Chapter 5: The Shower Confession
The water was scalding, precisely as she preferred it. It needled against her skin, a harsh counterpoint to the lingering tenderness between her thighs.Tasha stood under the relentless stream, eyes closed, head bowed. The steam couldn’t cleanse the feel of him. It was etched into her, a phantom pressure, a ghost of stretch and fullness.Her hands moved of their own volition. One braced against the cool marble wall, the other slipped between her legs.She was still swollen, sensitive. Her fingers traced her own slickness, a leftover mixture of him and her.Her breath hitched. In her mind, it wasn’t her touch. It was his—the rough pad of his thumb circling her clit, the thick intrusion of his fingers crooking inside her, the impossible girth of his cock splitting her open. She saw his face above her, that beautiful, predatory focus, the dimples erased by strain. She heard his grunts, the filthy, perfect things he’d whispered into her skin.You take it so good. That’s it, baby, squeeze me. Her own fingers were poor substitutes, but they followed the memory, chasing the echo of the pleasure he’d wrung from her.
She came quickly, viciously, her teeth sinking into her own lip to mute the cry. It was a sharp, solitary convulsion that left her knees weak and her heart thrashing against her ribs. The aftermath was a hollowed-out silence, punctuated only by the drumming water.It hadn’t been enough.It had only emphasized the absence.
She shut off the taps.The sudden quiet was a shock. She toweled off roughly, wrapping herself in terry cloth, and faced the fogged mirror. She wiped a clear swath and stared at her own reflection—damp, flushed, eyes dark with a want that felt bottomless. This was dangerous.This was a derailment.
Her phone, abandoned on the bathroom counter, lit up.A calendar alert: Prep for Henderson Deposition.9:30 AM. Then another.And another.Emails stacked in her notification bar, a digital chorus of demands. The merger agreement, the deposition, the partnership committee meeting next week. The real world, her real world, was a relentless swarm of obligations.It waited to reclaim her.
But beneath that weight, a hotter, more insistent current pulled.She picked up the phone, her thumb hovering over his name. No overthinking.No lawyerly analysis of risk versus reward.Just need.She typed: Tonight. My place.8pm.Don’t be late.The response was immediate. A single fire emoji.Then, a second later: Counting the minutes.
A helpless smile broke across her face.She clutched the phone to her chest, the towel slipping. The hollowness receded, replaced by a frantic, glowing anticipation.
The day was a numb, procedural blur. She articulated clauses, deprecating witnesses, projected calm authority in a conference room that smelled of stale coffee and ambition. Through it all, a part of her hummed on a separate frequency, tuned to a private, pulsing countdown. At 7:58 PM, she stood by her apartment door, having dismissed the doiler with a wave. She wore only the short, emerald green silk robe, tied loosely.The city lights painted shifting patterns across the floor.
The electronic lock chimed.The door opened.
He stood there, breathless from the stairs again, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.He smelled of fresh soap and cool outdoor air. His green eyes found her in the dim foyer, and the casual confidence he wore like armor slipped for a second, revealing pure, unfiltered hunger.He dropped the bag.It landed with a soft thud.
She didn’t speak.Words felt like clutter. She simply reached out, took his hand, and pulled him inside.Her robe gaped open as she moved, but she didn’t care. She led him past the kitchen, past the scene of the omelet, straight to her bedroom, a space he hadn’t seen.It was darker, more intimate than the living room. A large bed with crisp, white linen dominated the space. She turned to face him, placed both hands on his solid chest, and pushed. He let himself fall back onto the mattress, looking up at her with a mixture of surprise and blazing excitement.Still silent, she untied the robe. It whispered open and she let it slide from her shoulders, pooling at her feet. She saw his jaw tighten, his gaze raking over her naked body like a physical touch. She climbed onto the bed, straddling his hips, still wearing his jeans.She could feel the hard length of him straining against the denim.
She leaned down, her breasts swaying, and kissed him—a deep, claiming kiss that tasted of her wine and his mint gum. Then she sat up, her hands working the button of his jeans, the zipper.He lifted his hips to help her. She yanked his jeans and briefs down just far enough, freeing his cock.It stood thick and eager against his stomach. She didn’t stroke it.She didn’t tease.
Positioning herself above him, she reached down and guided him to her entrance.She was already soaked, her need a palpable, slippery truth. She looked directly into his eyes, holding that searing connection, and sank down.
It was a slower, more controlled impalement than the night before, but no less devastating. She took every inch, a low, guttural moan tearing from her throat as he stretched her, filled her, seated himself deep within her core.“Fuck,” she gasped, her head dropping back.
