Chapter 5
ROMY
I'd been sitting shivering on the edge of the bathtub, listening to Jeremy stomping down the hall.
I knew what he was doing. What I wanted to happen.
But I couldn't help feeling sad. Not because this farce of a relationship was over, but because I had hung on so long to something I knew wasn't right.
The few friends I had left had told me so. My parents had told me so. The little guy who sat on the right side of my shoulder had told me so. But the devil on the left had kept me giving Jeremy one more chance.
Always one more chance. I didn't know why they ever used that term, because there was only ever one 'one more chance,” before it became two, three, a dozen, and then too many to count or care.
And outside the door and down the hall could be my worst mistake. Because Rush ticked all the wrong boxes for other people's opinions. And so far, in the course of one afternoon, more of the good ones than any man I'd met this side of my father.
He wasn't a Jeremy or a Walter Wainwright. He looked like trouble, yet he was the one who'd saved me from it.
He looked like a rogue, but he'd treated me like a gentleman would.
He was tattooed and muscled, with two days of beard growth, black leather, tight jeans and...
My hands reached behind my back and unclasped my wet bra with a mind of their own. Then they found the zip at the side of my skirt and pulled it down. The fabric pooled at my feet. Then they hooked into the waistband of my panties and slid them down my legs.
I straightened my back and waited.
He stood in the doorway and his eyes moved over me slowly, like he was memorizing something he wasn't sure he'd get to see again.
Steam curled between us and I watched his jaw tighten. His hands flexed at his sides.
"Romy."
"Don't," I said. "Don't ask me if I'm sure."
He pulled his shirt over his head and my eyes went wide. Ink covered him from his collarbones to his belt line. Every muscle carved deep beneath the black lines. His stomach, chest, the V that disappeared beneath denim. He was built like something forged, not made.
He stepped out of his jeans and my eyes were fixed. I couldn't help it. He was thick and hard already, and I felt my thighs press together on instinct.
He stepped into the shower and pulled me under the warm water with him. His hands came to my shoulders and he turned me around, pressing his thumbs into the tight muscles at the base of my neck, gently working away the tension.
Too gentle.
"You don't have to…” I started.
"Shh." His thumbs worked down my spine. Firm, careful circles along my shoulder blades, and down into the small of my back. It felt good. God, it felt good. But it wasn't what I needed.
"Rush."
"Mm-hmm.”
"I'm not fragile."
His hands stilled on my hips.
"I didn't come apart tonight because of him," I said. "I came apart a long time ago. I'm putting myself back together now. And this…” I turned in his arms and looked up at him, water streaming down both of us. "This is what I want. Not soft. Not careful. I want you to stop holding back."
His eyes were dark and searching. He looked like a man afraid he'd break something fragile.
So I showed him.
I dropped to my knees.
The water hit my back as I wrapped one hand around him. He was hot and heavy in my palm and I heard the breath leave his lungs as I took him into my mouth. I didn't tease. I took him deep, hollowed my cheeks, and looked up at him while I did it.
"Fuck.” His hand came to the back of my head. Not pushing… just holding. His fingers tangled in my wet hair and his hips flexed forward once before he caught himself.
I pulled back and licked the underside of him slowly, then took him deep again. His thighs went rigid under my hands. I could taste him and I worked him with my tongue until his breathing turned ragged and his hand tightened in my hair.
"Romy. Stop."
I didn't.
"Stop." He pulled me up by my arms. Not rough, but not gentle either. His chest was heaving and his cock was slick and hard between us. He looked at me like I'd started a fire he wasn't sure he could control.
Then he pressed me against the tiles.
The cold hit my back and I gasped but his mouth was already on my neck, my collarbone, the swell of my breast. He sucked one nipple into his mouth and my spine arched off the wall. His teeth grazed and I whimpered for more.
Then he dropped to his knees in front of me. This massive tattooed man, dripping and hard, on his knees on the tile floor with his hands gripping my thighs.
He looked up at me once, then he buried his face between my legs.
Oh God.
Right there.
His tongue found me like he already knew. Flat and hot against my clit, then circling, then sucking gently while his fingers dug into the backs of my thighs. He lifted one of my legs over his shoulder and I had nowhere to go but against the tiles, my hands scrambling for grip on the wet surface.
He licked into me. Long, deep strokes as I closed my eyes, then back to my clit with his lips and the edge of his teeth. Just enough bite to make me cry out.
"Oh God… Rush.”
He growled against me and the vibration almost ended it right there.
My hand found his head, gripping his hair, pulling him closer because I couldn't get enough. I was grinding against his face and I didn't care. He didn't either. His hands gripped my ass and held me against his mouth like I was his last meal and he was starving.
It built low in my belly. A tightening, a coiling. Every nerve ending was on fire and all of them pointed at his mouth.
"I'm going to…”
He sucked my clit between his lips and flicked his tongue fast and hard and I shattered.
My legs buckled. I shook from the inside out. The orgasm rolled through me in waves, one after another, and he didn't stop. His mouth stayed on me, lapping at everything I gave him, drinking me in while my thighs trembled around his head and my back arched off the wall.
When I finally came down, he was still there. Looking up at me. Water running down his face, his chin slick with me.
He rose to his feet and kissed me. I tasted myself on his tongue and it made me want him more. I reached down between us and found him still hard. Impossibly hard.
"I don't have anything on me," he said against my mouth.
"I'm safe," I whispered. "I'm on the pill."
He pulled back and looked at me, making sure.
"I want to feel you," I said.
That was it.
He spun me around and my hands hit the tiles. The water was on both of us now, streaming down my back, and I felt him behind me. One hand on my hip. The other between my shoulder blades pressing me forward until my back arched and I opened for him.
He pushed in slow.
One long, thick stroke that stretched me wide and punched the air from my lungs. I pressed my forehead against the tile and moaned because there was nothing else I could do. He filled me completely. Every inch. I felt him in my stomach.
"Jesus," he breathed behind me.
He pulled back and drove in again. Harder this time. I braced my hands and took it.
"More," I said.
He gave me more.
His hips found a rhythm. Deep and relentless, and his hands came around to my chest. He palmed both breasts first, squeezing, then found my nipples and rolled them between his fingers. Tugging, pinching, pulling until the pain mixed with the pleasure and my senses were overwhelmed.
I pushed back into him on every stroke. The sound of wet skin hitting wet skin echoed off the tiles and mixed with the water and my voice and his low groans behind me.
"Harder. God, please.”
His hand left my breast and fisted in my hair. He pulled my head back and drove into me so deep I saw stars.
I was going to come again. It was building faster this time. Tighter, sharper, and more desperate. His other hand dropped between my legs and his fingers found my clit and pressed. He circled then pressed again.
I came so hard my knees gave out.
He caught me with one arm around my waist, holding me up while I convulsed around him, my walls clenching him so tight I heard him swear under his breath. He didn't stop. He fucked me through it, every stroke hitting something deep inside that made the orgasm roll and roll and refuse to end.
"Romy… Fuuuck… I’m…”
His arm tightened and his hips stuttered. He buried himself to the hilt and I felt him come inside me. Hot pulses filling me while he pressed his forehead against my shoulder and groaned low and long into my skin.
We stayed like that, connected and heaving with the water running over both of us while the world came back into focus.
His hand spread flat against my stomach. His lips pressed against my shoulder blade. Soft and gentle once more.
"You okay?" he murmured.
I laughed. It came out breathless and shaking.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm okay."
I'd never been more okay in my life.