Chapter 45
“We’re not going to both fit in there. Just sit and stop arguing with me,” I scold, fighting a smile.
Even in the giant tub, Beck’s shoulders won’t go beneath the hot water unless he lets himself sink a few inches. And currently, he’s dripping water onto the floor as he keeps his hand extended for me to grab.
The smear of bubbles across his chest doesn’t do a damn thing to hide his six-pack in the water, and I find my eyes drooping to the grooves in his hips. Snapping them back up, I ignore his smug smirk and give the back of his hand a slap.
“I’m not getting in with you.”
“Please? I’m injured.”
“Which is exactly why you need to be soaking that shoulder in the hot water.”
“Soak with me. I’ll be good.”
I snort. “Yeah, okay. You’re willing to swear it?”
He visibly deflates and adjusts himself in the water. It sloshes against the sides, nearly going over the edge. His knee bends above the water, and then he leans his cheek against his bicep, watching me. The curl of his finger sends a spark of lightning to my clit.
“The bath is more than big enough for two people. I missed you, baby. Please.”
“You’re not playing fair.”
“When have I ever when it comes to you?”
I consider that for longer than I should. He’s not wrong at all.
He keeps his palm up, his eyes tracking me as I slowly take my sweater off. It falls beside the heap of his clothes on the floor. My sweatpants join them, but I keep my panties and sports bra on.
Noticing that they aren’t tangled in my pants, he arches a thick brow. “Would you prefer I take them off for you?”
“I haven’t finished grovelling. You’re not supposed to have forgiven me already, which means we can’t have sex yet.”
“Then I’m deciding you are done, and I have forgiven you. Too bad, so sad.”
I drop my head, grinning despite myself.
Reaching up, I pull the clip free from my hair and set it on the counter.
Messy and unwashed, it tumbles over my shoulders and down my chest. The sports bra I threw on under my hoodie earlier isn’t exactly sexy.
Neither are the plain-Jane, black cotton panties.
My excuse is that I was in crisis mode when I changed out of my work clothes.
The way Beck looks like he’s one sudden movement away from hopping out of the tub and burying his face between my legs makes me feel like I’m wearing expensive silk and lace instead.
Swallowing, I stand in place, my palms resting on my thighs. It isn’t shyness making me hesitate.
“I don’t want you to think back and wish that I’d finished proving myself to you,” I admit breathlessly.
“You already have, and I don’t want to waste any more time. Especially not right now.”
I hesitate. Even if he thinks he’s sure, who’s to say he won’t look back a few months from now and wonder if he gave in too easily. If things get hard or I make a mistake and he regrets forgiving me altogether.
As if I’ve spoken the fears aloud, he shakes his head and starts rising from the tub.
I jerk forward instantly, grabbing his bicep.
The contact is electric. My pulse thrums right beneath my skin.
Distracted by the sudden heat burning through me, I’m not prepared to shake myself free of the arm that curls around me and tugs me to the edge of the tub.
“In,” he demands roughly.
I bite the inside of my cheek and obey him. He was right about the size of the tub. While a bit squishy, there’s room for the both of us, and the addition of my weight brings the water almost to his shoulders. If he moves just a bit, it’ll be able to soak the sore muscles.
His thick, powerful thighs are directly beneath me as I bracket them with mine and hover over his lap. I rest my hands on his shoulders, softly caressing the naked skin. His body hair is minimal everywhere but his legs, but I can still feel it tickling my fingers as I stroke the curving muscles.
Bliss travels through his features, turning his neck and cheek a soft shade of pink. The flutter of his lashes as his lids lower halfway sends a shiver up my spine.
“If I knew how to massage you without risking damaging something, I’d do it,” I say, repeating the motion, letting my nails run across his goosebumps.
“You’re not going to distract me.”
“From what?”
He brings his hands to my ass, squeezing just once over my panties before trailing them up, up, up.
By the time he reaches my nape, I’ve melted, relaxing against his chest. Calloused fingers gather my hair and move it aside, giving him the freedom to bring his mouth to my bare throat. I shut my eyes, exhaling.
“If it means this much to you, then finish once we get home. Grovel the fuck out of me, so long as I get to make love to you tonight,” he rasps, lips parting over my pulse.
I moan, the needy noise drawing a matching one from him. “You’ll let me without complaint?”
“Yes.”
He isn’t expecting me to grip him by the hair and pull him from my throat.
His pupils swell, and then our lips crash together.
It’s not the same type of kiss as in the clinic.
This is raw, unchained. We’ve lost a week of time, and we’re desperate to make up for it.
Each stroke of his tongue in my mouth draws me closer until I’m sitting fully on his thighs.
