Chapter 10: The Shower Revelation
The steam from the master bathroom seeped into the bedroom like a ghost, carrying the scent of Antoine’s sandalwood body wash and something else, something musky and male that Malik recognized as Dean’s sweat. He stood just outside the door, the cool hardwood floor a shock against his bare feet. From within came the steady hiss of the rainfall showerhead, and low voices, tangled in the vapor.
He shouldn’t go in. Every cell in his body screamed it. But his feet carried him forward, pushing the door open on silent hinges.
The scene in the large, marble-tiled room was haloed in mist. The glass shower door stood partially open, a curtain of steam billowing out. Antoine’s back was to the room, his head bowed under the spray, water sluicing down the powerful groove of his spine. And Dean was there, in the shower with him. He wasn’t naked; he wore his jeans, dark with water, clinging to his thighs. His white t-shirt was transparent, plastered to the solid plane of his chest.
He was behind Antoine, his large, pale hands moving over Antoine’s soap-slicked shoulders. They weren’t washing. They were possessing. Kneading with a slow, deliberate pressure that made Antoine’s head loll back.
“See?” Dean’s voice was a low rumble, barely audible over the water. “All that tension from playing house. From pretending.”
Malik made a sound, a choked intake of breath.
Dean’s eyes lifted. They met Malik’s in the vast, foggy mirror above the double sinks. A smirk touched his lips, a faint, cruel curl. His hands didn’t stop. One slid around to Antoine’s chest, splaying over his pectoral, the thumb finding a nipple and circling it slowly, deliberately, through the slick soap.
Antoine jolted, a soft gasp escaping him. His eyes were closed.
“Turn around,” Dean said, his voice a command that cut through the steam.
Antoine obeyed instantly, rotating under the spray until he faced Malik. His body was a masterpiece of water and shadow, every muscle defined. His eyes were hazy, unfocused. He didn’t seem surprised to see Malik there. He looked right through him.
Dean’s hands followed, one continuing its torment on Antoine’s chest, the other moving up to cradle the back of his neck. His fingers dug into the tight curls there.
“Tell him,” Dean purred, his lips close to Antoine’s ear. “Tell him what you’re wearing for me.”
A shudder racked Antoine from head to toe. He moaned, a sound of pure, desperate need. Slowly, as if in a trance, he lifted a hand to his own hair, pushing the wet curls forward off his nape.
There, against the dark, wet skin, was a thin band of black leather. A collar, but finer than any pet’s. A leash loop, small and discreet, nestled at the base of his skull.
Malik’s knees gave way. He caught himself on the doorframe, his fingers digging into the wood. The world narrowed to that strip of leather, a brand against his husband’s skin.
“Who do you wear it for?” Dean prompted, his thumb now pinching Antoine’s nipple hard, twisting.
Antoine cried out, his back arching. “You, Master. I wear it for you.” The words were clear, worshipful.
Dean’s eyes never left Malik’s reflection. “And what are you?”
“Yours.” The answer was immediate, a sob of relief. “I’m yours.”
The declaration hung in the steam-choked air. Then Antoine’s hand drifted down his own body, over the quivering abs, lower. His eyes found Malik’s, and in them was a plea, a desperate, shining madness. “Please, Master,” he whispered, though Dean was right there. “Let me show him. Let me show him how good you make me feel. Let me show him what you own.”
Dean considered it, his hand still working on Antoine’s chest, the nipple now a tight, dark peak under his relentless fingers. He looked from Antoine’s wrecked face to Malik’s shattered one.
“Go on then,” he said, as casually as allowing someone to taste a fine wine. “Show your husband what I’ve taught you.”
A broken sound of gratitude fell from Antoine’s lips. His hand moved on himself, fast and frantic now, stripped of all pretense. He braced his other hand against the wet tile, his head dropping, his entire body tensing like a bowstring. He was performing, and the audience was Malik.
Malik watched, nailed to the doorframe. He saw every tremor, every hitched breath. He saw the way Antoine’s gaze, when he could lift it, was fixed on Dean, seeking approval. The submission was total, grotesque, beautiful. It was the unraveling of the man he loved, and it was the most erotic thing Malik had ever witnessed.
His own traitorous body, which had betrayed him at the sink, betrayed him again. Arousal, hot and undeniable, surged through him, stiffening him against his sweatpants. It wasn’t a gentle swell; it was a sharp, painful bolt of need, yanked from the pit of his shame. He was hard, painfully so, watching his husband pleasure himself for another man. The oxygen left the room.
Antoine’s climax was silent, a violent, shuddering release that buckled his knees. Dean held him up easily, his hands on him now not as a lover but as a keeper steadying his animal. Antoine slumped against the wet tile, spent, water cascading over his trembling form.
For a long moment, the only sound was the shower’s hiss.
Then Dean turned off the water.
The silence was deafening. Dean pushed the glass door fully open, steam billowing out around him. He stepped out onto the bathmat, his waterlogged jeans heavy, and grabbed a white towel. He didn’t dry himself. He tossed it at Antoine, who caught it with limp hands.
“Dry off,” Dean said, his tone flat, instructional. He then turned his full attention to Malik, still clinging to the doorframe.
Dean walked toward him, leaving wet footprints on the marble. He stopped close, too close. The scent of him, of chlorine from the pool and sweat and plain, unadulterated power, filled Malik’s nostrils. Dean’s eyes, a pale, chilling blue in the humid light, scanned Malik’s face, then drifted slowly, insolently, down his body. They lingered on the evident bulge in Malik’s gray sweatpants.
A slow, knowing smile spread across Dean’s face. It wasn’t a smirk anymore. It was a hunter’s grin.
“See something you like?” Dean asked, his voice soft.
Malik couldn’t speak. His throat was sealed with humiliation and want.
Dean leaned in, his lips almost brushing Malik’s ear. His whisper was a blast of heat. “You want to know what it feels like?” he asked, his gaze flicking back toward the shower where Antoine was drying himself with mechanical movements. “To give it all up? To have someone else decide?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He straightened, his hand coming up. He didn’t touch Malik. He simply placed his palm flat against the doorframe, right beside Malik’s head, caging him in.
“Your husband’s not the only one who needs to learn how to let go,” Dean said, his eyes holding Malik’s, promising nothing and everything. “You’re tighter than he ever was. All that Detroit steel.” He tapped the wood of the doorframe once, a dismissive sound. “Pine. Soft. Easy to leave a mark in.”
He pushed off then and walked past Malik into the bedroom, leaving him cold and hard and utterly alone in the steam, the imprint of his presence hanging in the air like a challenge. From the shower, Antoine hummed a tuneless, contented sound, the sound of a man who had finally found his place.