“Shut up and hold still.”
I take the bar of soap and drag it across his chest, watching suds bubble over those hard planes and deep-cut ridges. He watches me, silent; the air between us shifting—less cocky now. More reverent. Hungrier. The intimacy of it slices through whatever wall he might’ve tried to rebuild.
My hands move lower. Over his abdomen. Down his thighs. I wash him with aching care, like touching him might fix something broken in both of us.
When I glance up again, he’s not grinning. He’s watching me too closely, his mouth set, eyes dark with something more thanlust.
His hands frame my face, thumbs stroking just beneath my cheekbones. The water cascades over his broad shoulders, flattening his hair to his skull and sluicing down the hard ridges of his chest, but his expression is dead serious. Quiet.
A little uncertain.
“I need to ask you something,” he says softly. “Back at the cabin… We kinda played with some things. TheSirthing. The control.”
My breath catches.
“I don’t want to assume, and I don’t want what happened with your husband to—to taint what this is.”
I blink hard. My heart presses against my ribs.
He lowers his hands but stays close, watching me, waiting. That’s what undoes me—the waiting. The space he gives me. The restraint in a man built to destroy.
“Does it bother you when I call you that? When I let you take control?”
His groan is low and immediate—visceral.
“Shit,” he mutters, voice thick with hunger. “That punches all my fucking buttons, Willow. Every. Single. One.” His jaw flexes. “I love it. All of it. And more. I just…” He swallows hard. “I don’t ever want to cross a line you’re not ready for. Especially because of what that bastard did.”
My breath leaves me in a rush, not from fear, but from understanding. Relief.
I hear the message beneath his words. That I’m safe. That what we shared wasn’t a mistake. That he’s not afraid of what I want—only of hurting me.
I rise on tiptoe and press my lips to the edge of his jaw, my breath warm against his ear. “I’m yours to command,Sir,” I whisper. “I love what you did before. Don’t stop because of him.”
The air changes between us. Instant. Sharp.
He pulls back, just enough to look at me. His eyes blaze—hot,greedy, possessive—and something low and dark sparks inside them.
He takes my wrist and guides it downward, slow and sure, until my fingers brush the length of his cock—already thick, already hard.
Already waiting.
His hand closes around mine, folding it over his arousal with unmistakable intent.
“Finish washing me.” His voice is as rough as gravel, “Especially down here.”
“Yes, Sir!” My thighs clench. Heat pulses low and deep.
I obey, lathering soap between my hands as water pounds around us. I touch him slowly, deliberately—my palm sliding along him, working the slickness over every inch. His breath stutters. His fingers curl into fists at his sides.
Everything between us crackles—want, need, permission—wrapped in the kind of trust I never thought I’d feel again.
Steam coils around us as I kneel, naked and soaked, my breath shaky with anticipation. The tile presses against my knees, but I barely feel it. Every nerve in my body is tuned to him.
Mason stands above me, broad and beautiful and dangerous, water running down the muscle-sculpted lines of his abdomen. His cock juts thick and hard between us, slick from my touch, flushed and pulsing at the tip.
He watches me. Silent. Waiting. Letting me choose.
I wrap my fingers around the base of him. He hisses through his teeth, low and sharp.