“Jesus, Tasha,” he groaned, his hands coming up to grip her hips, his fingers digging into her soft flesh.She began to move.Not gently, not experimentally. With a desperate, hungry rhythm, she rode him, lifting herself almost all the way off before plunging back down, taking him in to the root.Her tits bounced with the force of her motions. He groaned, one hand leaving her hip to cup the weight of a breast, his thumb abrading her nipple. Then he pulled her down closer, capturing the peak in his mouth, sucking hard, nipping with his teeth. The dual sensation—the deep, internal friction and the sharp, electric pull on her nipple—drove her to the edge of reason.
“Is this what you want?” he grunted, his voice muffled against her skin.“Huh?You want it like this?”
“Yes! God, yes, just like that!” she cried, her movements becoming more frenzied, less controlled.She was chasing it, chasing the obliteration only he could provide. The room filled with the sound of their bodies meeting, skin slapping, her choked sobs, his ragged commands. “Ride me.Come on, baby, fuck yourself on my cock. Make yourself come.”
His filthy words were the final catalyst.The coil inside her snapped. Pleasure, white-hot and seismic, erupted from her center, radiating out to her fingertips, her toes, the roots of her hair. She screamed, a raw, unvarnished shriek of his name—“Ares!”—as her body clamped around him, milking him in rhythmic, violent spasms. The intensity was blinding, a total surrender.Through the haze of her own climax, she felt his control fracture. His hips bucked up off the bed, driving into her one last, devastating time as a harsh groan was ripped from his chest. She felt the hot, sudden flood of his release inside her, the pulsing throb of him, and it wrenched a final, smaller wave of pleasure from her trembling body.
She collapsed forward, her sweat-slicked torso pressing against his, her face buried in the hollow of his neck.They were both gasping, wrecked. His arms came around her, holding her tightly to him as their heartbeats hammered against each other, slowly syncing, slowly calming.
After a long while, she shifted slightly, just enough to press her lips to the skin below his ear. Her voice was a hoarse, shattered whisper in the dark room.
“I don’t want slow,” she breathed, the words a vow, a confession, a terrifying leap. “I want all of you.”
His arms tightened around her. In the silence, his answer was the press of his lips against her temple, a wordless promise that, for now, felt as solid as truth. Outside, the city glittered, indifferent. In here, the only light that mattered was the one they had sparked, and it was burning out of control.
In here, the only light that mattered was the one they had sparked, and it was burning out of control.His hands, which had been stroking her back, stilled. The tenderness evaporated, replaced by a sudden, predatory tension that tightened the muscles of his abdomen beneath her.
She felt the shift in the air between them, a crackle of changed intention.
Before she could register the movement, his powerful arms cinched around her.In one fluid, startling motion, he rolled them both. The world pitched, a dizzying whirl of white sheets and dark city window, and then she was on her back, pinned beneath his substantial weight. He hovered over her, his forearms caging her head, his green eyes blazing down with an intensity that stole her breath.
“All of me, huh?” His voice was a low, rough scrape against the quiet. “You better be sure.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He drove into her again, a single, brutal thrust that punched a sharp cry from her lungs.This wasn’t the rhythm of her ride. This was something else, something claiming and desperate. He set a punishing pace, each snap of his hips a deliberate collision deep within her. The bedframe protested, knocking a soft, consistent beat against the wall.“Look at me,” he demanded, his breath hot on her face.
Her eyes, which had squeezed shut, flew open. She was trapped in that emerald gaze, forced to watch the raw possession there as he fucked her.It was obliterating. She felt split open, exposed, completely consumed. Her nails scrabbled at the sweat-slick planes of his back, finding no purchase.
“You feel that?” he grunted, his rhythm faltering for a second to push himself even deeper, making her gasp.“You feel how deep you take me? Your fucking pussy is swallowing me whole.”
The filthy words, the vulgar truth of them, sent a fresh jolt of arousal straight to her core. She was so full, stretched so perfectly around him, the friction a glorious, burning slide.
“Yes,” she whimpered, arching to meet his next thrust. “God, yes, I feel it.”
“It’s mine.” He lowered his mouth to her ear, his voice a vicious whisper.“This tight, wet cunt is fucking mine tonight. Say it.”
He punctuated the command with a series of short, grinding drives that rubbed his pelvis directly against her swollen clit.Pleasure, sharp and coiling, seized her.
“It’s yours,” she moaned, the concession tumbling out, stripped of all pretense.
“Again.”
“It’s yours!” The scream was ripped from her, ragged and real.
