Chapter Twenty
Twenty
We’re already a slippery mess as we stumble down the hall to the shower. His hands are on me before we make it there, pinning me up against the wall, lifting my legs up around his hips so he can kiss my neck, my collarbone, my chest over my see-through shirt. I’m addicted to how greedy he is—because I feel it too, the electricity pulsing between us as I grab his hair, moan into his ear.
The ride home was still mildly treacherous. Water and mud splashed up my legs, and every inch of me is soaked, but I don’t care. We locked our bikes and sloshed up the stairs, laughing, kicking off our shoes outside the front door. A moment to give George some pets and a treat.
Once we get to the bathroom, Wouter flicks the knob of the shower and takes his time undressing me in front of the mirror while we wait for it to heat up, wet clothes clinging to wet skin.
Fuck my wife. Fuck my wife. Fuck my wife.
The words are stuck in my head on filthy repeat.
He stands behind me, pulling my hair away from my neck while he kisses me there, sweetly at first and then hard enough to leave a mark. One hand is spread across my waist while his thumb strokes the sunflower petals on my hip, and I press against him when his erection nudges the middle of my back.
“I love the way you look like this,” he murmurs. He drags a finger up my jaw, toward my cheek. He doesn’t shy away from touching my birthmark, and I realize that without even meaning to, I’ve been tilting my head slightly to the left.
“Naked?” I ask with a laugh, and the dimple appears when he smiles.
“Yes, but—specifically right now. All flushed and beautiful. I can see the anticipation on your face.”
I reach a hand backward to circle his cock. “And I can feel yours right here.”
I watch us in the mirror, the way that smile morphs to a groan, eyes shut while I stroke him. In retaliation, he cups my breast, teases my nipple like he knows this is the quickest way to turn me liquid.
Maybe this is how we reestablish a boundary. Sex is casual. Sex doesn’t have to be emotional.
And once I have an employment contract, we won’t need to be anything to each other anymore.
He spins me around and we tumble into the shower, our mouths fused together. For a moment I’m unsure whether he actually intends for us to get clean—until he reaches for a bar of soap.
He drags it along my skin and I let myself turn off my brain, focusing only on the way he lathers my arms, my neck, my stomach. Warm water pounds against my back. Washes away the grime. I catch plenty of it in my mouth—that’s how much I’m grinning as he soaps up my breasts.
When he passes me the bar of soap, I start with his ankles. Move up to his calves. His knees. His cock is at perfect attention, and I can’t resist giving him a few tugs again. God , he’s so expressive when we’re like this, and it might be my favorite thing about him—how every touch sparks a reaction. This time, it’s his hand coming up to give the wall a wet smack.
I inch up his stomach, learning where he’s ticklish, which turns out to be everywhere. Wouter fights back laughter as I run soapy water along his abs, then catches me around the waist and bends down for a kiss, as though he thinks it’ll distract me.
And it does, because of course it does.
“Be shorter,” I whine, as he dutifully crouches down for me to get his arms and shoulders. It’s criminal how hot he looks like this, wild hair and suds dripping down his body.
He throws me a smirk. “And yet you never hear me asking you to get taller.”
He doesn’t just have the one tattoo, I realize. There’s another, a swirl of roman numerals on the back of his calf—a date. And then the one I caught only a glimpse of last time, rendered in delicate black ink just above his shoulder blade. Small leaves and wide, flat petals, with a dark center.
A poppy.
The California state flower.
I swallow around a lump in my throat. It has to be a coincidence, or even likelier, I don’t know anything about flowers. There must be some other symbolism there.
Before I can linger on it, Wouter is opening my bottle of shampoo. He beckons me closer and I shut my eyes, letting him swirl his fingers through my hair and along my scalp in these soothing, tender circles—
Too tender.
My eyes fly open and I have to blink shampoo out of them, wiping it away even as they’re stinging.
