I swallowed, then nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be quick.”
The bathroom was still steamy from him. I undressed automatically, not looking at myself, just letting the water pound over my skin.
When I came back out, wrapped in the scratchy motel towel, Caiden was sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing. The TV played static. He was thinking so hard I almost didn’t want to break through it.
But I did. I stood in the doorway, vulnerable and barely covered, and I waited for him to look up.
He did, and the look on his face was hunger, plain and wild.
“Fuck,” he groaned while rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t think you have any clue what you do to me.”
A fierce surge of courage erupted from the depths of my hesitation, obliterating the nervous uncertainty that had shackled me for so long.
It was as if a dormant force, long suppressed by the chains of fear from old scars, finally broke free with a thunderous roar, demanding to be unleashed.
I let the towel drop, just a little, enough to bear the damp curve of my collarbone. Caiden’s eyes locked on the exposed skin, pulse visible in the strained column of his throat.
Maybe it was petty, but I wanted to see him struggle, wanted proof that all the years of unresolved electricity between us hadn’t been just my imagination. He didn’t disappoint.
I saw him hesitate, and I had a feeling it came from how he was at war with the part of himself that wanted to devour everything and the part that wanted to protect me from even his own appetite.
My feet carried me to the foot of the bed, towel cinched under my arms. My pulse thundered in my wrists, temples, even behind my knees.
He sat unmoving, eyes fixed, cautious as a predator afraid to scare off its prey.
“You can look,” I breathed, voice low.
He did, and the hunger in his gaze burned into me, a fire crawling up my legs, across my throat, sparking behind my eyes. This was the look I’d craved: not pity, not hatred. But pure, raw desire.
“Need me to get dressed?” I whispered, stepping between his parted thighs.
“No.” His voice was rough, trembling. He was wrestling with himself.
He didn’t move, hand clenched on the edge of the bed, afraid to touch.
We hovered, flickering between ice and flame. I tested him, letting the towel slip another inch lower so its edge arched over my breasts. A single droplet traced down my sternum.
His pupils dilated; his breath caught.
“If you don’t want me, you’d better leave,” he rasped. “Stay, and I’ll give in to this fucking desire I have for you.”
I let the towel fall, a puddle of white on the stained motel carpet, naked in a room of cinderblock and buzzing neon. A chill ghosted my skin, but shame never arrived.
Only a crackling current that made every nerve sing: I was real, imperfect, and enough.
He exhaled a breath I imagined he’d been holding since high school. His hands hovered, shaking in the air, before closing around my hips—calloused, shaped by fights and walls I’d never seen.
He drew me down into his lap, just gravity and hunger, his heat pressing into mine.
His mouth started on my jaw, then began descending to the hollow at my throat. The rough stubble scorched my skin, and I arched into it, desperate for more.
His kisses began delicate, but every twist of my fingers in his hair shattered his restraint. His hands slid up my sides, igniting my ribs like wildfire, thumbs brushing the underswell of my breasts until I gasped, “You can,” voice trembling.
He answered with a groan, crashing his mouth against mine. Hungry, bruising, urgent. My thighs locked around him, the world shrinking to nothing but our collision of want and awe.
He worshiped and consumed me in the same breath: soft kisses alternating with bites that bloomed crimson across my collarbones.
When he bent his head to my breast and took the nipple into his mouth, I moaned, loud enough to echo off the cinderblock walls.