That did it.His control shattered. His thrusts lost all rhythm, becoming a frantic, animalistic pounding. The sounds were obscene—the wet slap of skin, his ragged groans, her own shattered cries. He fucked her like he was trying to brand himself inside her, to leave a permanent impression.The pressure in her built past bearing, a tectonic plate of sensation about to fracture.
“Ares, I’m—I’m gonna—”
“Come,” he ordered, his own voice breaking.“Do it. Soak my fucking dick.”
His command was the final trigger. Her climax detonated, a violent, shocking rupture that blotted out the room, the city, everything but the feeling of him pistoning into her convulsing depths. She screamed, a sound without language, her body bowing off the bed as the waves crashed through her.
Feeling her clamp around him sent him over the edge. With a final, deep, shuddering push, he buried himself and let go. A guttural shout tore from his throat as he emptied into her, pulse after hot pulse, his entire body trembling with the force of it.Collapse was gradual. He caught his weight on his elbows, his forehead dropping to her shoulder, his breath coming in ragged, open-mouthed gusts against her skin. She was liquid beneath him, utterly spent, every nerve silently ringing. The only sound was their syncing breaths, slowing from a frantic gallop to a worn-out trot.Slowly, carefully, he softened and slipped from her body. A pleasant, exhausted ache throbbed in its wake. He rolled to his side, taking her with him, tucking her back against the solid wall of his chest. His arm draped heavily over her waist, holding her there.Minutes bled past, measured only by the gradual return of distant traffic noise. The neon glow from the window painted lazy stripes across their tangled legs.
Her mind, usually a hive of ordered clauses, was blissfully silent. Then, into the quiet, his voice came, hoarse and close to her ear.
“I lied about something else.”
Her heart, so recently pounding from exertion, gave a single, hard thud of pure dread.The pleasant numbness evaporated. She didn’t move, waiting for the other lie to drop, the one that would extinguish the burning light for good.
“I’m not twenty,” he said, the words a soft admission in the dark.A strange relief, cold and thin, trickled through her.This, she could handle. This was her territory.She took a slow breath.“I know,” she whispered back.
He went very still behind her.“You do?”
“The day we met. Your keycard for the campus gym fell out of your wallet when you paid for drinks.” She kept her tone flat, factual, a lawyer stating evidence. “It had your student ID number and a big, red ‘FR’ on it.”
He was silent for a long moment. Then a huff of air, almost a laugh, stirred her hair. “And you didn’t say anything?”
“You liked being twenty.” She closed her eyes.“I liked you liking me.”
His arm tightened around her. “So we’re even, then.”
Her breath caught.The cold relief froze solid. He couldn’t know.There was no way.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice dangerously calm.He nuzzled the back of her neck, his lips brushing her skin. “Your divorce decree.It was sticking out of that fancy portfolio you carry. I saw the filing date when you went to the bathroom at the bar.”
The world didn’t tilt.It simply stopped. All the air left the room. The meticulously constructed fantasy of herself—the free-spirited twenty-seven-year-old yoga instructor on a sabbatical—shattered like cheap glass. He knew.He had known.He’d known and he’d still come here. He’d still cooked her breakfast. He’d still flipped her over and fucked her into the mattress, whispering that she was his.She waited for the shame to burn through her. Instead, a terrifying, granite-solid certainty settled in its place. She turned in his arms, forcing herself to meet his eyes in the dim light.His expression was unreadable, a beautiful mask.
“How old?” he asked quietly.Just the two words.She didn’t look away. “Thirty-three.”
He didn’t flinch. He just studied her face, his thumb coming up to trace the arch of her eyebrow.“Okay,” he said finally.
“‘Okay’?” A disbelieving laugh escaped her. “That’s all?”
“What do you want me to say?” He shrugged, the movement shifting them both on the damp sheets.“The lies are out. This is what’s left.” His hand slid down to cup her ass, pulling her closer so she could feel him, soft now but present, against her thigh. “And I fucking want what’s left.”
The raw need in his words mirrored the ache in her own body. The deceptions were corpses on the floor between them, but the attraction was a live wire, snapping and deadly. He kissed her, a slow, deep exploration that tasted like truth and salt. When he pulled back, his eyes held a new, unsettling gravity.“My first real game is Saturday. Universities scouting.” He said it like a confession.“Be there.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a demand for entry into the other half of his life, the real one.The risk was monumental. She saw the scenario instantly: herself, a thirty-three-year-old lawyer in the stands, watching her eighteen-year-old lover under the stadium lights.The thought should have horrified her.
Instead, a reckless thrill, sharper than any before, cut through her.
“What time?” she asked.