe everything is just as dysfunctional and… ugly.” Talia looked down at herself in slight disgust.

“Look at me,” Walker urged. When she did, the expression behind his eyes was so soft and pleading it was almost agonizing. “Do you see what you do to me? What your body does to me?” He took her hand and brought it to his erection, wrapping it around him. The corner of Talia’s mouth pulled up a little at the silk feeling of him in her palm. “God, if you want me on my knees, or if you want me to beg to touch you, I will do anything, because you are,” Walker shook his head, as if he was still trying to convince himself that she was real, “stunning. I knew you would look beautiful naked, but this so, so much better than I thought. You’re fucking breathtaking. And I think…” he reached out a tentative hand until his fingers were a mere centimeter from touching her between her legs. Walker met her eyes with a heated question, and Talia silently gave her consent with a nod. His fingers curled under and swept across her seam, easily sliding over her wet entrance. When she groaned, he grinned to himself and lowered his voice, dipping his mouth to breathe into her ear. “I think your body is working just fine. It’s doing everything I hoped it would. You’re soaked, and we haven’t made it in the shower yet. Now, I’m going to take my time making sure that every single inch of you is christened with a memory of pleasure and only pleasure. I don’t care if it takes me forever, Talia. I need to. I want to. I don’t think I’ll ever be good enough for you, but I’m going to try my damndest to prove to you I am.”

“Walker.” A tear slipped down Talia’s cheek, and he kissed it away, the warmth of his mouth making her close her eyes in bliss. “You were always good enough for me.”

“Then we both have things to learn.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek and smiled down at her.

The moisture from the steam made his torso glisten. Talia’s mouth watered just looking at him, naked and saying everything she had ever wanted to hear him say. Carefully, she pressed her breasts into chest. His hands gripped her sides suddenly, and he slung her over his shoulder like she weighed as much as a paper clip. Talia yelped in surprise before she found herself thrust into the shower, Walker setting her down with careful precision before climbing in himself, wincing when the water hit him.

“It’s not that hot!” Talia stepped under the stream of water, her eyelashes fluttering shut thoughtfully as she let the heat soak into her skin.

“It feels like lava,” Walker complained, recoiling from the water wherever it touched him. “I don’t want to melt my extremities off.” Talia looked down between his legs at the mention of “extremities,” and he smirked at her.

“We can turn it down a little bit, but you’re going to have to make up for the lack of heat,” she teased, reaching behind her to twist the knob a bit colder.

“That can be arranged. Turn around,” Walker ordered with a circular motion of his finger. Talia complied, turning her back toward him, her breath shuddering with anticipation.

When his hand started to slowly and methodically touch her shoulders, her eyes closed on reflex. He pumped the body wash that was balanced on the edge of the shower into one hand and then massaged it across her back, drawing an involuntary groan from Talia’s throat.

“Is this good?” he breathed.

“Better than good,” her voice came out drowsy.

When Walker said to expect pleasure, Talia assumed he meant purely sexual pleasure—and it was that, too—but it also lessened the tension in all her muscles. She felt no need to cover herself or hide from him anymore. His fingers said everything his words did: he wanted her, not just physically, but as a partner. He loved her enough to want to make her feel good. Being told you were beautiful was one thing; being shown it was another entirely.

Walker continued to work his way down her backside with the soap, cleaning everything she was sure never even came close to being dirty. There was an absorbent and purposeful amount of time spent with his hands sliding over and cupping her ass with a few light smacks of his palm. She only realized when he was done rubbing the suds over her legs that she hadn’t even thought twice about the fact that she hadn’t shaved.

“I think your front needs some attention,” Walker finally spoke, his voice gravelly. “I have to warn you that I don’t think I can go slow anymore. I’ve never been so turned on in my entire life.”

Whipping around to face him, Talia eagerly crushed her mouth against his, kissing him as if her life depended on it. If she was planning to breathe at all while the water drowned her, she might have needed to steal the breath from his lungs. Walker’s hands picked up the pace, quickly running the soap suds over the both of them as their tongues intertwined and limbs groped for purchase.

“I want to get out,” Talia whined when they had both been sufficiently lathered up, her lips swollen from his mouth and nipples hardened into peaks that she pressed firmly into his chest to get her point across. “I need you.”

The fiery look Walker gave her said he needed her, too. He cupped his palms under the water a few times and ran his hands along her skin, the suds melting away to the floor. He lathered her hair next with a shampoo that smelled like grapefruit, eliciting more groans of ecstacy from her throat as his hands massaged her scalp. She sudsed up her hands with the shampoo from her hair and rubbed it into his scalp, and Walker closed his eyes to breathe in the scent. The conditioner he pumped into his hand and distributed into her hair next was the same scent, fresh and citrusy.

“You smell edible.” He licked up the column of her throat as the conditioner soaked into her hair. She slid one hand down his chest and across the “v” of his lower abdomen until she gripped him between the legs, testing out the feel and weight of him in her hand again.

“You’re even bigger than I thought you’d be.” She stroked him thoughtfully. Walker’s hand slapped the wall of the shower hard, his mouth opening with an inaudible gasp, eyes scrunched shut.

The dam broke a second later, and all Talia’s patience went out the window. She lunged at his lips as he met her in the middle, shoving one hand between her thighs, the moisture allowing him to easily slide several fingers inside her. She panted and stroked him faster, her body slipping and arching against him.

“We have to—” Walker stopped mid-sentence to moan when Talia swept her thumb over his head. “We have to get out. You have to stop touching me, or I’m going to come.” He thrust into her hand and shoved his fingers deeper inside her, like he was unable to control himself.

Quickly shutting off the water and shoving open the glass shower door with such a force that it shook, Talia threw herself over the ledge as quickly as possible, hell-bent on making it to a bed.

“I get to dry you off.” Walker hopped out after her. “And we are not putting clothes back on.” Talia raised both hands in mock defeat. She made no attempt to hide the fact that she was blatantly taking in his glistening body as Walker caged her against the wall, kissing her neck as he pulled down a towel from the rack mounted next to her. “Hope you like the view.”

“You said that to me the first time we met, do you remember?” Talia recalled and watched in amusement as Walker unfolded the towel with a flick of his hand, cracking it like a whip. “Show-off.”

“You were staring at my ass,” he said offhandedly, taking Talia back to the moment of their meet-cute that was the opposite of cute. She wanted to both kiss him and slap him.

“I was not staring at your ass!” Talia argued, folding her arms over her chest as Walker draped a towel around her.

“Really? I definitely checked you out when you got out of the car.” Walker’s eyes scanned her body, putting on a reenactment.

“You did?”

“You said I didn’t make sure that you were okay before I got mad at you—which I did, by the way—so I double-checked. I did like the view, in case you were wondering, but I like the view even more now.” Walker took Talia’s towel and swiped it over her arms and chest, crouching down as he continued soaking up the moisture clinging to her body. When he reached her feet, he slid the towel up between her legs from the floor, pressing harder when he got to his destination at the apex of her thighs. The rough cloth made a jolt of pleasure shoot through her that she hoped would go even further in just a few minutes.

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