Chapter 14: Steam and Scars
The sound of the shower was a white roar behind the door. Stone stood in the hallway, the torn red satin still clutched in her hand, the scent of sex and him clinging to her skin. Twenty minutes. The clock in her head was a deafening tick. She looked down at herself, at the slick evidence of him between her thighs, the marks his mouth had left on her breasts.
She didn’t go to her room. She walked to the guest bathroom door and opened it without knocking.
Steam billowed out, warm and dense, carrying the clean, sharp scent of his sandalwood soap. The room was a capsule of fog. She could just make out the outline of him behind the translucent white curtain, the powerful slope of his shoulders under the stream of water.
He heard her. His silhouette went still.
She let the scrap of satin fall from her fingers. It landed on the cool marble floor with a soft whisper. She stepped into the steam, the heat immediately coating her skin. Her hand reached out, curled around the edge of the plastic curtain. She pulled it back slowly.
The rings screeched against the rod.
Erik stood under the spray, head bowed, water sluicing down his back. He didn’t turn. His hands were braced against the tile wall.
“You can’t just walk away,” she said. Her voice was raw.
He turned then. His eyes were wrecked, red-rimmed, whether from the water or something else she couldn’t tell. They traveled over her naked body, over the fresh bruises already blooming on her hips, the wetness still glistening on her inner thighs. His jaw clenched. He saw himself on her.
“Get out, Stone.”
“No.”
She stepped into the tub. The water, hot and punishing, hit her shoulders, plastered her hair to her skull. She stood before him, unflinching. His cock, soft now, hung between his legs, a spent thing. She didn’t care. She pressed her palms flat against his chest. His skin was fever-hot.
“Look at me.” She demanded it.
His gaze snapped to hers, a flash of blue fire in the steam.
“You don’t get to fuck me like that and then turn the shower on. You don’t get to come in my mouth in the morning and inside my pussy in the afternoon and then pretend this is a mistake you can wash off.” Her voice climbed, sharpened by the damp air. “You wrote the note. You came home. You saw me and you fucking ruined me on that couch. Own it.”
He stared at her, his breath coming in ragged gusts. She saw the war inside him, a violent, twisting thing. His hands, still braced against the wall, curled into fists.
Then something broke.
A guttural sound ripped from his throat. His hands shot out, one tangling in her wet hair, the other grabbing her thigh, yanking it up and around his hip. He spun her, pinning her back against the cold, wet tile. The shower curtain tore fully from the rings, clattering to the tub’s edge.
“You want me to own it?” he snarled, his mouth against her ear. His erection was already surging back to life, pressed hard and thick against her belly. “This is what I own.”
He lifted her other leg, hiking her up, and without any preamble, he drove into her.
She cried out, a sharp, guttural sound lost in the drumming water. He was big, and she was still sore, still stretched from before. The sensation was a blinding mix of pain and piercing pleasure. He filled her completely, his pelvis grinding against her clit.
“This cunt,” he grunted, pulling back and slamming home again. The tile was cold and unforgiving against her back; his body was a furnace against her front. “I own every fucking inch of it. Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to claim it? To ruin you for anyone else?”
“Yes!” she shrieked, her nails digging into his shoulders.
He fucked her with a relentless, piston-like rhythm, each thrust knocking her head against the wall. The water poured over them, into their mouths, their eyes. It was brutal, a claiming without tenderness, a punishment and a sacrament all at once. He bent his head, his teeth finding the sensitive cord of her neck, biting down hard enough to brand her.
“You think I don’t see you?” he rasped against her skin, his hips never stopping. “You think I haven’t fucking watched you for years? Those little sundresses you’d wear to breakfast. The way you’d bend over the pool table. That fucking laugh.” He slammed into her, deeper. “It’s been a fire in my gut, Stone. A slow burn. And now you’ve poured gasoline on it.”
His pace quickened, becoming erratic, desperate. One hand left her thigh, slid between their slick, pounding bodies, his thumb finding her clit and rubbing rough, tight circles.
“Come for me,” he demanded, his voice raw. “Come on your stepfather’s cock while your mother drives home.”
The words, the shocking filth of them, tipped her over the edge. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and convulsing, her inner muscles clamping around him in frantic pulses. She screamed, the sound echoing off the bathroom tiles.
He followed instantly, dragged over by her tight, wet heat. With a final, deep thrust, he buried himself to the root and held there. A ragged groan was torn from his chest as he pulsed inside her, his release hot and endless. He shuddered through it, his forehead dropped to her shoulder.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the shower spray and their heaving breaths.
Slowly, his arms slackened. He let her legs slide down until her feet found the slick tub floor. He stayed inside her, softening, still pinning her to the wall with his weight. His breath was hot and uneven against her collarbone.
When he finally spoke, his voice was hollow, stripped bare.
“I am… obsessed with you.” The admission seemed to cost him everything. “It’s a sickness. I see you in every line I draw. I smell you on my clothes when you’re not even in the room. I watch your mother talk and all I can think about is the way your mouth felt on me this morning.”
He pulled out. A trickle of his release mixed with the water running down her inner thigh. He looked down at it, his expression one of profound defeat.
“But she loves you,” he said, so quietly she barely heard it over the water. “And in her own way, she loves me. This will break her. Not a little crack. A complete shattering.”
He reached past her and turned the shower off. The sudden silence was deafening. Drips fell from the showerhead, plinking into the tub. The steam began to thin, revealing the fogged mirror, the blue tiles, the wreckage of the curtain on the floor.
Stone looked at him, at the water beading on his lashes, the stark conflict etched into every line of his face. She reached up, touching his cheek. He flinched, but didn’t pull away.
“Then we’ll be broken together,” she whispered.
From downstairs, the distinct sound of a key turning in the front door lock cut through the silence.
The click was precise, final.
Erik’s eyes widened in pure, undiluted horror. Stone’s blood turned to ice.
Her mother’s voice, cheerful and bright, floated up the stairs. “Hello? Anyone home? The traffic was a nightmare!”
Erik moved faster than she thought possible. He shoved a towel into her hands, grabbed another for himself. His movements were frantic, silent. He pointed to her discarded lingerie on the floor. She scooped it up, clutching it to her chest, water and panic making her skin slick.
They stood in the dripping bathroom, two animals caught in a blinding light, with nowhere left to run.