Page 61 of Bound By Shame
He makes a choking sound and looks away. “It’ll be our secret.”
I bite my lip. “Ok… but no bath.”
“A shower.”
I shake my head fervently.
He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath. Holds it. Slowly exhales. “Will you shower if I go in with you?”
Yeah, this is one hundred percent a hallucination. But at this point, I don’t care because it feels too good to have his full attention. I glance over my shoulder at the shower. I usually can’t stand to be in there for more than five minutes. (I even dry shave.) But if he’s with me…
“Yeah.”
His body relaxes. Without letting go of me, he pulls back the shower curtain and starts the water. I cling to him shamelessly, burying my face in the crook of his neck. He smells like oranges.
He stiffens.
I don’t want to release him. So I don’t.
He coughs. “Your shorts.”
Oh.
Reluctantly, I separate from him enough to shove my boxers down and step out of them. His sleep pants hit the floor, too. I want to see him— all of him. But I know if I do, I won’t be able to stop myself from begging for more of what he won’t give.
Awkwardly, he guides me under the hot stream. The tiled walls are closing in. It’s way too small in here for both of us. He'severywhere. Somehow, even surrounded by him, it isn’t enough. The edges of my vision vignette. The roar of flowing water is starting to sound more like chanting. Breathing is getting difficult again.
“Just focus on me.”
I gaze up at him through wet lashes. Dark hair is plastered to his forehead, rivulets racing down the slope of his nose and collecting in the seam of his lips. Water has never been beautiful to me.
It’s beautiful on him, though.
His touch is tentative as he soaps up my fingers, growing more assured as he works up my wrists, my arms, my neck, down my chest… Averting his eyes, his palms flatten on my stomach. They inch lower.
“You don’t have to,” I croak.Please, touch me. I’m yours.
His grip tightens on my waist. Blood rushes to my cock. There’s no hiding it. I don’t think I want to either. Fuck, I’m dying to see him. Instead, I close my eyes and listen to his heavy breathing as it slices through the steam. Hasty hands massage the paint off my knees before wrapping around to cup my calves. Something comes to rest on my stomach. Little puffs of air hit my skin.
I crack an eye open.
Sebastian kneels at my feet, his head bowed at my navel as hispalms burn up the backs of my legs, stopping mid-thigh. Silently, I beg for his fingertips to leave bruises.
My shaking fingers weave through his soaked hair and hold him against me.
He shudders.
Minutes pass and neither of us moves. We just breathe.
If this isn’t real, I don’t want to live in reality.
Thirty-Two
SEBA
The stone lodgedin my throat won’t go away. It cuts through tissue, muscle and bone, bleeding me out from the inside. The distance I put between us for months to protect myself from free-falling into him has been eviscerated. I'm disgusted with myself in an entirely different way.
Cade needed someone. Not just anyone, either.
