When he knelt, I nearly jumped. He didn’t grab. Didn’t yank. He lifted my foot—one, then the other—rinsed the soap from my calves, then rose, slow and steady, until we were eye to eye. I wanted to slap him. I wanted to grab his face and drag him back into me. I did nothing.
“You still hate me,” he said, brushing a droplet of water from my chin with his thumb.
I met his gaze, teeth bared. “More than ever.”
His mouth curled into something close to a smile. "Good. That means I’m doing it right. Hate, Grace... it’s just want, twisted. Just the other side of the coin. Hate evolves. Into lust. Into need. Into something that’ll ruin us both."
I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. The heat between us felt like it had weight, like it had claws, and it was dragging itself beneath my skin, inch by inch. His thumb lingered just beneath my chin, holding me there—not forceful, not gentle either. His eyes locked onto mine with the kind of intensity that burned. That branded.
He stepped in closer, and I didn’t back away. I should have. Every instinct told me I should. But my feet stayed planted. My breath hitched. My fists clenched at my sides like I could hold myself together through will alone.
His other hand rose slowly, brushing the back of his fingers down the slope of my breast, just shy of the peak. Not groping. Not greedy. Just a pass, just a tease, just enough to make me flinch.
"You think this is going to end with me on my knees for you?" I asked, my voice low and shaking with fury I didn’t know what to do with.
His grin widened. "No. I think it ends with you screaming my name again. And hating yourself for how much you mean it."
I moved to shove him away, but his hand caught mine mid-motion. Held it. Not tightly, but enough. His palm was warm. Wet. Solid. I could feel the strength humming just beneath the surface, leashed but ever-present.
He guided my hand down instead, curling my fingers around the thick, heavy length of his cock.
"Feel that?" he murmured. "I’m not pretending. I never have. You can claw and kick and curse, Grace, but your body already knows what mine does to you, and mine knows what you do to me."
I wanted to scream. I wanted to slap him. But what I did was tighten my grip, hating how good it felt in my hand—hot, hard, throbbing with the same tension twisting inside me.
His lips were at my temple now, breath hot against my skin. "You want rough again, you’ll get it. Not because you ask. Because I’ll know when you’re ready to take it. All of it."
He turned me slowly, backing me into the stream of the water again, his touch softer than it had any right to be. He reached for the shampoo without breaking eye contact. Lathered. Then smoothed it into my hair like he had every right to touch me there, like we weren’t enemies caught in something feral and impossible.
My eyes slipped closed—not because I trusted him, but because I couldn’t bear the way he looked at me while he did it.
"I still hate you," I said quietly, almost breathless.
He chuckled, massaging his fingers along my scalp. "You keep saying that. But you’re still letting me touch you."
"Doesn’t mean I forgive you."
His voice dipped lower. "I don’t need your forgiveness. Just your honesty. And your body’s already given me that."
I opened my eyes, glaring up at him through dripping lashes. "Don’t get comfortable. This doesn’t mean anything."
He smiled, slow and dangerous. "You’re right. It doesn’t mean anything. It means everything."
And I hated that the way he said it made my knees threaten to give out again.
"Rinse," he said, and guided me back under the water, his hands in my hair, steady and unshaking.
And I let him. Because hating him was easier than admitting how badly I wanted more.
His fingers tightened slightly in my hair as he rinsed the shampoo away, and the pressure sent a gasp tearing from my throat before I could stop it. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t fear. It was something hotter, sharper—an involuntary sound that betrayed the pulse already stirring between my thighs.
He froze, just for a beat. Then his fingers fisted deeper into my hair, holding me there, letting the water cascade over us both. My gasp had done something to him—I could feel it in the sudden tension of his body behind mine, in the hard length of him pressed against the curve of my ass.
When I moaned, soft and breathless, it wasn’t a surrender. It was a crack. And he reached through it.
His free hand came around my side, cupping one breast and rolling my nipple between his fingers, hard and deliberate. My back arched for him without permission, and I cursed myself for how easily my body answered his call.
Then his mouth was on me—hot, wet, claiming. He bent his head and closed his lips around my nipple, sucking slow and deep, his tongue flicking in lazy, devastating passes. The contact was electric. Raw. My knees nearly buckled under the pleasure.
