Chapter 22
Twenty Two
Sloane
That night the exhaustion finally caught up to both of us.
The day had been long—moving tanks, releasing the sharks, planning for the captain and his son to arrive tomorrow—my muscles ached in places I didn’t know muscles existed, and my head hung heavy with everything we’d done and everything still coming.
Callan leaned against the hallway wall outside the staff locker room, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.
“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I smell like fish, freezer burn, and stress.”
I let out a tired laugh.
“That’s disturbingly accurate.”
The locker room showers still worked—the aquarium’s water systems remained one of the few things we didn’t have to worry about yet. Small miracle.
Callan pushed open the door and flipped on the dim overhead light.
“We should probably clean up before we meet our guests tomorrow.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Guests.”
“Yeah.” He gave a crooked smile. “That’s what we’re calling them now.”
Something about the way he said it—casual, almost normal, like we were hosting dinner and not taking in strangers at the end of the world—loosened a knot in my chest.
The locker room sat quiet around us; metal lockers lined the walls, some still hanging open with jackets and name tags that belonged to people who would never come back for them. I tried not to look too closely. The tiled floor echoed softly as we moved toward the back.
Steam filled the space a few minutes later as the hot water kicked in.
For a long moment, we simply stood in separate stalls, letting the warmth do the work.
The salt, the grime, the smell of fish—all of it sluicing off and swirling down the drain.
I tipped my head back under the spray and closed my eyes and relaxed.
The water drummed against the tiles, and steam curled thickly through the dim light.
And for a few minutes, the world shrank down to something small enough to bear.
I kept my eyes closed, head tipped back, letting the water massage my eyelids and rinse the weight of the day off. My body hurt in a deep, wrung-out way that came from hauling equipment and wrangling predators all afternoon.
But underneath the exhaustion, something else had been building since the moment Callan lifted me onto that couch, since his fingers made me come apart while he watched like I belonged to him.
I heard his stall door open, quiet. My pulse kicked hard as water kept pouring over me, but the shift in the air hit first—cooler for a second, hotter as he stepped into my stall without a word. Naked, water already streaming down the hard lines of his chest, further down.
I opened my eyes.
Already hard, thick, and heavy against his thigh.
He didn’t smile. Didn’t speak, simply reached past me, turned the water hotter until it bordered on pain, as he crowded me back against the tile.
My breath caught as the cold porcelain hit my breasts at the same moment his heat pressed against my back.
“Hands on the wall, baby girl.” Low. Gravel-rough. Barely louder than the water.
I swallowed, placed both palms flat against the slick tile, fingers splayed wide. The position arched my back slightly and pushed my hips out toward him.
“Good.”
His hand came down on one cheek—sharp, sudden, the crack of wet skin echoing off the walls. I gasped, the sting through the heat.
“You’ve been so fucking good today.” His mouth hovered close to my ear now, breath hot against the wet skin of my neck. “Taking care of everything.”
Another smack. Harder. The heat of it sank deep into the muscle, spreading.
“But you’re still wound so tight, aren’t you?” His fingers dug into my hips, yanking me back until my ass pressed flush against his cock. He ground forward once, slow and deliberate, letting me register every thick inch. “I’m gonna fix that.”
I whimpered; I couldn’t stop it.
He reached around, cupped one breast roughly, pinching the nipple until I arched higher against the tile. His other hand slid between my thighs, fingers parting me without preamble. I’d been soaked long before the shower.
“Fuck, listen to that,” he muttered against my ear, pushing two fingers deep inside. “So wet for me, so ready when I tell you what to do.”
He pumped once, twice—rough, deliberate—pulled out and replaced his fingers with the blunt head of his cock; he didn’t ease in.
He slammed forward in one brutal stroke.
I cried out; the sensation was so good my vision blurred at the edges. He filled me completely, bottoming out with a grunt that vibrated through my body.
“Take it.” His voice hard. “Every fucking inch, Sloane.”
With no time to adjust, he started moving—hard, deep strokes, the slap of skin on skin obscene under the roar of the water. One hand wrapped around my throat, keeping my head tilted back so his mouth stayed right at my ear.
