6 Tommy #2
Even the freezing water couldn’t dampen the heat of her.
She was pressed flush against my chest, her soft breasts yielding against my hard muscle.
My hands were locked around her waist, mapping the smooth, firm curve of her hips.
Her wet tunic was plastered completely to her skin, turning the fabric transparent.
My eyes zeroed in on the dark shadow of her nipples, puckered tight and hard from the chill. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
A heavy, thick throb centered in my lap.
My cock surged to life, rising painfully hard, straining against my soaked cotton pants.
For a wild, desperate second, I pictured reaching out a hand, cupping one of those heavy breasts, and bringing her hard nipple to my mouth to suckle her until she whimpered.
I wanted to plow into her soft, wet folds, feeling her inner walls squeeze tight around my cock while I took her mouth with my own, drinking in her sighs.
Meanwhile, the lawn lost its mind.
They laughed—really laughed, the whole sad caged garden party of them, Cora wheezing in her chair and Eli doubling over safe on dry land and even Lynn of the Wicked Wickets clutching her sides.
Of all the sounds in my life—a crown fire breathing, a pack howling under a full moon—none landed in me like that lawn full of frightened people laughing in the sun.
It was the most precious sound this place had made.
I’d bought it with a faceplant and I’d have bought it again.
And then I looked down.
Kaia was still in my arms, soaked to the skin, with her hair plastered to her face.
Her composure had washed away with the pond water.
For one second, one impossible second, she wasn’t Steward Thorne at all.
She was sputtering woman in a fishpond, blinking water out of her eyes, mouth open, and a sound came out of her that I would carry for the rest of my days.
She laughed too.
One tiny, disbelieving, helpless huff of a laugh, surprised right out of her, before she even knew it was coming—then she caught it, the horror landing hard as she smothered it back down with both hands like a woman stamping out an ember in dry grass.
But I’d heard it.
And that laugh went into me deeper than the touch had, deeper than the scent, all the way down to where the wolf lived, and the wolf went silent. Not drowned-silent, not drugged-silent.
Certain-silent. Home-silent.
The quiet a thing makes when it stops looking because it’s found what it’s been looking for.
I was so scared of that quiet I could’ve wept.
And my erection was a throbbing, agonizing column of steel in my pants.
If I stood up and climbed out of the water now, the soaked, clingy cotton would show everyone on that lawn exactly what she did to me.
The Wardens would have me on a table within minutes.
Steady, I repeated to myself, squeezing my eyes shut for a second. Keep it steady. Talk it down.
But the heat of her was still right there, the memory of her breasts against my chest fighting the freezing water.
She shoved a tangle of wet hair out of her eyes, finding her footing, and released another laugh. “Tommy, I can stand. You can let go.”
I instantly did as she commanded.
Unfortunately, my cock was not so compliant.
It remained stubbornly rigid, straining against my pants.
I needed to buy time. I kicked my legs out, thrashing backward in the water, pretending to lose my footing again to stay submerged.
I splashed around, making a show of sputtering and coughing as I waded deeper into the pond, putting five feet of murky water between us.
I kept both hands open and raised, wading another step back.
The cold water lapped at my chest, finally, agonizingly starting to numb the blood in my veins.
I continued to play the idiot, splashing water over my face and shoulders, forcing my brain to do recite firebreak protocols while the heavy throb in my lap fought a losing battle against the freezing pond.
I couldn’t get out yet. I just had to keep swimming.
She stepped out of the water, keeping her spine as straight as possible. I stayed put in the algae, treading water until I finally felt the erection subside into a dull ache, safe to hide under wet cloth. Only then did I drag myself out.
Warden Miller stood at the pond’s edge.
He wasn’t laughing. His eyes were on Kaia. On the way she’d moved to catch Eli. On the soft look she was busy locking back down.
“Quite a recovery,” Miller said, turning his attention to me, his voice warm and carrying. “For a guest.”
The lawn cooled by ten degrees.
I made myself wheeze, playing the soaked, humiliated idiot, gasping and grabbing for the comedy, even as I couldn’t wait for the day I’d get to rip his throat out with my teeth, because the joke was my armor.
“Recovery? Buddy, I face-planted into a fish hotel. Pretty sure I swallowed a koi. If anyone finds a fish in my paperwork, I want it documented. Does the wellness program cover waterlogged shoes? Because these are my only pair, and they’re currently hosting a private ecosystem. ”
Miller did not smile. “The program covers stabilization, Thomas. We don’t generally expect guests to throw themselves into the pond.”
“Well, I’m an overachiever. Just trying to get aligned with the local wildlife. Right, Steward?”
Kaia wrung the water from her sleeve, her face returning to its flat, professional mask. “The guest was unstable. He lost his footing. It’s a common symptom of the adjustment period. I’ll document the incident.”
Sloane stepped forward from the perimeter, tapping her stylus against her tablet. “Guest instability often presents as erratic movement under stress. He spooked, lost his footing, grabbed the nearest body. Textbook. I’ll note it in the log. No need to escalate it.”
Miller grunted. He stared at Kaia one more beat too long, then turned away.