just hold each other in the dark.
After a long time, though, I whisper, “I wish I could’ve met him.”
Carlo trails his fingers through my hair. “You don’t have any siblings?”
I swallow. I don’t like lying to Carlo. “No,” I say. “I’m an only child.”
We trudge back up to the house and, without talking about it, go up to my bedroom. We’re covered in mud and tracking it everywhere. I feel sorry for the butler and the cleaners. When Carlo sees me looking, he smiles. “They’ll get a bonus,” he promises.
“You need to stop doing that,” I remark, heading for the en-suite. “I’m gonna tell the government about your freaky mind-reading abilities. They’ll tie you to a table Roswell-style and do all kinds of tests on you.”
“What style?” Carlo laughs, following me. He looms large in the jewel-edged mirror, his clothes and face flecked with dirt. He looks rugged, wild, like a caveman coming home from a day of hunting.
“Roswell. Y’know, that famous UFO event? The one that literally everybody has heard about?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What?!” I laugh. “You are joking. What about—I don’t know, let’s see… what about Drake, do you know who Drake is?”
He smiles as he peels his vest off. “Yes, Hazel, I know who Drake is.”
“What about Beyoncé?”
I begin undressing, too. My skin pricks and the fabric of my clothes grazes deliciously against my goose bumps.
“Be … eh?” He grins boyishly. “I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?”
Without planning it, I’m standing in my bra and panties. Carlo stands opposite me in just his underwear and bandages, his chest rising and falling rapidly as his eyes utterly devour me.
Emily was right about that one. It’s one hell of a description.
His eyes roam from my toes to my face, then linger there. His mouth is tight, smile dropping. Suddenly, we’re both serious. “But your bandages…” I whisper.
He prowls across the bathroom, slightly bent forward, his cock a definite bulge in his boxer shorts. The top of his boxers, where the V of his abs points, lifts a little as the fabric struggles to contain him.
I let him back me into the shower. His lips are close to mine. But we don’t kiss, not yet. He reaches behind me and turns the shower knob and—
“Oh Jesus!” I cry as cold water rains down on me.
“Shit.” Carlo grins. “That was—ah, here we go.”
The water warms almost straight away, washing away the memory of the icy cold. “That would’ve been, like, so romantic,” I tell him.
He smiles ruefully. “I’ve got half a mind to ask you to get out of the shower so we can do it all again.”
“Don’t you dare,” I scold, grabbing his face and finding his lips.
They’re hot with shower water, droplets caressing us, clinging to my bra and making my panties heavy as our bodies crush together. His hands smooth down the curve of my back, slowly prying my underwear loose. I slide out of them. My knees begin to shake.
He leans back, just staring at me for a second.
The water has soaked his boxer shorts, making them see-through. His cock is a massive weapon. I’ve never seen it so hard.
“I want you to look at me as we make love,” I whisper, feeling oddly vulnerable. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable. But I’m not about to be timid about saying what I want, either. I slide my hand under his boxers and grab the base of his cock, stroking. “And when we come, Carlo, I want us to feel it together.”
I stroke faster. His jaws are tight. His eyes are burning. He’s not a shadow anymore. He’s solidly, achingly real.
“I think you better slow down,” he snarls. “Or only one of us will be finishing tonight.”
I smile as he loops his arms around me and pushes forward. The shower door flattens my ass cheeks as he busies his hands at my bra. He unclips it and his lips suck one nipple as his fingers twist and probe the other.
“Don’t try and—oh, God.”
“You were saying?” Carlo growls, kissing my neck, then my chin, then my lips.
He spins me around. I spin back, slapping him in the chest.
“I want to look at you.”
He smiles and spins me again. I’m about to tell him to quit it when I see what he’s doing. The shower door is open and the mirror is opposite it. He watches me from the reflection, his eyes fixated as he strokes the bulging mass of