“Who do you belong to, baby girl?”
“You,” I gasped. “Callan—”
“Louder.”
“You. Callan—fuck—”
He rewarded me with a stroke so deep my knees buckled; he caught me instantly, arm banding across my stomach, holding me up while he drove harder. Faster. The angle turned mercilessly—every thrust dragging over that spot inside me that made my toes curl against the wet tile.
His free hand slid down, fingers finding my clit and rubbing tight circles.
“Come on my cock,” he ordered. “Right fucking now. Show me how much you need this, baby girl.”
I shattered.
The orgasm tore through me, blinding me. My walls clenched around him and he groaned, low and guttural, his hips jerking for a second. My legs shook, and I screamed his name, pulsing around him, so wet I could feel it running down my inner thighs even with the shower pouring over us.
He didn’t stop.
He fucked me through every wave—harder. His rhythm turned feral, hips surging forward in short, punishing strokes. His hand on my throat tightened enough to make my head swim in the best possible way.
“Gonna fill you up,” he rasped. “I’m going to mark you so deep you’ll still ache tomorrow when we’re standing there pretending to be civilized.”
I clenched around him again as aftershocks ripped through me one after another—and that broke him.
He buried himself to the hilt with a ragged, broken sound, cock pulsing as he came hard, flooding me with heat that seemed to go on and on. Pulse after thick pulse until I overflowed, dripping down my thighs, mixing with the water swirling at our feet.
He stayed inside me for long seconds, breathing ragged against my neck, hips still twitching with the last of it, as he eased out slowly—careful now, so careful—and turned me in his arms.
Pulled me against his chest.
The water still ran hot over both of us.
“Are you okay, baby?” Softer now, rough around the edges, but tender underneath.
I nodded against his shoulder.
“Better than okay.”
He kissed my forehead, moved to my mouth—slow, deep, possessive in a way that had everything to do with ownership.
“Get clean,” he murmured against my lips. “I’m taking you to bed, and you’re not leaving it until morning.”
He reached for the soap.
Washed me himself. Those same hands that had wrecked me slid over every inch of my body with a gentleness that made my chest ache more than anything else he’d done.
Down my arms, and across my stomach, between my thighs where he’d just been, his touch careful and thorough, cleaning what he’d left behind like tending to something that belonged to him.
When we finally stepped out, dripping, wrapped in towels that smelled like industrial laundry detergent, he lifted me as if I weighed nothing and carried me toward the office turned bedroom.
I pressed my face into his neck; his pulse beat steadily against my lips.
No more distance, no more pretending either of us could do this alone.
Just us.
* * *
He flicked on the single desk lamp and closed the door behind us with a soft click.
Then he turned to me.
No orders this time. No growl. No “baby girl” edged with command.
He just looked at me as if he intended to memorize the shape of my face in the low light. Then he stepped close, cupped both hands around my cheeks, thumbs brushing the damp ends of my hair, and kissed me.
Slow.
So slow it hurt in the best way, his mouth moving over mine, like he had all night to learn every curve of my lips, every hitch in my breath.
The tenderness in it caught me off guard, and something inside me trembled—confused, off balance.
This wasn’t how we did this; this wasn’t the rough, claiming heat I’d come to expect.
This had care in it, an almost reverence; he broke the kiss only to rest his forehead against mine.
“Lie down,” he murmured, not an order this time, but a request. “Let me take care of you.”
I backed up until my calves hit the edge of the couch turned bed.
He followed, guiding me with gentle hands until I sat, then easing me back until I lay flat against the cushions.
They cooled my still-warm skin. He kneeled between my legs, just watching me, eyes dark and soft in a way that made my chest ache.
Then, without a word, he was sliding down my body with deliberate slowness.
His hands skimmed my sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts.
He settled between my thighs, broad shoulders parting them gently, and looked up at me, held my gaze, and something vulnerable flickered behind his eyes—there and gone, but unmistakable.
“You’re everything,” he murmured. “You know that?”
Then he lowered his head.