“Wrong answer.”
“I—fuck—Damian—”
“Wrong again.”
His mouth brushes my jaw, and I swear I’m going to die here, on this mattress, red to my ears and leaking precome into myruined reputation, because Idolove it. I love hearing it. I love wearing it. I love that he said it at our wedding like itmeant something,and now every time he whispers it into my skin I feel it brand deeper than before.
“Fine,” I breathe. “Iloveit.”
His smile is slow and absolutely feral. “That’s my boy.”
The cane’s mocking me. Leaning against the doorframe like it knows it won. Like it’searnedthe right to stand upright while I limp around this resort with a femur that feels one wrong step away from betrayal. I glare at it from across the room. Bare-chested, towel slung around my hips, hair still damp from the rinse I didn’t finish. My whole body aches—not the good kind of sore, not the kind you sleep off with a smirk and an ice pack.
No. This is the kind that throbs deep in the bone. And five days of honeymoon sex with avery flexible, very loud,veryinsatiablehusband has done me the fuck in.
I mutter something dark under my breath. Then I grab the cane. It’s heavier than I remember. Or maybe I’m just pissed off enough to feel it today. The wood’s smooth, the grip familiar. I hate it. I still use it. Elias made me pack it.Elias,who’s currently singing in the shower like his throat wasn’t raw yesterday from screaming my name into a pillow.
I limp to the patio door, shove it open with my shoulder, and step outside into the blaze of morning heat. The ocean’sglittering. Birds are screaming. Somewhere in the distance, someone’s probably having a normal vacation.
I lower myself into the lounge chair with a grunt and the second my ass hits the cushion, the tension in my thigh eases just enough to stop grinding against my patience. I shift the cane to lean beside me and stretch my good leg out, letting the breeze skim over bare skin.
It’s not a bad pain. Not really. It’s just areminderthat even when I’m stronger than I should be, even when I keep up with Elias at his worst and ride him through every high he throws at me, I’m still healing. Still not whole in ways no one but me ever gets to see.
But hell—five days with his thighs around my head is worth it. Every ache, every throb, every bruised muscle in my neck from letting him grind down until he forgets his own name. I tip my head back against the chair, eyes closing as I let the sun sink into my chest, warmth spreading slow and heavy through bone and muscle.
Behind me, the water shuts off, and I know—I know—what’s coming. He’ll step outside damp and glowing and insufferably pleased with himself, wearing nothing but one of my shirts and a towel that won’t stay put, all confidence and mischief and bad intentions. I’m already hard just thinking about it.
Then I open my eyes.
And there he is. Standing right in front of me, still dripping from the shower and not wearing a damn thing. Jesus fucking Christ. He’s just… there. Glowing in the sun, curls dark and damp against his forehead, skin flushed from heat and days of too much fucking and not nearly enough rest, muscles drawn tight and loose all at once. He doesn’t cover himself. Doesn’t even pretend to. Just stands in the light like he knows it’s a spotlight, like he knows I can’t breathe when he looks like this.
My cock twitches in my towel like it just remembered how erections work, and all the tension in my thigh—the sharp burn in the bone, the dull ache in the muscle—slips behind a different kind of heat.
Then I look up at his face. And fuck me, the look in his eyes—bright and soft anddangerouslysmug—tells me everything.
Heknowsmy leg hurts. He saw the cane. He caught the flicker of something I didn’t say. And instead of poking at it, instead of joking or deflecting, he just tilts his head and murmurs. “Want me to make you forget about it?” His smile curves. He doesn’t move yet—just stands there, bare and beautiful and gleaming like something Ido not deserve, but somehow wake up to anyway.
I let my gaze drag over him—slow and hungry. I alreadyhaveforgotten about it, but I’m not above milking this. “Mmm…” I whine, the softest, fakest sound I’ve ever made. “Yes.”
His grin goesferal.“I’ll be right back!” And then he bolts.Just turns and runs back into the suite, bare ass bouncing in the sunlight, leaving me hard, confused, and blinking after him like I missed a page in the script.
“Pup—what thefuck—” I mutter, dragging a hand over my face as the patio door swings shut behind him.
I groan, flop my head back against the lounge chair, and close my eyes like that might undo the last thirty seconds of confusion and blue balls. The ache in my thigh twinges again. Not enough to bite. Just enough to remind me that I’m too fucking old for whatever he’s plotting.
The door opens again, and I hear the jingle before I see it—the unmistakable sound of sin packaged in plastic. My eyes flick open.
Elias is strutting across the patio like he’s walking a runway built specifically for deranged husbands. Curls dripping, skin glowing, and now he’s holding a bottle of lube from the Colebag like it’s a goddamn torch of victory. Strawberry-scented, of course.
He comes straight for me, grin sharp and unapologetic, and without saying a word he shoves my good leg off the lounge chair. My foot drops to the warm stone tile, balance shifting as my thighs spread wider on instinct, my body adjusting before my brain can catch up.
I raise an eyebrow slowly. “Pup…” I warn, voice already low and curling with heat.
He doesn’t answer. He just drops to his knees between my legs, flicks the cap open with one thumb, and leans in. His mouth presses to my inner thigh—hot and soft and too close to be accidental.
Another kiss follows, higher this time. Then another, equal parts mischief and reverence. I groan, head tipping back, one hand curling tight around the armrest while the other twitches uselessly at my side, aching to grab his curls and drag.
His mouth reaches the crease of my hip, breath hot there now, kisses lingering longer, turning hungry. One of his hands works lower while the bottle waits in the other like he’s about to bless a very particular altar. He looks up at me then, smirking, eyes blown wide with exaggerated innocence.
