I reach for his hand beneath the water, my fingers threading through his. “Get in.”
His brows lift. “Amel?—”
Interrupting, I say, “I need you,” my voice rougher than intended. “I don’t wanna… sit here in my head. I want you.”
For a second, he doesn’t move—like he is weighing whether this is about me needing comfort or trying to shove down everything I am feeling. But then his jaw relaxes, and without another word, he toes off his boots and tugs his shirt over his head, the fabric catching for a moment before it drops to the floor.
The sight of him—the lines of muscle, the quiet strength in his frame—hits me like it always does, low and hard in my chest.
He lowers into the water behind me, and the heat shifts around us as he settles, his powerful arms immediately circling my waist and pulling me back against him. I exhale sharply the moment his chest presses into my back, and his chin finds that perfect spot on my shoulder.
“Better?” he whispers, his breath warm against my skin.
“Yeah.” I close my eyes as his arms tighten, anchoring me. “Way better.”
For a while, we don’t speak. The water laps softly against the porcelain, and the scent of lavender swirls around us. But more than anything, it’s him—his solid chest against my back, the steady thrum of his heart, his fingers tracing slow, grounding patterns along my arm—that finally allows me to breathe.
The lavender hangs heavy in the air, curling with the steam rising from the water, but it isn’t what has me finally breathing deeper—it is him. Ash wraps his arms tightly around me, his chest a solid wall of heat against my back; its steady rise and fall anchor me in a way I didn’t realize I needed. The noisein my head—the run-in with Preston, the hollow ache of what could have been—finally dulls, slipping away with every slow, deliberate stroke of his thumb along my arm.
I let my head fall back against his shoulder, the curve of his neck fitting perfectly against my temple. The steady beat of his heart thrumming against my back grounds me.
“You’re quiet,” he murmurs, his voice rough.
“For once,” I tease softly, feeling the ghost of a smile pull at my lips.
He chuckles against my skin, the sound deep and warm, and then his hands—god, those hands—shift.
Fingertips trace up my arms slowly before sliding across my collarbone, the softest drag of skin against skin. My breath catches the moment his palms flatten and move down over my chest, a lazy, unhurried glide that makes my whole body tighten and soften all at once.
I feel his grin against my jaw when I gasp, heat blooming low in my belly.
His hands don’t stop; they slide lower, the tips of his fingers ghosting over my breast. Just enough pressure to make me arch slightly into him. The warmth of the water mixes with the heat of his touch, and the world outside this moment—outside him—completely fades.
“Still thinking about him?” His lips brush the shell of my ear.
I let out a breathy laugh and tilt my head to the side to give him more space. “Not even a little.”
“Good.” His voice darkens, thick with something heavier now.
His hands keep moving, fingertips skating down my ribs, over my stomach, slow and deliberate, leaving a trail of goose bumps in their wake. Every stroke pulls me deeper out of my head, away from the sting of old wounds and right here—to this. To him.
Ash’s palm splays flat against my lower stomach, his other hand still tracing circles over my hip, and I can feel the shift in his breathing, the way it mirrors mine—quickening, deepening.
“You’re mine, Amelia,” he whispers, the words rough against my skin.
And in that moment, wrapped in his arms, every thought of Preston and the woman who won’t be named drowns beneath the heat—I don’t just believe it.
I feel it.
Completely.
His fingers don’t stop; they are slow and devastating beneath the water, coaxing me closer and closer to that edge—but something inside me twists, wild and desperate for more.
I grab his wrist, halting his movements. His breath hitches in my ear, and surprise flickers across his features as I turn in his lap, water sloshing between us. My knees bracket his hips, the heat of him palpable even through the thin barrier of water between us.
“Amelia,” he rasps, his hands finding my waist instinctively.
But I don’t wait.
