Chapter 28
SARAH
Scary Love | The Neighbourhood
As the sound of running water filtered through from the en suite, Sarah sat on Alex’s bed, weighing her options to avoid thinking about him in the shower.
She could still leave, though the prospect of catching a train home at that hour was deeply unappealing. She could go to the guest bathroom, remove her makeup, change into the clothes Alex had left for her, and crawl under the covers of his luxuriously comfortable bed. The bed that—despite the freshly laundered scent of its sheets—smelled faintly of his expensive cologne. The one she’d never admit to grabbing a sample of the last time she’d topped up on toiletries.
Or…
She tugged on the bow at her waist and slipped out of her dress, letting the black satin skim down her body on its journey to the floor.
He’d said they didn’t have to do anything. But what if she wanted to?
Squaring her shoulders, she marched through the door he’d left slightly ajar. One of Alex’s arms was braced against the wall, the power in his back evident even through the steamed up glass. He turned only at the slight squeak of the shower door opening.
‘Everything okay?’ To his credit, Alex’s eyes were glued to her face, as if walking into his shower butt naked wasn’t an invitation. It was…endearing. That even after seeing her body so many times, he was letting her guide whether he was allowed to look.
She had no such qualms, letting her eyes skip away from his face down his body. A large swath of opaque black plastic wrap covered his left pec. ‘New tattoo?’
Alex nodded with a heavy swallow. ‘That’s where I ran off to earlier.’
‘What is it?’
His lips curled up. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Sarah glared at him. He laughed—that raw, perfect, real laugh she’d come to crave. ‘I’ll show you when it’s healed, Princess.’
Then, repeating a gesture he’d done at the restaurant, he scratched the back of his head. How pathetic that that tiny expression of self-doubt piercing his cocky exterior made her want to fall into his arms.
He continued talking, softer than before. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I figured you could use some help.’ She nodded her head towards the bandage on his right hand. Which set her eyes roving in the vicinity of his hips, widening as she took in how hard he was. When she returned her attention to his face, a small smile was pulling at his lips. Close to his trademark smirk, but…softer somehow. Some sheepish vulnerability peeking through. She thought back to his posture when she’d walked in. ‘Am I interrupting?’
His eyebrows drew together. ‘Are you asking if I was jerking off to thoughts of you? While you were in the next room? With the door open ?’
‘It would be bold of me to assume—’
‘Tonight… For one night , can we hit pause on the bullshit? You just let me run my hands all over your body, telling you I think you’re gorgeous and amazing and—’
‘I believe the word spectacular was used,’ Sarah said helpfully. It prompted a smile that could best be described as bashful, and all she wanted was to kiss it off his stupid, handsome face.
‘Now that same body is wet and naked in my shower. I think it’s pretty obvious this’—he gestured to his hips—‘is for you.’
And yet, Alex hadn’t moved an inch since she’d entered, leaving her with all the power. Letting her decide where they’d go.
Sarah took a step towards him, bringing them chest to chest. ‘I guess I’d better take care of it then,’ she said. And dropped to her knees.
Eye level with that part of him for the first time, one thought flashed through her mind in the half second before she wrapped her lips around his tip: of course even his fucking dick is pretty.
Alex let loose a string of swearing, his uninjured hand immediately moving to cup her head. His grip on her hair was strong without manipulating her position, leaving her to set the pace, taking him deeper with every pass, until her lips met the hand she had wrapped around him at his base. She released him, relaxed her throat, and let her mouth envelop those last few inches, satisfaction washing over her as he groaned in pleasure.
Giving head had never been her favourite thing to do, but the sounds he was making spurred her on. And Alex’s shower-fresh skin was a taste she could quickly—too quickly—become accustomed to.
His fingers continued to tighten as she worked at him, humming when he hit the back of her throat, and letting her tongue trace the ridge of a vein each time she pulled off him. His hips jerked, and Sarah squeezed her thighs together, trying in vain to relieve some of the tension building there.
‘ Fuck , sorry. It’s so good. You’re so good.’
She could probably finish if he kept talking in that rough, hoarse voice, so far removed from the unaffected tone he typically adopted.
‘I’m close, Princess. If you don’t stop, I’m gonna come.’
A moan ripped through her throat at the thought. Alex responded to the added vibrations with a hiss.
‘Sarah— fuck —I mean it. You need to stop, or I’m—’
She released him abruptly, leaving only millimetres between them.
‘Will you be able to come again?’
‘ What? ’ His eyes were wild, barely focused on her.
‘Will you,’ she said slowly, deliberately, ‘be able to come again?’
The tension in his jaw spread down his throat as he swallowed hard, untangling his fingers from her hair and moving them to cup her cheek with surprising gentleness. ‘Yes, probably, but you don’t have to—’
She’d never know. Because he broke off as she sealed her lips around him again and sucked .
He bucked into her mouth once more, and came with a shudder that wracked his whole body. She swallowed, enjoying the new stream of swearing too much to focus on the bitter taste filling her mouth.
And then Alex’s face was awed as he stared down at her, offering a hand to gently pull her up. The second she was steady, he pinned her to the wall, tilting her head up.
‘Your mouth—’
‘I don’t give a shit,’ he rasped, parting her lips with his. She felt his wince as he pressed into her and lightened the pressure she was giving back. When he finally pulled away, hands tangled in her now soaking hair, his speech was rapid and indistinct. ‘That was… Fuck. Incredible. You’re incredible.’
Sarah placed her own hands on his chest, taking care to avoid the surely sensitive skin around his new artwork. ‘What do we do now?’
‘Now’—Alex kissed her—‘I’m going to clean you up, wash your pretty hair, take you into my bedroom, and touch you until I’m ready to go again.’
She’d meant on a grander scale. Because it felt like something was inexorably shifting between them. But then he kissed her again, slowly, deeply, perfectly . And she considered that maybe she didn’t need to think so much.
‘I was supposed to be helping you,’ Sarah mumbled, running her fingers along his bandage.
‘You did,’ he said, drawing her in. ‘Now let me look after you.’
Only a few minutes later, standing under the—still warm but gradually less scalding—water, with Alex’s good hand massaging shampoo into her scalp, she realised dimly that, in all the times they’d been alone together, it was the first time he’d used her name.