Chapter 1: Soap and Sin
The water hissed against my skin, a relentless, perfect heat that had already turned the shower into a sauna. I’d just tipped my head back to rinse the conditioner from my hair when the glass door slid open, a cool draft cutting through the steam.
“Hey, you.”
Patrick’s voice, low and warm, cut through the drumming water. I blinked, wiping the droplets from my eyes. He stood there, already shirtless, his gym shorts dark with a few splashes.A slow grin spread across his face. “Saved me some hot water, I hope.”
“Depends,” I said, returning the smile. “On what you’re planning to do with it.”
He stepped in, the space suddenly intimate, crowded. The glass door clicked shut, sealing us in our own private, fogging world. He reached past me to adjust the spray, his arm brushing my breast, and a shiver that had nothing to do with temperature raced through me.
“Just helping,” he murmured, but his eyes were dark with intention.
He took the bottle of body wash, squeezing a generous amount into his palms. The clean, citrus scent bloomed in the humid air.His hands began on my shoulders, kneading the tension away with a firm, practiced pressure. I sighed, leaning into him, my back against his solid chest. The water cascaded over both of us.His touch drifted lower, soaping my ribs, the curve of my waist. Playful, then deliberate.His thumbs swept over my hip bones. “Missed you today,” he said into my ear, his breath hotter than the water.
“It was eight hours.”
“Too long.”
His hands slid around to my stomach, pulling me tighter against him. I could feel him, hard and eager against the small of my back. A soft sound escaped me, half-moan, half-laugh.He nipped at my earlobe.
Then he was moving, turning me gently to face the tiled wall.His hands guided mine to press flat against the cool, wet surface. “Stay,” he whispered, a gentle command.I obeyed, my breath coming quicker. The world narrowed to the sound of the shower, the feel of his lips tracing the line of my spine. He dropped lower, kneeling on the wet floor.His hands held my hips, steadying me.
His mouth was on the small of my back, a soft, open-mouthed kiss. Then lower, following the curve. His tongue dipped into the hollow at the base of my spine, and my knees almost buckled.A gasp was torn from me, lost in the spray.He didn’t stop. His lips travelled further, over the swell of my ass, down the back of my thigh, only to return with agonizing slowness. He was exploring, worshipping, like he had all the time in the world.His stubble brushed the sensitive skin behind my knee, and I squirmed.
“Pat.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re teasing.”
“I’m savoring.”
He guided one of my legs to the side, opening me to the warm, steamy air. His breath ghosted over me, so close. Then his tongue, flat and hot, traced a long, slow path from where my thigh met my core, all the way up. My head thudded against my arms on the wall. The world blurred at the edges, everything melting into sensation—the pounding water on my back, the slick tile under my fingers, the devastating rhythm of his mouth.
He found my clit and circled it, once, twice, with a focused, relentless pressure that made me cry out. The sound was sharp, even to my own ears, but the water swallowed it, making our privacy absolute. I was babbling, a stream of yes and please and his name.
Just as the first coils of a climax began to tighten deep inside me, he stopped.I groaned in pure frustration. “Patrick, don’t you dare—”
He stood up in one smooth motion, his body lining up against mine again. His hands left my hips to cradle my face, turning me to meet his kiss.I could taste myself on his lips, salty and intimate. It was possessive, deep, and it stole the last of my breath.
“My turn,” he growled against my mouth.He guided me back from the wall, towards the built-in bench. It was slick with condensation.He sat, pulling me onto his lap, my legs straddling him. The position brought us face-to-face, our skin sliding together, wet and hot.
He looked up at me, water caught in his eyelashes. “You are so beautiful like this,” he said, and it wasn’t a line.It was raw, honest observation. His hands came up to frame my face.“All flushed.Mine.”
He lifted his hips, positioning himself. I sank onto him slowly, feeling every inch, the stretch, the perfect fit. A shuddering groan vibrated through both of us. For a second, we just stayed there, fused, foreheads touching, breathing the same thick, steamy air.Then I began to move.
My rhythm started slow, a rocking grind that made him curse softly, his fingers digging into my hips. The bench was solid beneath us, the water a continuous cascade over our shoulders. I controlled the pace, riding him, watching his eyes glaze with pleasure.But he was strong. He took over suddenly, thrusting up into me, his grip firm.The change in angle was electric.A cry ripped from my throat. The pace intensified, became something urgent, desperate. The slapping of our wet skin joined the symphony of the shower.“Look at me,” he demanded, his voice rough.
I forced my eyes open, locking onto his. In that gaze, I saw everything—the love, the lust, the playful friend, the demanding lover.It was all him.My Patrick. My chest tightened with a feeling so vast it was almost painful.“I’m close,” I gasped.
“Me too.”
“Don’t stop.”
“Never.”
His arms wrapped around me, crushing me to him as his thrusts became shorter, harder, perfectly aimed.The world dissolved into pure, white-hot feeling. My climax crashed over me in relentless waves, milking his own from him. He buried his face in my neck, his groan a raw, helpless sound against my skin as he pulsed deep inside me.The water began to cool. We stayed like that, tangled, spent, breathing raggedly into the dying steam. My limbs felt like liquid.He nuzzled my neck.
“So,” he said, his voice hoarse with satisfaction. “Was that a good use of the hot water?”
I laughed, a weak, breathy sound.“An excellent use.”