“What you said in the park,” I say, eager to turn this casual again. “Right before we left. I like—when you talk to me that way.”
A slow, wicked smile spreads across his face. “That I wanted to fuck my wife?”
God , this man is going to turn me feral. “Yes. That .”
Now he takes me in his arms again, pushes me against the wall of the shower. “Watching you come just once wasn’t enough.” He drags his tongue down the column of my neck while I fist a hand in his hair. “Fuck, Dani. The way you come is so gorgeous. How you lose control, bite your lip like you’re trying to hold back, until you just can’t take it anymore. The sounds you make…” As he’s doing this, he slips a finger between my thighs, and I’m completely unashamed of how quickly he finds a slick, torturous rhythm. “ All the sounds you make.”
A cry escapes my throat. His gaze sparks with mischief as he gets to his knees to start kissing up my legs. It’s such a beautiful sight, him kneeling in front of me, a privilege to see him this vulnerable.
“The number of times I’ve imagined your legs wrapped around my neck…” He grasps my thighs. Presses open-mouthed kissed to them.
In response I can only groan as he licks a hot stripe up my thigh, so close to where I want him.
He holds me steady as he parts my legs. “Tell me what else you like,” he says. “How else does my wife want to be fucked?”
The parts of me that are still breathing stammer out a response. “I like—” Suddenly it’s hard to vocalize. No one’s ever asked me this before, just assumed whatever they were doing was one-size-fits-all, and I writhed around enough to make them believe it. “Everything you did last time.”
A fingertip traces a line of freckles on my hip. “There has to be something else.”
There is. Of course there is. “If you lick me while you have your finger inside me, that’s—I like that. And then—” I swallow hard, wondering how far I can go. “You can put a finger in my ass, too. If you want.”
He loses his cool for just a moment there, like maybe this was unexpected. But he makes no secret of how hungry it makes him, dragging his hands up to squeeze my ass. “Christ. Yes. I want.”
Hearing him say that is an instant relief.
He hikes one of my legs over his shoulder, balancing me with the help of the wall. At first it feels precarious, but there’s a sureness in his grip that makes me trust him. I’m completely bared to him like this—physically, and also with what I’ve just asked for—and yet I’ve never felt safer.
He starts slowly, slowly, a graze of his tongue along my lips. Teasing. Last time he found all the places I’m most sensitive, and he seems to have remembered them all. He fucks me with his finger, languid strokes that drag obscenities from my mouth.
Then he increases his speed. Adds a second finger. Even as my thighs shake, he keeps me upright. I am entirely at the mercy of his tongue, lapping at that sensitive bud of nerves. Fuck —I’m not going to last long at all, but he’s doing his damnedest to draw it out. Every so often, he gives my clit a flick of his tongue or brush of his finger, but he knows better than to give it too much attention too soon.
And even though I’ve asked for it, I’m not prepared for him to slick a finger with my wetness before reaching around to my ass. That touch, that single gentle touch that must only last a couple seconds, as though he wants to make sure he gets it right before he keeps going—it electrifies all my nerve endings. He might as well have reached right inside my chest and yanked. I grab his hair so tightly, I’m worried I might hurt him.
He glances up at me with wild eyes. “Like this?”
Yes , I try to tell him. You’re amazing. You’re perfect . But the only sound that makes it past my mouth is a strangled moan.
“Good girl,” he says, and then he does it again, balancing that soft stroke with his tongue’s more fervent one against my clit. “Beautiful girl. Keep moaning just like that for me.”
It’s too much. Too good. I’m putty in his arms, feeling somehow weightless as I brace myself against his shoulders, against the wall of the shower. Pleasure pools low in my belly, and I can’t look down at his face between my thighs or else I’ll fall apart—but then I’m falling apart anyway, stars bursting behind my eyes, everything in my body letting go. I collapse against him, ungraceful, but he’s got me. He’s got me.
When I finally glance down as he eases me to my feet, he’s grinning. Blown-out pupils. Wet mouth. Pure satisfaction.
