“Endorphins killed the pain,” he murmurs into my ear as I curl my arm around his waist and lead him to the bathroom. “I told you I was all f**ked up.”
I prop him against the wall and open the shower door, and as I check that the water is ice cold, he sweeps me up in his arms, turns the knob to medium, and carries us inside, clothes and all.
The water rushes over us, and I gasp in surprise and kick in the air while all my clothes get plastered to my skin. “What are you doing?”
He pulls off my shoes and tosses them over the glass partition above the tub, then he sets me on my bare feet and tugs my skirt down my legs. All those pheromones he puts out after fighting suddenly wage a war on my senses, and I start feeling so hot, the only thing keeping me from turning to ashes is the water pounding on my skin. “What are you doing??” I breathlessly demand.
He yanks off my top and it splats to the marble floor with a wet sound. He strips, and I’m so overwhelmed with anger over the way he let himself get punched, and so stimulated by the sight of his muscles flexing as he strips down to his golden, wet skin, I want to hit him and kiss him at the same infuriating time. When his boxing shorts hit—splat!—and he kicks them aside, ohmigod, my eyes hurt.
I have to bite down on my lower lip, trying to quell the instinct to fling myself at him and give him anything he needs. Keeping his eyes leveled on mine, he steps back into the spray, his broad shoulders shielding me from the water, then when I feel the slow scrape of his thumb sliding up my chin and gently tugging my lower lip free of my teeth, I hear his voice thick as he whispers, “That’s mine to bite.”
I’m not breathing. He has this overpowering effect on me. I could fight my reactions to him, but I’d lose. My eyes hold his, and the possessive glimmer in his gaze bullets through me. Rivulets of water slide down his jaw as he grabs my ass and presses me close, his erection biting into my tummy as he stares down at me with relentless intensity.
“You,” he says, his voice terse and commanding as he drags his wet thumb across my lips, “are going to love me until I die. I’m going to make you love me even if it hurts, and when it hurts, I’m going to make it better, Brooke.” He eases his thumb into my mouth and rubs it purposely against the tip of my tongue, the move quietly demanding that I lick it. When I do, my br**sts ache and I watch him extract his thumb to brush the wet pad across my bottom lip. “You’re going to f**king love me if it kills us.”
My lungs ache for breath and the rest of me aches for his hands on me. And when my gaze flicks upward to find those blue eyes pinned on mine, his face hurt and sweaty, all the testosterone in the world courses through him, pulling and enveloping me, so I can barely take living right now I want him so much. He makes me feel this all-consuming, soul-searing, heart-wrenching, painful need for him that’s more than physical, more than emotional.
My sex grips so tight, it takes all my effort not to whimper. My senses are heightened by his nearness. I can’t help but notice how the drop of blood on his lip is the color of his RIPTIDE robe, bright and perfectly oxygenated. How his steady, hot breath bathes my wet face. How, slowly, his fingers spread wider on my ass, and one of his thumbs grazes the skin of my jaw. He destroys me.
“Stop hurting yourself,” I say miserably, trying to ease out of his arms only to hit the cold marble behind me.
“It doesn’t hurt,” he rasps, then pulls me close by the ass and nuzzles me. “You. Crying in my f**king arms. Because I f**king hurt you. That hurts. You . . . not touching me. Not looking up at me like you do, with those sweet little happy eyes. Hurts. I’m hurting like a motherfucker and not one piece of me hurts on the outside like it does where you make it hurt.”
Fighting to hold my raw emotions in check, I drop my gaze and furiously blink back the moisture in my eyes.
“I hurt here too.” He guides my hand over to his massive erection. “I hurt all night, watching you come apart for me. This morning. And at the gym.” He presses me close, and I moan softly and drop my forehead to his pecs as I struggle not to fall apart again.
He takes pity on me and lets my hand go, but my fingers burn at my sides, and I don’t know what to do with my hands. My head spins with his nearness. I want to take my fingers up every inch of his muscles and erase the touch of every other hand that has ever been there. I want to—
I don’t even know. I can’t think of anything now except the growing, painful throb inside my body. Inside my heart. My sex. He’s grabbed the soap and starts soaping up my na**d flesh. As if doing it for the first time, he watches his hands work between my legs, his fingers curl and lather up my br**sts, his thumbs rubbing soap over my ni**les.