My heart hammers against my ribs. My hand slides down, following the trail of dark hair below his navel, until my fingers wrap around the length of him.
He's hot and impossibly hard. Bigger than my inexperienced grip expected.
I move experimentally, watching his face for guidance. His jaw clenches. His eyes flutter closed. A groan escapes his throat that makes heat pool between my thighs.
I'm doing this to him. I'm making him make these sounds.
The power of it rushes through me, intoxicating and terrifying all at once. I move again, bolder now, tightening my grip, and his hips thrust forward into my hand.
Then his body moves.
He spins me so fast I don't have time to react.
My back meets his chest, and his hands flatten against the wet tile on either side of my head, caging me in. His erection presses against my lower back, hot and insistent.
"Wait—" Panic flickers through the arousal. "I want to see you."
"Relax." His mouth finds my ear, teeth grazing the sensitive shell. "I'm not taking you against a shower wall. Not your first time."
Then what—
His hips roll, grinding against me, and the sensation steals my question. He moves in a slow rhythm, his chest sliding against my back, his breath hot on my neck.
Then his hand travels lower. Down my stomach. Over my hip. Between my thighs.
His fingers find my clit, and the world dissolves into white heat.
My forehead presses against the wet tile, and I can't remember how to stand, how to breathe, how to do anything except feel.
The water streams over us both, hot and relentless, but it's nothing compared to the heat building low in my stomach.
"Tyler—" His name comes out broken.
His other arm wraps around my waist, holding me upright when my knees threaten to buckle.
His fingers move faster, and I hear myself making sounds I've never made before—gasps and whimpers and something that might be begging.
His hips continue their slow grind against my back, and the combination of sensations builds into a pressure I don't know how to contain.
"That's it." His breath is hot against my ear. "You're close, aren't you?"
I am. God, I am. The edge approaches like a wave gathering strength, and I'm terrified of what happens when it breaks.
My hand reaches back, gripping his thigh, nails digging into muscle as the tension coils tighter and tighter.
His fingers press harder, move faster, and I'm right there, right at the precipice—
He stops.
A sound of pure frustration tears from my throat. "What are you—"
"Not yet." He spins me around, and I catch a glimpse of his face—flushed, jaw tight, eyes nearly black with want.
Before I can protest, he reaches behind me and shuts off the water. The sudden silence is deafening, broken only by our ragged breathing and the drip of water from the showerhead.
He grabs a towel from the rack and wraps it around my shoulders, pulling me close.
The terry cloth is soft against my oversensitive skin, and I shiver as he dries me with movements that are somehow both efficient and reverent.
"I can dry myself," I manage.
"I know." He doesn't stop.
He runs the towel down my arms, across my stomach, between my thighs.
Each touch sends aftershocks through my still-aching body, and by the time he finishes, I'm trembling for entirely different reasons.
He wraps a second towel around his hips—more for my benefit than his, I suspect—and takes my hand.
The walk to his bed feels endless. Three steps, maybe four, but my legs are unsteady and my mind is swimming with want so thick I can barely see straight.
He sits on the edge of the mattress and pulls me between his legs. His hands find my hips, thumbs tracing circles on my skin, and he looks up at me with an expression I can't quite read.
"Last chance to run," he says.
"I don't run." The lie tastes sweet on my tongue. "That's your family's specialty, remember?"
His laugh is low and dark. "Brat."
Then he pulls me down.
I land on top of him, and his mouth finds mine before I can catch my breath. The kiss is hungrier now, more desperate, stripped of the careful control he's been maintaining.
His hands roam everywhere. My back, my thighs, the curve of my ass.
He rolls us so I'm beneath him, his weight pressing me into the mattress, and the feeling of being surrounded by him makes my heart race.
He breaks the kiss to reach toward his nightstand. I hear a drawer open, the crinkle of a wrapper, and then he's rolling the condom on.
The reality of what's about to happen crashes through my haze.
He must see the flicker of uncertainty in my eyes because he pauses, his body hovering over mine, his forearms braced on either side of my head.
"Still sure?"
"Ask me again and I'll find someone who doesn't need a signed consent form."
The corner of his mouth twitches. "There she is."
He shifts his hips, and I feel him at my entrance—hot and hard and terrifying and perfect. His eyes lock onto mine, and I see the question there even though he doesn't voice it again.
I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him forward.
The first inch steals my breath. The stretch is more than I expected, a pressure that borders on pain, and I must make a sound because his whole body goes rigid.
"Fuck." The word comes out strangled. "Ellie, you have to relax."
"I'm trying." My voice is thin, strained. "You're not exactly travel-sized."
A surprised laugh escapes him, and something in his expression softens. He lowers his forehead to mine, our breath mingling in the small space between us.
"Breathe with me." His voice is gentler than I've ever heard it. "In and out. Slow."
I match my breathing to his, and with each exhale, I feel my body unclench. He pushes forward in increments—slow, careful, giving me time to adjust to each new inch.
It hurts. Not unbearably, but enough to cut through the haze of arousal, enough to remind me that this is new territory, uncharted and unfamiliar.
Then he's fully seated, and we both go still.
"Okay?" His jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscle jumping. "Talk to me."
"Give me a second." I shift experimentally, and the movement sends a jolt through my nerve endings—not quite pleasure, not quite pain, something in between. "It's a lot."
"That's what she said."
A startled laugh bubbles up my throat. "Did you seriously just—"
He moves before I can finish, withdrawing slowly and pushing back in, and the laugh transforms into a gasp. The second stroke is better than the first.
The third is better still. By the fourth, the pain has faded into a distant memory, replaced by a building warmth that spreads through my entire body.
"There we go." His voice is rough, strained. "That's it."
He finds a rhythm—slow and deep, each thrust hitting something inside me that makes my vision blur.
My hands clutch his shoulders, nails digging crescents into his skin, and the sounds escaping my throat grow more desperate with each roll of his hips.
"Tyler—" I don't know what I'm asking for. More, faster, harder, something to push me over the edge I've been teetering on since the shower.
He reads my body like he's been studying it for years. His hand slides between us, fingers finding my clit, and the dual sensation—him inside me, his touch circling where I need it most—makes the world narrow to a single point of blazing heat.
The wave breaks.
Pleasure crashes through me in pulses, my back arching off the bed, my inner muscles clenching around him in rhythmic spasms.
I hear myself cry out—his name, maybe, or just wordless sound—and through it all, he keeps moving, keeps touching, drawing out every last tremor until I'm boneless and shaking beneath him.
His rhythm falters.
His thrusts grow erratic, urgent, and I feel his body tense above me.
His head drops to my shoulder, teeth grazing the curve where my neck meets my collarbone, and a groan tears from his throat as he follows me over the edge.
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