He kissed my shoulder. “Good.” He reached past me again, this time to turn the water off. The sudden silence was jarring, broken only by the drip from the showerhead and our ragged breathing. The fog on the glass was beginning to clear.He shifted, still holding me.“Don’t move,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
And he did. He lifted us both from the bench with a grunt, stepping carefully onto the bathmat. He wrapped a giant, fluffy towel around me, then one around himself. He picked me up again, cradling me against his chest, and carried me, dripping, into the bedroom.
He laid me on the cool sheets, following me down, his body a warm, heavy weight I never wanted to move. The adrenaline faded, leaving a bone-deep contentment.He traced a random pattern on my arm.
“I love you, Tay,” he whispered into the quiet dark.“I love you more.”
We both knew it was a game we could never win. He kissed my temple, his breath evening out into sleep. I stared at the ceiling, a smile on my lips, every nerve ending still singing. The night was quiet now, but the echo of the water, the steam, the feel of him, thrummed softly under my skin. A promise.A memory. Just the beginning.
The cool spray was the first betrayal. A shudder racked my body, and Patrick, already half-asleep, instinctively tightened his arms around me.
“Water’s getting cold,” he mumbled into my hair.
I didn’t move. The heat under my skin was banked, but not gone. It simmered, waiting. The memory of his mouth, his hands, the raw possession in his eyes when he’d looked up at me—it all rushed back, a second wave crashing over the calm he’d left in its wake. The contentment was still there, but beneath it, a new, hungry current pulled.
He’d given me everything. Taken me apart so completely. Now, I wanted to unravel him.
I shifted, rolling onto my side to face him. In the dim light from the bathroom, his profile was relaxed, all softened edges. My fingers traced the line of his jaw, down the column of his throat, over the firm swell of his pectoral. His skin was still damp, cooler now. He caught my wrist, his eyes still closed.
“Tay, you’ll kill me.”
“You’d die happy.”
A slow smile touched his lips. “True.”
My hand slid lower, over the hard planes of his stomach, and he inhaled sharply. The towel around his hips was loose. I hooked a finger in the terrycloth.
“My turn,” I whispered.
His eyes opened. They were dark, searching mine. He saw it—the intent, the focused hunger that mirrored his own from minutes before. He said nothing, just watched as I pushed myself up, the sheet pooling at my waist. The air in the room was cool, raising goosebumps on my skin. It made the heat inside me feel fiercer.
I moved down the bed, the motions deliberate. I kissed the hollow of his throat, the steady pulse there. My lips traveled south, following the trail my fingers had blazed. I took my time, learning the landscape of him anew—the old scar just below his rib, the dip of his navel. His breathing had changed, gone from the slow rhythm of near-sleep to something controlled and shallow. His hands came up, his fingers threading into my wet hair, not guiding, just holding. A connection.
The towel fell away. He was already hard again, lying thick and heavy against his stomach. The sight of him, like this, for me, sent a jolt of pure ownership through my veins.
I looked up the length of his body, meeting his gaze. His eyes were locked on me, a storm in them. “I want me on him now,” I said, my voice low but clear in the quiet room. “I wanna give him the pleasure.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. His grip in my hair tightened, just a fraction. Permission. A plea.
I lowered my head.
The first touch of my tongue drew a ragged gasp from him. His hips jerked, a small, involuntary thrust. I hummed against him, the vibration pulling a groan from deep in his chest. It was a sound of pure surrender. I took him into my mouth, slowly, learning the shape and weight of him, the salt-and-skin taste. My world narrowed to this: the feel of him, the sounds he made, the tightening of his fingers against my scalp.
“Jesus, Taylor.” His voice was shredded.
I worked him with my mouth, my hand, finding a rhythm that made his thighs tremble. The dirty talk started then, a rough, broken stream of consciousness from above me.
“Look at you… God, look at you. Your mouth. So good. So perfect.”
Each word stoked the fire in my belly.
“You take me so deep. Fuck. Yes, just like that.”
His groans were music. They were praise. They fed the part of me that wanted to consume him whole, to wring every ounce of pleasure from his body until he was as boneless and ravished as he’d left me. I lost myself in the act, in the power of it, in the sheer generosity of it. Giving this to him felt as primal as taking what he’d given me.
“I can’t—Tay, I’m close. Baby, if you don’t stop…”
I didn’t stop. I pushed further, taking him to the back of my throat. His whole body arched off the bed, a strangled cry tearing from him as he came. I stayed with him, swallowing every shudder, every pulse, until he collapsed back onto the sheets, spent and breathing like he’d run a mile.
Slowly, I crawled back up his body. He was limp, his eyes closed, a sheen of sweat on his skin. I settled beside him, my head on his shoulder. His arm flopped over me, heavy and final.
For a long time, there was only the sound of our breathing syncing up. The streetlight outside cast long, distorted shadows across the ceiling.
“You,” he finally managed, the word gravelly and full of awe. “You are something else.”
I smiled against his skin. “You started it.”
“I’ll start it every damn time.” He turned his head, his lips finding my forehead. “Come here.”
He rearranged us, pulling the sheet and comforter over our cooling bodies, tucking me into the curve of his side. This was the other side of it. The quiet. The tangled limbs. The unsaid things that hung in the air, thicker than the steam had been.
My mind, finally quieted, began to drift. But just at the edge of sleep, a thought, clear and cold, surfaced from the deep.
This is the last time.
The thought had no context. It wasn’t about him. It wasn’t about this. It was just a sentence, floating in the dark. I pushed it away, burrowing closer into his heat, listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart.
But it lingered, a tiny splinter of ice in the warmth, waiting.