Page 64 of Stick Break
His thumb brushes over my nipple, the coarse pad dragging across the sensitive peak in a way that’s anything but casual. He lingers there, testing my reaction, and I arch into him with a soft gasp. His cock nudges harder against the curve of my backside as he gently turns me beneath the spray. The water is cool, the way we both wanted it, but his touch burns.
God, I love when this man puts his hands on me.
Like he’s learning me. Committing every dip and swell of me to memory. Like he needs to remember the shape of my body in his hands so he can recall it when he’s back in Boston… and I’m not.
A tiny ache blooms at the thought, and I shove it aside, burying it deep.
Not now.
Now is for joy. For feeling. For this.
I tip my face to the water and close my eyes, letting the rivulets rinse away the soap. It does nothing for the fire crackling under my skin. A blaze lit by Rip. I want him with a kind of desperation that should scare me, but how can I be scared when I’m with a man who someone makes me feel so safe.
I turn slowly, facing him, pressing my hands to his slick chest as I rise onto my toes and brush a kiss across his lips, gentle, soft, nothing like the storm gathering in my veins.
“All clean,” I whisper, letting my words glide against his mouth. My body thrums, greedy for more. I shift him under the water and glance down. “Does the cold water feel okay on the burn?”
“Yes, but I?—”
His breath catches as I soap up my hands and wrap them around his cock. Whatever he was about to say is swallowed whole by the sheer heat between us.
“Babe, this is not a good idea,” he rasps, voice fraying at the edges.
I look up at him with a grin, slow and sultry. “Really?” I stroke him, once, twice, and he swells even more in my grip. “Because your body seems to think it’s the best idea that’s ever existed in the entire history of ideas.”
He groans, his hands clamping onto my shoulders like he’s bracing himself against an oncoming wave. His hips betray him, already beginning to rock in time with my rhythm.
“Yeah. The little fucker is a traitor,” he mutters, half-wild with want.
“Maybe he wants my mouth,” I tease, flicking my tongue across my bottom lip just to drive him insane.
His head falls back with a sound that’s somewhere between a growl and a prayer. “Fuck yes.”
God, that sound. That raw, wrecked need…it’s everything. A thrill rushes through me at how quickly I can unravel him, how desperately he wants me. But this isn’t just power or lust. It’s something deeper. Mutual destruction. Because he can reduce me to ash with just one grin, and we both know it.
I start to lower myself, but suddenly, he steps back like I’ve scorched him.
“Out. Now.”
I blink up at him, startled. “Wait, are you…kicking me out?” My voice is half a laugh, half a challenge.
He looks tortured. Beautiful and naked and strung so tight I think he might break. “Charley…”
“But earlier,” I remind him, tilting my head, “You said I was going to get it.” I soften my voice into something sweet and utterly dangerous. “This doesn’t seem like I’m getting it, at all. I’m pretty that qualifies as false advertising.”
“Jesus, Charley,” he mutters, stepping under the cold spray like it’s the only way he can keep from ravaging me right here, right now. I wouldn’t mind. But we do have his injury to consider. I’d never forgive myself if we did anything that caused more damage.
“You are going to get it,” he grits out, water streaming over his head, jaw tight like he’s in battle. “I just… if I don’t do some very aggressive mental math right now and get my goddamn dick under control, the first time I put it in you will be over in five seconds. Maybe less. And I want to remember it.”
Something in me melt, not from the heat, but from the honesty. The restraint. The sweet, slightly desperate truth tangled in his words. My heart soars, even as my thighs press together on instinct.
God, I love him like this.
Trying to hold himself back. Trying not to ruin it by taking too much, too fast.
And, well, I can’t resist poking Big Bear.
I throw him a slow, sassy look over my shoulder, giving my hips a little wiggle as if I’m not currently vibrating with need. “Well,” I say breezily, “Guess I’ll just have to start without you.”
