Chapter 12: Baptism by Fire
The plaster dust still hung in a faint golden haze when he moved. You were floating in the warm, post-coital silence, limbs liquid, mind quiet, when his arm tightened around your waist.
“Shower,” Julian said into your hair. It wasn’t a suggestion.
Before you could form a word of protest, he’d swung his legs off the bed, lifting you with him as if you weighed nothing. Your body protested the movement, every muscle soft and used. He carried you through the opulent suite, your skin cooling in the air-conditioned chill.
The bathroom was a temple of marble and steam. He’d already turned the shower on, and a cloud of vapor billowed from the glass enclosure. He set you down on the cold, veined stone floor, his hands firm on your hips to steady you.
His eyes raked over you in the harsh, clean light. You were a mess—his mess. Smudged makeup, hair a wild tangle, the vivid bloom of a bruise beginning to form on your hip where he’d held you down. His gaze darkened with possession at the sight.
“In,” he commanded, his voice still rough.
He followed you into the torrent. The water was scalding, a shocking counterpoint to the room’s chill. It sluiced over your shoulders, stinging and perfect. He crowded you back against the cool tile, his body a solid wall of heat. Water plastered his brown hair to his skull, streamed down the hard lines of his face.
He took your wrists in one large hand, pinning them above your head against the wall. The action was effortless, absolute. His other hand traced a path down your throat, between your breasts, over the curve of your stomach.
“Look at you,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble under the drumming water. “My mark’s all over you.”
He released your wrists only to sink to his knees on the shower floor. The sight was almost blasphemous—Dr. Julian Vance, on his knees, water coursing down the powerful expanse of his back. He hooked his hands behind your thighs, pulling you toward him.
His mouth found you without hesitation.
This wasn’t the frantic claiming of before. This was studied, deliberate. Devotion with a cruel edge. His tongue parted you, licking a slow, flat stripe through the mix of water and the evidence of his possession. You cried out, your head thudding back against the tile. Your hands flew to his head, not to push him away, but to anchor yourself.
“Julian—”
He ignored you, his focus complete. This was his field. His lips closed around your clit, sucking with exact pressure. His tongue circled, then flicked, a rapid, relentless tease. He knew your body like a complex protocol—the exact rhythm, the precise spot. He’d mapped it over three years, and now he applied the knowledge without mercy.
Your legs began to tremble. The water poured over your face, mingling with the sounds of your gasping pleas. The orgasm built not as a crashing wave, but as a deep, tectonic pressure, winding tighter and tighter with every expert stroke of his tongue.
“I’m… I can’t…”
He slid two fingers inside you, curling them upward, rubbing that devastating spot deep within as his mouth continued its work. The dual assault shattered you. You came with a ragged scream, your thighs clamping around his head, your body bowing against the wall as the climax ripped through you, violent and sweet.
He rode it out, gentling his mouth until you were twitching, oversensitive. Then he rose, water sheeting off him. He was fully, impressively hard again. His eyes were black pits of hunger.
He turned you around, your cheek pressed to the cold, wet tile. His body molded against your back, his cock nestling between your cheeks.
“Not there,” he growled, his hand snaking around to tilt your chin back. “I need your mouth.”
He spun you again, the world a blur of steam and marble. He backed you against the wall once more, his hand fisting in your wet hair, guiding you down. You understood. You went willingly, dropping to your own knees on the hard floor.
He looked enormous from this angle, water beading on his skin, his erection jutting toward you. You leaned forward, taking him into your mouth slowly, savoring the salt-slick taste of him, of you, of the clean, hot water.
A guttural sound ripped from his throat. His hands tightened in your hair, not guiding, just holding. Claiming.
“That’s it,” he choked out, his hips giving a slight, involuntary thrust. “Take it. All of it.”
You did. You relaxed your jaw, letting him sink deeper, your tongue working the sensitive vein underneath. You hollowed your cheeks, listening to his breathing fracture above the shower’s roar. His thighs were rigid. His control, always so absolute, was fraying.
“Fuck. Your mouth. That perfect fucking mouth.” His words were ragged, punctuated by shallow thrusts. “Look at me.”
You opened your eyes, looking up the line of his body. His head was thrown back, cords standing out in his neck, but his gaze was locked on yours. The raw need in it, the vulnerability beneath the dominance, stole your breath.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his voice strained. “You swallow every drop, Mrs. Vance. You take everything I give you.”
His hips stuttered. His grip on your hair became almost painful. With a sharp, choked-off shout, he came, pulsing hot and bitter down your throat. You swallowed reflexively, again and again, until he was spent, until he was soft in your mouth.
He sagged against the wall, his chest heaving. Gently, he pulled you up, his hands trembling slightly as they framed your face. He kissed you, deep and slow, tasting himself on your tongue.
The water began to run cool. He turned it off. The sudden silence was profound, broken only by the drip from the showerhead and your mingled breaths.
He fetched a thick, hotel bathrobe and wrapped you in it, drying you with a tenderness that contrasted violently with the last hour. He led you back to the demolished bed, stripped the torn silk from the mattress with a few efficient yanks, and pulled you down into the clean linens beneath.
You lay curled into his side, listening to his heartbeat normalize. His fingers traced idle patterns on your shoulder.
“I broke the headboard,” he said after a long while, his voice conversational.
You snorted a laugh, burrowing closer. “I noticed. The Langham is going to have a note in our file.”
“Worth it.” He pressed a kiss to your temple. “Coffee? I should order coffee.”
“In a minute.”
You drifted then, in the quiet ruin of the suite. The city’s dawn was a grey promise at the windows. His breath evened out into sleep. Your body ached in the best way, a living testament. You traced the familiar scar on his ribcage, a remnant of a climbing fall years ago. Yours. All yours.
The story wasn’t starting. It was just turning a page, ink still wet, deeper and more visceral than before. The shower had washed away the sweat, but the marks, the feeling of being utterly claimed, remained. They were in your bones.