I needed funny.
Or I’d cry.
Shit.
“The first time you’re seeing me naked is to groom me. I don’t know how to feel about that.” Oooh, yes. That was good. Totally believable that I hadn’t just realized how utterly fucked I was—or would be when he left.
He didn’t look down. He could have. Most guys would, but he kept his eyes on mine before dropping a kiss on my lips. Curling both hands around the hem of his shirt, he tugged it over his head. “I have a solution for that.”
Him naked. Another nail in my coffin.
One brief moment became my undoing—the one where e still held his arms over his head, the black cotton having yet to drag over his face—where his muscles flexed, his abs stretching and contracting with his movements. The skin over his ribs shifting. Hard ridges and lickable valleys with a dusting of hair spread across his chest to funnel down his sternum, stomach, before finally disappearing behind the waistband of his shorts.
No ink.
Just pure, healthy, athletic man.
Watching him undress should come with a surgeon general warning.
The shorts dropped next and I’m pretty sure I swallowed my tongue at the sight of him, heavy and hard.
I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat.
He was in me.
That was in me.
On roller skates.
I kind of felt bad for my teammates to be honest…they were totally missing out.
“You get a good look?”
“Yes, and how uncool of you to mention it. Thank you.”
He laughed, took my hand, and helped me balance as I climbed under the hot spray. I tipped my head back, let the water soak into my hair before leaning back farther to let it wash over my face.
When I swayed, disoriented between holding my hand up over my head to keep it out of the spray, tilting my head back, and just plain being wiped out, he was there. His large hands sliding over the wet skin at the curve of my waist, long fingers flexing and curling against me, holding me steady.
I opened my eyes, water dripping from my lashes and running down my cheeks to find him studying me, his expression unreadable, yet unwavering.
Haunted.
Outrunning his past.
Standing right before me, but like he could vanish at any minute.
Spinning me away from him, he smoothed his hand up my one arm while resting my forearm of my injured hand against the wall, keeping it elevated, but giving me support at the same time.
His hands worked through my hair first, the scent of cocoa butter filling the steamy air. The pads of his fingers digging into my scalp sent shivers of pure bliss down my spine.
My senses reeled, everything heightened. The brush of his thighs against mine, his forearms sweeping over my shoulders as he reached for the shelf, his sudsy fingertips grazing over my collarbone…something that already stood out as one of his favorite ways to touch me.
And quickly becoming my favorite way to be touched.
He didn’t grab a washcloth; he completely ignored the loofa hanging from the hook, and instead ran the soap over me, skimming the slippery bar over curves and dipping and swirling it in the valleys.
My head fell back against his shoulder the minute his lips made contact with the back of my neck. His ragged breath filled my ear as his mouth opened and closed over my skin following along the ridge of my shoulder.
Large hands wrapped around me, grazed over my breasts, circled my nipples, his fingertips making impressions in my fevered skin along the way.
A rough groan rumbled from his chest. With his arm still wrapped around me, his hand went straight to my throat, holding me against him, keeping me upright while his cock nestled along the crease of my ass.
His other palm danced over my abdomen and slid between my legs, cupping me, his long fingers tracing over me, dipping inside, swirling, playing—never relenting until my throat strained against the hand locked there, the whimper shimmying up my throat against his palm only making him squeeze tighter as my body spasmed under his unyielding exploration.
Wave after wave, with his erotic whispers of encouragement in my ear, I rode out every last ripple of my orgasm—my body entirely—until my knees finally buckled.
I’d never need another drink.
No drug could match this.
No other man, or woman, had the power to coil me so tight and give me sweet relief in the same moment.
Just this man, his touch, his kiss, his unshakeable dedication.
And every minute only made me more desperate for him to stay.
To be in my circle and be in his.
To live in my heart.
The more I wanted him—all of him—the more I needed to know why I couldn’t have him. Why he would be the second loss capable of devastating me.
With the water finally giving out, he lifted me out of the tub and dried us both from head to toe, squeezing every last bit of water he could from the strands of hair along my back.
“Stay,” I said quietly. “Just for a little while.”
He didn’t say a word, just led me to my bed, laid me down, stacking pillows in front of me to prop up my hand, and climbed in behind me.
Lying there peacefully—his chest against my back, his hand skimming over my hip—I finally asked, “You lost your mother, but your father…where is he?”
His hand stilled at first, his chest swelling with his deep breath. “Jail.” One word jagged and raw. Four letters like a cap on a soda bottle. If you twisted carefully, success. If you weren’t careful…explosion.
“Is he the reason you’re a cop?”
“One of them,” he said quietly.
“What did he do?” I whispered, my heart beating thick and heavy in my chest.
“He tried to turn his kids into drug mules in a low-level drug operation.”
I bit my lip, my sharp intake of breath turning into a hiss. His answer…the way he said it—holding himself
