CHAPTER 16
I let him guide me under the warm spray. Let him rinse my hair and start to wash it.
The water ran red with my blood, so much blood.
Even my scalp had received multiple cuts.
Thorne worked in silence, keeping his eyes above my neck as he washed my hair clean.
His movements were gentle, achingly so, making our situation feel that much more intimate.
We didn’t speak, and that only served to heighten the experience.
Each sweep of his hands, each stolen look, felt deliciously new. Forbidden. It was forbidden in so very many ways. But he was only helping me wash my hair . . .
Right?
My skin tingled pleasantly wherever he touched, the soothing motions and warm water lulling me into a relaxed state.
Struggling to keep my eyes open, I took the opportunity to examine the wing tattoos spanning his chest. At least, that’s what I told myself.
The inkwork was beautifully detailed, but it was the shifting muscles underneath that I couldn’t stop staring at.
His pecs flexed with each movement, and I remembered how it felt to have my head pressed against them.
My eyes wandered lower to the defined muscles on his stomach, tracing their uniform dips and swells. Would they jump beneath my fingertips if I touched them?
Shocked by the wayward thought, I grabbed the bar of soap in the cutout beside me and feverishly began to scrub the remaining blood from my skin. By the time my body was fully clean, I felt weaker than a newborn foal, trembling so hard that I could barely stand.
I hated to admit it, but he’d been right. I never would have been able to do this by myself.
Needing a break, I leaned against the tiles behind me. Thorne watched me, and I hesitated for a long moment before saying, “Thank you for not letting me die.”
That look in his eyes intensified, and I knew for sure I was reading it all wrong this time. He looked protective, and that was impossible. He didn’t want to be near me; he hated me. Even admitted so himself. He couldn’t be feeling protective toward me—more like regretful that he hadn’t let me die.
“Whether I want this responsibility or not,” he said, his voice even lower than usual, “you’re mine to keep alive.”
Whoa. Mine? He couldn’t mean it that way. He sure knew how to give a girl mixed signals, though, throwing around words like that and staring in a way that would make even the most hardened soul melt.
My legs chose that moment to finally give out on me.
I started to slide down the tiles, and Thorne moved, wedging a leg between mine to halt my descent.
As his muscular thigh pressed against my core, my body went haywire.
Heat shot to the area, creating an ache I’d never felt before.
Unable to control my reaction, a small gasp left me.
“Did that hurt?” Thorne questioned, a note of concern in his voice as he leaned a hand on the tiles beside my head.
He didn’t remove his leg, though, using it to hold me up, keeping it pressed against me in a way that made it hard to breathe.
“No,” I breathlessly replied, that one word saying far more than I’d meant to. At my confession, his eyes became dark pools of bottomless ocean. Confused, flustered, and feeling way too vulnerable, I reached out to push him back.
He caught both my wrists in one hand and lifted them above my head, securing them to the wall in one swift move.
“What are you doing?” I said, my eyes flying wide when his other hand left the wall and lowered to boldly grip my waist. Unused to being touched that way, my body quivered beneath his long fingers, a heady warmth that had nothing to do with the shower spray racing through me.
Instead of answering, he said in a quiet rumble, “Tell me, Snowflake . . . Have you ever been pleasured before?”
My jaw slowly dropped. When it was clear the question had rendered me speechless, he took the liberty of sliding that bold hand up my side.
The sensation was electric, and I gasped again, unable to stop my spine from arching off the tiles in response.
When I felt his thumb graze the underside of my breast and stop there, I stared wildly into his eyes, whether to plead that he stop or urge him onward, I didn’t know.
“Answer me,” he softly ordered.
I swallowed roughly, struggling to speak. “No,” I said, the sound more whimper than a word.
Something filled his eyes then, and there was no mistaking it this time. He was excited. Wickedly excited. I started to tremble all over, on the verge of what felt like a panic attack. Air. I needed air.
“Relax, Snowflake,” Thorne rumbled, adjusting his grip on my wrists before sliding that bold hand south once more. “I just want you to feel something good after the hell you endured. This won’t change anything between us, and we can go on hating each other the same as before.”
Before I could think to respond, to stop him, he slid his hand between my legs.