He takes my ass cheek into his huge hand and tucks his fingers beneath my panties, cupping me bare.
Need overtakes any and all sense I had, and before I know it, I’m grinding forward, feeling his dick hard beneath me.
I’m lost in the dual sensation of his soft, teasing touches on my upper body and the firm way he’s holding me from behind, using his good side to move me over his naked shaft.
We rock together, my panties soaked and sticking to my sensitive pussy.
He grunts, neck bulging with a thick swallow when I reach beneath the water and pull the soaked fabric out of the way.
His thick tip bumps my clit, and I jerk forward, my hand snapping out to the edge of the tub behind his head for balance.
There’s nothing in his eyes but this white-hot, searing mix of love and need. The way they tangle together is intoxicating. With my next breath, I’m curling my fingers around him and holding his gaze, unable to look away. That combination grows brighter, having a sharp effect between my legs.
Dropping his head back to rest near my hand, he tugs his lip between his teeth and bites down.
I feel powerful like this. Touching him, holding him so close to where I’m aching, knowing that I’m the reason why his hips have started lifting in the water, forcing my hand to move over his thick cock.
He breaks eye contact only so he can run his gaze down my throat to where my sports bra has grown wet and tight over my chest. My nipples are so hot they’re threatening to cut through the fabric, and before I can tell him to touch me, he’s tracing the shape of my left one.
“Mmm,” I moan, tipping my head as far forward as I can to watch.
“I love your mind the most. Your brilliant mind, your focus, the way you overthink, even when it makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes.” He tucks his fingers beneath the stretchy band and pulls my bra up and over my boobs.
They fall heavily, and his knuckles brush my nipples.
“Then your heart. How you always take care of those you love, even if it means you suffer for it. You don’t let many people in, but those of us who have gotten there, we never want to leave.
It’s an honour to be loved by you, Quinn Archer.
All I can offer you is that I’ll do the same. ”
My eyes tear up as I thread fingers through the hair at the back of his head and lower my mouth to his again.
He kisses me back softly at first, then harder, rougher.
There’s more he wants to say, but I don’t need him to.
Instead, I steal a breath and lean forward just enough that I can angle his cock right at my entrance, letting it slowly slip inside.
Just the tip is enough to have me tipping over the edge of sanity.
“You’re going to take it so well, baby. I fit nice and snug in that perfect pussy.
” His words tickle my cheek as his mouth glides to my ear.
The hot lash of his tongue comes along the edge before he pulls the lobe between his lips.
“Do I need to reach down and feel how wet you are, or are you going to show me by taking my cock deep?”
I adjust my position, ignoring the mild throb in my knees from the porcelain tub. He slides another inch in, and then another. A cry bunches in my throat, and I have no choice but to let it out when he shifts beneath me. Out, then in, this time working half of his shaft inside.
His fingers dig into my sides, my back. I focus on not letting my eyes roll back at the coiling pleasure in my belly, needing to look at him.
“Let me in all the way in, Quinny. Fuck. You’re so tight—so fucking perfect,” he groans, the words thick and tense.
I watch in awe as his abdomen flexes beneath the water, completely visible now that the bubbles have disappeared between us.
The brace he left the clinic wearing is wet now, yet neither of us makes a move to pull it off.
I want to take care of him, even now when all I can think clearly about is seating myself on him and letting him pound into me.
“Keep your eyes on me. Look at how you make me feel.”
My palm glides down his neck, taking hold of it as my other pushes against his chest, tracing the muscles all the way down to where we’re connected.
His chain is there, a cool contrast against his skin.
With every shift of his hips, I start moving mine.
My clit throbs, pure bliss melting my thoughts as I grind down and then rock back in time with his short thrusts.
The pressure dims my vision, keeping only him illuminated.
My thighs burn, and his neck muscles bunch tightly beneath my fingers.
Neither of us thinks we’ll be able to drag this out this time.
That’s not the goal. We just need each other and to feel the way we both belong to one another without a sliver of doubt left to stand in the way.
This is the first time we’ve had sex without my walls up between us.
They’re shattered, leaving only fragments scattered in dark corners of my mind that I never want to visit again.
“Say you’re mine this time,” he grunts a beat before his teeth clench, jaw working.
I don’t hesitate.
“I’m yours.” My lips coax his open again, relaxing him despite the urge that’s riding us both to let go. “And you’re mine.”
His grip tightens as his thrusts grow loose, off tempo. I whimper, nodding approval.
“Come with me.”
“Quinn,” he groans, my name both a prayer and damnation as we tip over together.
The sickness and cure, he’d said before.
He’s wrong. If I’m the sickness, then he’s the cure.
That’s the reason he was the only one who could heal me.