taking a shower. Join me. And if you don’t deliver on fucking me blind, you’re not sleeping in my bed.”
With that ultimatum, she pivoted on her bare foot and marched to the bathroom.
Declan stood there, trying hard to quell the raging conflict inside him. He reeked of desperation and fear. He needed to channel the emotions so they could get what they needed from each other.
The shower started running and imagining Gabby naked and wet, well …
She needed a man that wouldn’t put her in a cage, and who’d let her be who she was.
He could give her that.
Fuck her blind. His cock hardened like a steel rod at the thought.
He could definitely give her that.
Declan stripped down the rest of his clothes and stalked into the bathroom.
“Shit!” She muttered, jumping back from the hot shower spray. “That burns.”
Declan opened the glass door and stepped in. She had the water on boil. He adjusted the temperature.
“Hey, don’t touch that.”
He moved her away from the dials.
“Hey—”
“Quiet,” he ordered.
She grinned. “Aye, aye, sir.”
He squinted his eyes. That was the second time today she’d said that. Her playfulness was infectious. Even if that purpling bruise remained a stark reminder of her fragility, it was also a testament to her resilience. He turned her around to shampoo her hair and soap her body. When he turned her back, her hand claimed the soap from him and her fingers worked over his muscles in seductive swirls. Trailing down his abdomen, they tangled in the mat of hair right above his pelvis before tracking lower.
One soapy palm gripped his shaft.
Stroking.
Up.
Down.
“Don’t.” He manacled her wrist and pulled it away. “I’m too close. Just …” He embraced her, letting the water sluice down their bodies and flush the dirt and horrors of that day down the drain, letting steam wrap them in a warm cocoon that chased away the cold, stark fear that rooted deeply into their bones.
And as the chill receded, renewed primal heat exploded.
He needed her.
The increasing urgency of the way Gabby was touching his body told him she desperately needed him too.
He backed her against the tiles. “Hold on to the bar.”
“What?” she asked in a daze.
He lowered his head so they were eye to eye. “Hold on to the fucking bar. I’m gonna eat you, and I’m not risking another trip to the ER or we can—”
Her left hand gripped the bar on the wall.
Declan dropped to his knees, grabbed her left leg, and draped it over his shoulder.
He glanced up. Her lips were parted in anticipation.
And he put his mouth on her, pressing his tongue as she gave him her weight. He kept her pinned to the wall as he tasted the slickness between her legs.
He was hunger; she was sustenance. He was a junkie; she was his drug. His tongue dipped into the silky folds and tasted heaven. He sucked on her clit, swollen with the rush of blood as he felt his own make him harder. And when she cried out, her fingers tangled in his hair, arching her body off the wall to feed her core further into his mouth, he felt euphoric.
He lowered her leg and jackknifed to his feet. Turning the dials behind them to shut off the shower, Declan opened the glass door and let the steam escape into the rest of the bathroom. He wrapped Gabby in a towel, picked her up, and carried her dripping out to the bedroom.
In the back of his mind, he knew he shouldn’t be getting the sheets wet, but in that moment, all he could think of was the woman in his arms, laid out, spread out, knees pushed up, opened to him, her pretty pussy served up for him to pleasure and fuck.
In a mixture of restraint and ferocity, he lowered her gently to the bed and ripped the towel from her, laying her bare, her skin glistening from the moisture of the shower.
He prowled to the top of the bed, reached forward, gripping an ankle and yanked her closer. Her arms were spread open—a willing sacrifice— and it turned him the fuck on.
Putting a knee to the bed, he pushed the ankle in, cocking one of her legs, and then taking hold of the other, he raised that too. All through this their gazes were locked and her tongue came out to swipe at her lip.
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he whispered before settling between her thighs. He blew teasingly on her puffed up lips before giving her a