43. Chapter 43
Getting naked in front of Sadie is like taking a shot straight to the balls.
The heat of the shower doesn’t help, even when I dial it hotter.
Letting the steam fill the small bathroom until the mirror fogs and the air grows thick.
It beads along my shoulders and runs down my spine, tracing familiar paths over my skin that has known worse sensation and survived without complaint.
It’s poor self-control, but I find that when Sadie is involved I don’t have much of it. My hand sliding down to wrap around the already aching length of my cock as I close my eyes, letting my head fall into the shower wall.
She occupies my thoughts with irritating persistence.
Not in fragments, not in flashes—fully. Whole moments replayed with unsettling clarity.
My hand stroking slow and tight as I mentally watch the way she held the brush or the concentration in her brow.
The way she had looked up past the canvas with eyes that could bring lesser men to their knees.
I groan, bracing one hand against the tile and tilt my head forward, letting the water hit the back of my neck. Heat pulses through me, a reminder of a body reacting long before the mind has sanctioned it.
It’s inconvenient and even if I’m accustomed to desire, it usually has parameters I can control.
Specifically inside of the mirrored room where I can fuck and kill without the messiness that comes after.
The bodies go away. The tension disappears.
But with Sadie, it lives in my fucking mind.
It’s packed bags, shipped in, and decided it is to stay.
I growl, my fist tightening at the absurdity of it as I stroke faster. She didn’t even touch me. Not once. She stood feet away, full clothed and focused, and somehow that restraint unsettled me more than any physical contact could have.
I exhale slowly through my nose, water dripping from my lashes to my cheeks, jaw tightening as the image of her eyes tracking the lines of my body surfaces uninvited. And it’s nothing of what I need it to be. It’s raw hunger and submission to things I never wanted to cave to, but now crave.
The water scalds as it tears down my spine, little care for her laugh echoing in my head.
Her voice when she told me to hold still and commanded space without realizing what she was doing.
I can smell her fucking shampoo, which helps nothing at all.
It’s a detail that is unnecessary and yet wrecks me.
This is not loss of control, I lie to myself.
It’s… just adjusting to new variables. Even if my body disagrees.
Even if every time I close my eyes all I see is her arched beneath me, all I hear is the soft sounds she makes when I’m inside of her.
I devour it mentally and curse, my release barreling through me hard enough my knees nearly buckle.
All my sanity washing down the drain with my physical self before my hand shoots out.
Both palms slapping the wall as I hang my head, letting the water run unchecked as some of that heat dies.
Not that it could ever truly fade off, it’s always there simmering under the surface and waiting to clip my knees out from beneath me.
My eyes lift from the wall to the glass of the shower door, as if I can see through the wall beyond to where she is in the next room. Awake possibly, thinking. Possibly painting me again in her mind the way she had on canvas. The same way I had just done.
I shake my head, turning into the water to let it run down my face. Control is not absence of impulse, but containment.
I am still in control, but the margin is thinner than I prefer.
I shut off the water and step out, steam curling around me as I reach for the towel and tug it around my waist.
Later, I can analyze this and decide exactly what it means.
For now, I accept the truth without judgement.
Sadie has altered the equation and I am simply accommodating the change. That’s all this is.
Right?