“Just my neck,” she said. She took the conditioner from his hand and lathered it through her mane. “Nothing new. It’s from sitting at a desk all day.”
“You’re not…from last night?” Concern suited him well, endearing worry lines at the corners of his eyes. He would look at her just like that at the end of a hard day at work, putting on a pot of tea to boil as she told him about Roger’s latest ego trip. Reece radiated Boyfriend Energy.
You don’t get to keep him, you ninny. You’re just having fun.
Charlotte stepped forward and backed him up against the tile. “I’m fine.” She trailed her hand down his neck and chest to the soft expanse of his stomach. His abs tightened underneath his belly, a low hiss escaping his throat.
She kissed him first this time, deep and unhurried. She ran her tongue along his lower lip and he opened for her. His lips smelled like the coming summer, sunscreen and the earthy flavor of Cobalt Pond. She moaned and Reece caught the noise, weaving his hands through her wet hair.
The sensual moment ended when his fingers got stuck in a knot. She winced, jerking back automatically. “Oh god, I’m sorry!” Reece blurted out. “Are you okay?”
“Happens all the time,” she said, rubbing the smarting spot on her scalp. “Just give me a second.”
Regretfully, she returned to the task of combing the conditioner through her hair with her fingers.
Reece watched the water cascade down her body, unbothered by the break. If anything he got harder as he watched a droplet pool at her nipple and fall to the floor like dew from a flower petal. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. She didn’t have any room to doubt his feelings, he was so transparent and unapologetic.
“Okay,” Charlotte said when she was satisfied with the state of her hair.
Reece was on her in a heartbeat. He knitted himself to her, one knee nudging between her thighs as he crushed her against the shower stall. She wrapped her arms around him, fully submitting to public indecency. It had been nearly impossible to keep her hands off him in front of the guys all afternoon. All she wanted to do was crawl into his lap and rub herself against him like a sexually frustrated freshman.
His lips tore from her mouth to ravage her neck, licking and then sucking hard. Reece created a path of inflamed, red destruction from just below her ear to her breasts and then down her stomach. Charlotte’s heart leapt into her throat as he settled on his knees below her on the tile.
“You’re going to get knee fungus,” she blurted out.
Reece huffed a laugh, his hands coming to rest on her hips. “I’ll survive.” He nosed against her inner thigh, encouraging her to spread her legs for him. When she widened her stance, he groaned. “I’ve wanted to do this all day.” He stroked across her wet folds with his fingers before leaning forward to kiss the tender hood of her clit.
Charlotte tried not to cry out but she failed, the sound echoing across the tile. She managed to hold in her next wail when his tongue traced her seam and delved inside for a taste. She grabbed his hair, wobbling on her feet. “Reece, I—oh.”
He guided her leg over his shoulder. She held on to the top of the shower stall, splayed open for his exploration.
“You taste incredible.” Reece slid a finger into her heat, and then another. She shuddered around him, the combination of his words and his touch sending waves of pleasure through her body.
His tongue was indefatigable, lapping and pressing against her clit until she couldn’t keep her eyes open—and she really wanted to, she wanted to watch the determination on his lovely, angular face.
Reece watched her quiver and shake. His eyes were dark and eager, sending an additional thrill of lust up her spine. A third finger joined the first two and she wanted to scream, she wanted—she could explode with how much she wanted.
She wanted to come. She wanted to fuck. She wanted Reece. She wanted him because he was gorgeous and kind and very, very sweet. She wanted to know all of him—his secrets and his weird phobias and his favorite foods and the way he talked to himself when he thought he was alone. She wanted to know all the things she didn’t bother with in college, the details that made someone a person. She wanted his full story.
She wanted to tell him that this wasn’t the plan, it really wasn’t, but she’d never been good at plans anyway. All her best-laid plans were disasters and maybe what she really wanted was to start over from scratch. To be as fresh and open-ended as the hungover graduates who tomorrow would doze under the sun as Roger droned on about his own success. She wanted to seize her diploma and do it all over again, do it right.
Reece bit her inner thigh. He never slowed the unforgiving thrust of his fingers inside her even as he took a break to breathe. She grunted at the pain, her arousal dripping down her legs with the water. When Reece’s tongue teased her clit, she could feel herself tensing and bracing, reaching the brink.
She’d never been so aware of her smarting skin and her tensing spine and her hungry, gushing need across Reece’s face. She could see the sheen of her pleasure on his mouth and cheeks and something about how filthy that was pushed her over the edge, her entire body quaking.
Reece didn’t stop, tightening his hold on her hips as he lapped her up. He only relented when she moaned, overly sensitive, and began to slide down the wall.
“I gotcha,” he murmured. He stood in one smooth motion to catch her and hold her steady. “I gotcha.”
Charlotte yanked him down to her height for a kiss, desperate to taste herself on his lips. Desperate to commit this moment to memory. She shook under the hot rush of the shower and the aftershock of her orgasm.
Reece laughed into her mouth as her fingers scrambled against his slick back, wanting him closer but unable to find purchase. “Easy, Charlie,” he murmured, guiding her back against the wall once more.
She changed tactics and drove her hand into his wet hair, fingers pressing against his skull. If she kissed him hard enough, surely she could swallow him up and keep him with her forever.
You don’t get to keep him. He’s not yours.
The door to the bathroom swung open, its metal knob slamming into the tile. Giggles bounced off the walls, a conversation in progress. Charlotte stilled against Reece, her wide eyes finding his.
“We should go before we run out of hot water,” he whispered, his lips finding the shell of her ear.
She shuddered, arching her neck as his breath met her damp skin. “You go first,” she said. “I’ll see you later tonight?”
Reece pressed a kiss to her neck, and then another to her shoulder. “Definitely.”
He stepped back to kiss her properly one last time, and then he winked and stepped around the shower curtain. He wrapped himself in a towel before giving her a jaunty wave and leaving the stall.
Charlotte locked the door behind him and slithered back into the shower. She stayed under the hot water until her legs stopped wobbling, still feeling ravenous and shaky. The image of Reece’s hungry mouth between her thighs wouldn’t let her go and she curled her fingers around the top of the stall, letting the shower beat against her back. She breathed in the steam and held it in her chest.
The girls left the bathroom, banging the door into the wall again on their way out. Charlotte turned off the water and shook out her hair. She did her best to squeeze out the excess water as she coiled her hair into a thick rope.
The bathroom was blissfully empty when she left the stall. Her iPhone sat on top of her clothes, returned to her possession like a magic trick. When she picked it up, a deluge of notifications swam across the screen, all from Roger.
1 NEW VOICEMAIL FROM ROGER LUDERMORE, 4:41 PM
Her reprieve was over.
Charlotte padded barefoot into the hallway and down the stairs, wincing as her feet went from clean-ish tile to grungy carpet to rubber steps. She pinned her cell phone between her cheek and shoulder as she listened to Roger’s message.
