He doesn't reach for me. Doesn't crowd me. Just stands there in the spray, close but not touching, looking at me the way he looks at a thing he's deciding how to take apart.
"I was," he says. Quiet. "Downstairs. All night. Listening to my brothers wreck the object of my obsession and being a very, very good boy about it."
I swallow. My throat clicks.
"Zero—"
"I sat at that kitchen table with your mother and listened to her tell me about her sister's divorce while my brother was knotting you upstairs. I poured her a brandy and asked thoughtful questions. I practically tucked her in." His thumb finds my jaw. Lifts my face. "I have earned this shower, Max."
The bond is screaming between us. My cock is throbbing. The water is hot on my back and Zero's eyes are black and his thumb is stroking the corner of my mouth and I cannot remember a single thing I was going to say to make him leave.
"Hi," I whisper.
His face does something I've only seen a handful of times. The look that lives under all the rest of him.
"Hi, baby."
He closes the gap. His hand cups my jaw and his mouth comes down on mine slow, wet, deliberate—not the bruising kiss I half-expect from him but something filthier in its restraint, his tongue pushing into my mouth like he has all the time in the world and intends to use every second of it. My belly clenches hard. The bond between us flares. My hand drops away from my cock without my permission and lands on his hip and Zero makes a low pleased sound into my mouth that I feel all the way down my spine.
He pulls back just far enough to look at me.
Then his palm cracks against my ass.
I yelp into the steam.
"Grab the soap," he says. Voice rough at the edges. "Wash me. You do a good enough job, I just might suck your cock for you. Consider it a tip."
"Oh mygod—"
"Tick tock, baby." Another smack. Lighter. Filthier. "You know I’m not patient."
Chapter 3
Ibend down too fast and almost slip. My knee bumps the tile. I grab the bar of soap and right myself and Zero's hand catches my elbow before I can fall, his other hand still on my ass—the steady and the smack from the same body inside thirty seconds, which is just Zero in a single image.
"Easy, Carter."
"Don'tCarterme right now, you're naked in my shower."
"Our shower. Common bathroom. Communal property."
"You smacked my ass a minute ago—"
"With affection."
"With your hand—"
"Wash."
I straighten up. Soap in my fist. Water running down my forearm. He is standing two feet from me with his arms loose at his sides, that long lean cut of him on full display, and there is a deep dark hunger underneath the mockery in his eyes that I know better than to look at directly. The bond between us pulses under my collarbone like a second pulse.
"Where do I start," I manage. Mostly to the soap.
"Anywhere you want. Start somewhere safe if you have to. Work your way down."
"What's safe?"
"My chest. My arms. The rest of me's gonna make you nervous and we don't have all day."