The slightest pressure to my aching flesh had me jerking off the tiles with a breathy moan.
His leg still wedged between mine held me in place, the gap he’d created allowing his fingers to explore the shape of me through my damp underwear.
“Since this is your first time, I’ll make it slow and gentle,” he said, the desire that I could no longer deny thick in his voice. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out, the feelings he was awakening in me erasing my mind.
Each sweep of his fingers over my center was achingly slow, just like he promised, stoking a fire in me that began to grow and grow and grow.
He didn’t breach that thin barrier of fabric between us the entire time, a choice that seemed decidedly intentional.
It was like he knew just how wrong this was and keeping my panties in place would somehow absolve him of this sin.
I didn’t care either way at the moment, too busy drowning in forbidden pleasure.
The more he touched me, the more I wanted him to, and the longer he did, the stronger the sensation coiling low in my belly grew.
I started to shake, to pant, the sensation building and building and building.
His strokes quickened, shortened, targeting the most sensitive of all spots until my legs were stiffening, preparing for something huge.
Something life changing.
“Thorne,” I whimpered, so much pleasure spiking through me that I couldn’t stand it.
“Just a little longer, Snowflake,” he rumbled near my ear, tightening his grip on my wrists and adding even more delicious pressure to my clit. “You’re responding so beautifully, and I’m not done watching.”
Ancestors, save me. His words alone almost unraveled me.
My breaths came in frantic pants, those deft fingers swirling and swirling, tighter and tighter.
My core tightened right along with his movements, making me shake uncontrollably.
I could no longer breathe. My whole world had narrowed to his fingers on my clit.
It felt so good. Too good. I could no longer contain the feeling. I had to let it out. Had to . . .
“Come for me, Winter. Now.”
I released the wall of tension, and it snapped.
A strangled cry left me as pure adrenaline, pure ecstasy flooded me, filling every corner of my body.
My world became bliss. I was bliss. Even my fingers and toes blissfully pulsed to the orgasm’s beat, a beat I hadn’t known existed until this moment.
Thorne’s fingers continued to work my clit, drawing out the pleasurable aftershocks.
I felt like a specter in that moment, floating above my body in a state so peaceful that I didn’t want to come down.
So this was an orgasm. Why the hell did I wait so long to have one?
Every inch of me hummed contentedly as I finally came down, so euphoric that I felt made out of jello.
I tried gathering my legs beneath me, and Thorne let go of my wrists to help me stand.
I swayed but eventually found my balance, fluttering my eyes open to glance up at him.
Desire still simmered in his gaze, and before I knew what was happening, his head was lowering. Lowering toward mine.
Our noses brushed, and I froze, knowing what he was about to do. But we couldn’t. Couldn’t. It was too far. Too much. I’d already given him something I shouldn’t have. Already let myself feel things.
“Thorne,” I said in a trembling breath, stiffening even more when he slid a hand to the nape of my neck. Drawing us closer. Guiding my face to the perfect angle.
One slip. One little slip was all it would take. After the pleasure I’d just felt at his hands, I could only imagine how good it would feel to have his mouth on mine. Oh, the things he could teach me. He was my mentor, after all. Maybe I should let him kiss me.
What the hell was I saying? Thorne shouldn’t kiss me. Kissing meant more than fleeting sexual desire. Kissing meant feelings. Kissing meant caring. I couldn’t do this. We couldn’t do this.
People who hated each other shouldn’t be kissing.
Hudsons and Mayweathers were rivals. Sworn enemies.
We didn’t mix. There was too much bad blood between us, too much pain and betrayal.
I was supposed to stay away from Thorne at all costs.
It was bad enough that he had to mentor me.
I couldn’t stab my family in the back by selfishly indulging in a moment of sinful pleasure with him.
I’d already let things go too far. What we were doing had to stop. Now.
His uneven breaths mingled with mine, the scant centimeter between us humming, sparking with want. Maybe just one kiss. Only one. Just to find out what he tasted like . . .
No. We couldn’t.
Our lips touched anyway. Once. Twice. The contact was featherlight. An exploratory brush. A searching sweep. Barely a graze at all.