Page 75 of Holding Penalty

A column of electricity travels up my spine at the memory, for about the three-dozenth time today.

He couldn’t have been talking about how he missed waking up cuddled next to someone like we did this morning, right?

He must have just been responding to some half-awake fragment of a dream. Something that had nothing to do with the way my hair splayed across his chest, nothing to do with how my leg lay crooked over his muscular thigh, nothing to do with his fingertips pressing into my shoulder …

I blink myself out of the daze and realize that the timer’s going off. I hurry to grab the oven mitts and take the double chocolate mint cookies I’m testing out of the oven.

Nash went out for a run about two hours ago. Hopefully he’s worked up an appetite, because I’ve been restricting myself to just a few test bites of a cookie per batch, and I’ve accumulated a mountain of them that someone else needs to do away with before I succumb to the temptation.

My eye falls onto the pile of sweet corn cookies that came out perfect, their texture the ideal combination of firm but chewy. I already violated my own rule with those by eating two of them. Surely I can’t justify sneaking a third …

Fuck it.

I grab one and take a big bite. I can’t wait to get back to the bakery and put these out for the customers.

After polishing off the cookie, I walk to the bathroom, bobbing my head to the country song that just started playing in my headphones, tuning out the sounds of the world around me. Not that there would be many to hear in this empty rancher even if I took them off.

I turn the bathroom doorknob and pull it open. I’m caught off guard when a heavy wave of warm steam billows out and hits me as I step forward.

Before my brain can put two and two together, my eyes pull to the shower.

The shower occupied by Nash.

He must have come back when I was distracted with my baking, and I didn’t hear him.

But he’s here. That’s for sure. He’s standing right in front of me, behind a transparent shower glass that hasn’t totally fogged up, and I can see every inch of him.

The rounded muscles of his shoulders. The broad expanse of his chest. The defined outline of his abs. The sharp cut of muscle carved low on his tapered torso …

The hand around his thick, long, rock-hard cock.

My eyelids disappear, and my stomach leaps into my throat. My nipples pebble in an instant under my shirt, slick warmth collects between my legs, and I feel like I’m coated in electricity.

My husband has a downright astonishing dick, big even compared to the massive hand he has wrapped around it, furiously tugging up and down its awe-inspiring and intimidating length.

My gaze is riveted to the frantic motion—until it stops.

I swallow thickly, then raise my eyes to meet Nash’s.

He’s looking right at me. Intensity gleams in his eyes, while surprise lines his features.

A charged, unstable feeling enters the air. Even as heat rolls through me in waves, my body feels frozen in place.

I try not to do it. I swear that I try not to do it.

But my eyes drop again, to the swollen, throbbing cock Nash still has wrapped in his right hand.

The enlarged pink crown, the veins decorating his shaft, his tight balls right underneath it. My stomach seems upside down in my chest, my heart bouncing around like a ping-pong ball, and I feel every beat of my pulse hammering between my thighs.

I really swear that I try not to do this, but I do: my tongue presses between my lips, wetting them before I roll them together.

My gaze rises back up to lock with Nash’s again. His rich amber eyes shine. Just looking at them makes me feel like I’ve downed a shot of smooth whiskey.

Instinctively, I reach up to remove my headphones, letting them slide down and hang around my neck. The music is replaced by the sound of running shower water. Somehow I’ve never heard a sound more sinful.

I can’t say how much time passes as we both stand rooted in place, our gazes fastened.

The tension winds tighter second by second, and just when it approaches an unbearable pitch, the blank, surprised look on Nash’s face morphs. His lips curl into a grin, a dangerous, teasing glimmer entering his tawny eyes.