Steele takes my hospital-acquired shirt off slowly. I raise my arms to help him, and he drops it to the floor beside him. His gaze roves over my bare skin, and goosebumps rise on my arms at the attention.
His bruises are darkening, and I can’t help but reach out and touch his throat. The beautiful throat my father tried to crush—
“Shh,” Steele whispers, shedding his matching shirt and tugging me into him. He binds his arms around me, and I tuck my head under his chin. “We’re safe.”
“I know we are.” I hug him back. “But for a second, I thought…”
I didn’t have hope.
“Look at me, Aspen.” His finger under my chin brings my head up, and I meet his dark gaze. “There’s no one who can tear us apart.”
“I love you.”
A weight lifts off my chest. Spectacularly. The expression on his face is nothing short of awed, and he presses his lips to mine. My aching, tired body suddenly comes alive. I wind my arms around his neck and kiss him harder. His lip starts bleeding again, and I flick at it with my tongue. Tasting the metallic taste of him.
He groans into my mouth.
All the teasing from this afternoon, that felt like a lifetime ago, comes roaring back. His hands are all over me. Coasting down my spine, slipping up my ribcage. Palming my breasts. A silent inspection. I’m doing the same to him, fumbling with the drawstring of his scrub pants and dragging them down while our tongues tangle.
I pull back and drop to my knees, gripping his cock in my fist. I take him into my mouth, earning a low groan above me. I want to choke on him instead of memories. Drown out every bad thing with the taste of Steele.
Still, I don’t get very far until he’s pulling me up. He shoves my pants and panties down, helping me balance as I kick them off. He lifts me into his arms and carries me out of the room. Into the bathroom where so many delicious memories are already stored.
I kiss his jaw. He’s got a little five o’clock shadow coming in, and it’s rough on my lips. I drag my mouth across the scruff, toward his ear. He’s still holding me when he starts the shower.
Steam fills the room, and he sets me on my feet. He points, and I step into the shower. The hot water is a godsend against my skin. He follows behind me, and his hands are all over me again. He cups my breasts and pinches my nipples, tugging and rolling them until I arch my back and lean more heavily on his chest.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous.” His voice curls in my ear, while one hand dips down between my legs.
The hot water pounds against my chest, but it isn’t hot enough to mask the flash of fire traveling under my skin from his touch.
His finger runs through my center. “If I ever let you walk out of my sight without coming at least twice…”
“Oh my god.”
He slides a finger into me, pumping slowly. It’s joined by a second one. The heel of his palm grazes my clit with every pass, and my legs fall open wider. I close my eyes and shift my hips, jerking forward for more traction. He lets me chase my pleasure like that, and my first climax rolls through me like thunder.
He withdraws only when my trembling stops. His dick is still hard, pointing at me, but he shakes his head and points to the shampoo. I dunk my hair under, soaking it through, before trading places with him. I squirt the shampoo into my hair and scrub it into a lather.
Steele watches me, his eyes dark. I step forward and reach up, rubbing the soap into his hair, too. It comes away streaked with pink at first.
I don’t react. Just put more shampoo in my palm and continue washing his hair. I’m so close to him, my breasts are mashed into his chest.
“Tip your head back,” I murmur.
He does as I direct, and the water rinses him. I keep running my fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp in a way that makes his lips part slightly. And then he’s moving, spinning both of us in the tight space so I have my turn under the water.
We take care of each other that way. Until we’re both clean… well, everywhere. And then he picks me up and puts my back against the wall, notching himself at my entrance. He kisses me again, no less fiercely.
“Tell me you love me again,” he says, pulling back an inch. His nose brushes mine.
I smirk. “Why?”
“Because we almost died, and I would’ve never heard you say it. So now I need to hear it as much as possible.” He mirrors my expression, then pushes himself into me. So. Slow.
I might combust on the spot.
I dig my nails into his shoulders, and I put my mouth at his ear.
“I love you, Steele O’Brien.”
“Marry me,” he responds.
He jerks his hips forward and fills me completely. It’s unexpected and completely satisfying, stretching and hitting the spot inside me that has been desperate for him since the prior afternoon.
“Asshole,” I gasp in his ear.
He catches my hand and kisses my ring finger. “Say yes, Aspen.”
“This is a knee-jerk reaction to almost dying,” I reply. “You don’t—”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything. You know you’re my soulmate. Deep down, we’re the perfect fit—and nothing is going to change that.” He presses another kiss to my ring finger. “See your future with me—then reach out and take it.”
All that I was going to say, to protest, dies away.
Really.
Why should I deny myself this?
“Yes,” I whisper.
His lips crash into mine. I feel the ecstasy in how he kisses me, capturing this moment. I kiss him back with the same fierceness, needing to be a hundred percent closer to him. His tongue sweeps across my lower lip, and he sucks it into his mouth. His teeth scrape it. I let out a low groan, my core clenching around him. I tear my lips away and kiss down his neck. The tender skin of his throat.
“I love you,” he says. “I’m not a wordsmith. Not even close. But I’m so fucking obsessed with you, I can’t stand it. I love you. I’ll love you forever.”
I cup the back of his head and pull back just enough to meet his eyes. To see not only the heat but the warmth. Gone is that cold man who stared me down a few months ago, who threatened to make my life hell—and followed through.
