She’s facing me now, the water at her back. I cup her face, tilting it up, and kiss her properly—deep and slow, the kind of kiss that says everything I’m not ready to put into words. Her hands spread flat against my chest, then slide up to my shoulders, and I feel the shift in her—the woman who walked out of that courtroom starting to come back online.
Then she presses into me fully, rising on her toes so our bodies align. My erection is trapped between us, hard and undeniable, and when her fingers wrap around me, a rough sound escapes the back of my throat that I don’t try to contain.
Steam clouds the glass. The steady thrum of water on tile is the only sound.
She strokes me slowly, grip firm, devastating, watching my face with dark, knowing eyes, and I let her—let her take some of the control back, let her feel what she does to me. My jaw tightens. My hand slides into her wet hair.
“You have no idea,” I manage.
“I think I do.” Her mouth curves—knowing.
My fingers ghost between her thighs, finding her heat. She’s warm and slick, and when I stroke her, her breath stutters on an exhale, her forehead dropping to my chest.
“Noah—”
“I’ve got you.” I work her slowly, reading every catch of her breath, every roll of her hips against my hand, until she’s trembling and her fingers are digging into my arms. She’s close—I can feel it in the way she goes taut, the way she whispers my name like a question.
I don’t let her get there. Not yet.
I spin her gently, pressing her palms to the tile. She spreads her legs, welcoming me without hesitation, her back arching to invite me in. I grip her hip, positioning myself, and pause.
“I don’t have anything with me.”
She turns her head just enough to meet my eyes over her shoulder. “IUD. And I’m clean.”
I press my mouth to the back of her neck. “Same.”
Then I take her in one slow, certain stroke.
* * *
Her sharp inhale bounces off the tile.
Mine isn’t much quieter.
God, she’s—I don’t have words for it.
“Fuuuck.” The strained expletive is all I get out.
I stay still, jaw tight, one hand flat against the tile beside hers. Steam. The sound of water. Her breathing. That’s everything there is for a moment.
Then I move.
One hand curves around to her center, fingers working in rhythm with my hips. The other slides up her ribcage to cup her breast, thumb tracing her nipple until it peaks and she makes a sound that goes straight through me.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Just like that?—”
I find our rhythm and hold it—steady, deep, angled so every stroke draws a sound from her. Her palms slide on the wet tile. The water’s going lukewarm but I don’t stop. I learn what makes her breath break and give her more of it, again and again, until she’s saying my name in fragments.
Water rains down over both of us. She pushes her hips back to meet me. I feel it in the way she tightens around me—sharp, electric. I nearly lose the rhythm, nearly drive too hard, too fast. Instead, I slow by a fraction, shift the angle just enough to make her gasp, and hold her there—right on the edge.
When she comes, it rolls through her like a wave—her whole body tightening around me, a low, broken cry muffled against her forearm. I follow seconds later, burying myself deep, my forehead bowing to the back of her neck, her name the only thing I manage, my whole body going to static.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
Then we’re sliding down together, a graceless, boneless descent onto the shower floor, tangled and breathless. Her back to my chest, both of us half-laughing at the undignified landing. Water spills over our legs—mine brown with dark hair, hers creamy smooth—and neither of us makes any move to get up.
When she lifts her pruned fingers to show me, something about the gesture cracks me open a little. Proof that time still moves. That we’re still here.