“Bed,” I say, my voice hoarse. “Now.”
We bother with towels only long enough to make sure we’re not dripping water everywhere. He gathers me into his arms again, one pair of damp footsteps over to his room, the part of the apartment I’ve spent almost zero time in, but I barely have time to register the details—
—because George is curled up in the middle of the bed, just staring at us.
I let out a startled yelp as Wouter laughs, gently setting me down.
“I’m sorry, buddy,” he says, and the dog scampers out of the room, clearly unsure what’s going on but sensing he probably doesn’t want to be here for it.
“We’ll make it up to him with a long walk later,” I say right before my back hits the mattress.
The way he holds me feels different somehow. He plants a lingering kiss on my ankle. My calf. The inside of my knee. That first time, we were frantic. This time, though it’s grown dark outside, I make sure to switch on the bedside lamp before crawling back onto his lap and really letting myself see him. The angles of his chest, that red-blond trail of hair. How he has more freckles on his shoulders than anywhere else. His laugh, lungs shuddering beneath me as I press my face into his chest and inhale him.
“You said you have an IUD?” he asks, and I nod, skimming a hand over the head of his cock, knowing he’ll feel so fucking right inside me. He pulses against my palm.
“I want to feel you. Just you. We’ve never—” When we were seventeen, we always used a condom. “I want it to feel like a first time.”
“I know,” he says softly. Reverent. “A second first time.”
He holds my hips while I straddle him, taking my time teasing. With as much self-control as I can muster, I rub my center along his cock as he hisses out a plea.
“Need you,” he murmurs. “ Please .”
“Well. Since you asked nicely.”
I sink my hips all the way down, taking his full length and drawing out a stunning groan. Oh —the instant heat of him, that exquisite pressure . I rock a few times, let out a shaky breath. Just him , nothing separating us as he stretches me in the most decadent way.
“You feel…absolutely unreal. Jesus . I think I could stay here forever,” he says as we move together. Slowly, and then a little faster. His jaw clenches, as though he’s trying to savor every inch. “This is good?”
“ Yes. It’s incredible.” We exhale into each other, like this is some sweet relief we’ve been chasing for weeks. Months. With one hand he clutches my ass, fingertips brushing my lower back, and the other settles between us.
Somehow his gaze on mine is both fierce and tender.
Casual, casual, casual , I remind myself.
I need him deeper. I roll my hips up and then back down again, the fullness of him somehow a surprise every time. I love watching him like this, wholly surrendered to the sensation, content with me taking control. The sheen of sweat along his hairline and down his throat. The flex of his muscles.
“You just—you look so good at every angle,” I say. “Like a fucking Michelangelo sculpture or something.”
A choked laugh. “You’re thinking about art right now?”
I move my hips faster, even as I’m biting out a gasp. “Just the most basic kind. Just for you.”
Some part of me still can’t believe this is happening. That this is the same boy who gave me my first orgasms with curious, determined fingers.
Still curious. Still determined.
His hand finds my sunflowers again, and for a second he looks like he wants to say something, but then he changes course and flips us around. His arms bracket my shoulders, my knees at his hips. Nails digging into shower-fresh skin.
I barely have a moment to ache for him before he’s filling me again, perfect thrusts that have me spreading my legs wider and wider. Arching my back against the mattress. The sight of where we’re joined, that primal smack of his body against mine—it’s almost too much.
Casual. Casual.
“Can you come for me again?” he asks, licking his fingertips before dropping them back to my clit. Realizing the effect those words have on me, he continues: “Can you come on my cock?”
And god , I’m already almost there. I can tell he is, too, the way he tightens and lets out a rough exhale.
“Don’t hold back,” I beg. We couldn’t be loud all those years ago, but nothing’s stopping us now. “I want to hear everything.”
The moment he finally lets himself go, his features struck with golden lamplight, the purest ecstasy on his face— that is the work of art.