“Forever,” I agree.
I lift my hips to meet his thrusts. The water is getting cooler, but neither of us reach to turn it off. Our bodies are burning up as it is.
He lets go of my hip and slides his hand between us, rubbing my clit.
My eyes roll back, my head touching the cool tile. It’s his turn to put his lips all over my throat, biting and sucking as he works me higher. His movements are getting more frantic. Chasing the high of release. I groan when he pinches my nipple again. It’s like shooting fireworks under my skin.
I orgasm like that, crying out and clutching him closer. His mouth covers mine, absorbing the sounds. And only a few seconds later, he stills inside me and comes with a groan.
Forever with Steele O’Brien.
I smile. My legs are weak, and my knees almost buckle when he puts me down. He keeps his arm around my waist and shuts off the water, then sets me on the edge of the tub. I watch him find us towels—two fluffy ones for me, and one that he wipes down his chest with and then ties around his waist. He barely seems focused on himself, though, instead kneeling on the bathmat in front of me.
He takes one of the towels and wraps it around my torso. The other he keeps in his hand. He lifts my foot and dries my leg. Then repeats with the other one. He spreads my legs and inches closer, wiping that towel up to the apex of my thighs. Not touching my pussy, though. I can feel his cum leaking out, and he stares at it for a long moment.
“So damn gorgeous,” he mutters, almost to himself.
Then he continues. Dries my arms, pats at my face. Takes special care around my cheek, the cloth barely touching it. He pulls out a shower caddy from under the sink, and I jerk.
It’s filled with all of my stuff. My products.
“Replicas,” he murmurs. “They were delivered last night after you left, because I don’t want you feeling like you can’t get ready here. I didn’t steel your stuff, little viper.”
My heart skips. Surprisingly thoughtful of him—but he’s full of good intentions when he wants to be. I eye the hairbrush. Damn, he even got the brand of hairbrush right—and it’s my favorite color.
“I still want to know where you came up with that nickname,” I reply, trying not to focus on the stuff in front of me. And the way I’m reacting to him. Again.
He rips the tag off it and grins at me. “My dad called you Asp on the phone one time over the summer. A nickname he probably picked up from your sisters or mom. An asp is a viper. It felt appropriate.”
A laugh bubbles out of me.
With all the horrible things that happened in the past twenty-four hours… yeah, I’ve lost it.
I can’t stop laughing. Tears leak out of my eyes, and I can barely suck in a breath. He went off of my sisters’ nickname for me and created a whole new one.
Steele chuckles along with me, his hands on my thighs.
And once the laughter has subsided, he kisses me.
“I thought it would take some time for you to even smile,” he says against my lips.
Yeah, well…
All that, and I didn’t even see my father’s body. Not really. Not after Steele shot him—and even then, I was more focused on my protector. On the way his forearm muscles clenched and his hand kicked up a bit.
The ringing noise of the gunshots, the smell of burning gunpowder.
“I just can’t believe he’s gone.” All the time in the hospital, sitting on that bed while they did bloodwork and checked for a concussion, and whatever else they had to do, it felt like a dream. Or an echo.
Steele turns me at an angle and sits behind me. With slow, methodical movements, he brushes out my hair.
Something I’m totally capable of doing, but… it’s nice to not think about it. It actually feels kind of good, and I tip my head back to give him better access. He squeezes the extra water from my hair and repeats the process, and then his fingers are moving against my scalp.
I exhale and close my eyes.
“Do you want to talk about it?” His voice is… unsure. For maybe the first time ever.
“No.”
But then… well, I end up telling him about my dad, after all. The bad stuff doesn’t come to mind right away. What does is the good stuff. Walking hand in hand to get ice cream from the shop on the corner. Him swinging me around in our tiny backyard, and the weightlessness that came with it. The giggles I couldn’t contain.
Sitting with him and my mother, who was really pregnant and tired and sore all the time, at the dining room table and learning how to count cards in Blackjack. Just in case I ever found myself in a casino and down on my luck, even though I was only six going on sixteen.
Going to an amusement park when I was twelve, flinching away from him when he tried to hold my hand. But he always just held it tighter, until I stopped fighting.
Finding myself watching his gaze turn to Dakota, who was six when I was twelve, and getting violently sick at his contemplative expression.
It feels good to get them off my chest, and Steele absorbs all of it silently. He’s moved from massaging the memories out of my head to relieving the tension in my neck. Then lower, his fingers pressing firmly into the muscles in my shoulders.
“I miss who he could’ve been,” I say softly.
“I know.” He kisses my shoulder blade.
When we emerge from the bathroom and tuck into his room, I’m unsurprised to find the sky lightening. Dawn, and tomorrow, can’t be stopped by anything.
Not even trauma.
“Sleep,” Steele orders, guiding me to the bed. “I’ll keep your nightmares away.”
He sheds his towel, and I do, too. I lie on my side, my back to the wall, and he wastes no time climbing in with me. He pulls me close, until we’re aligned, our chests touching. My nipples harden. Steele slips his knee between my legs and wraps his arm around me in a full-body hug. I tuck my face into his neck and try to breathe.
And soon enough, I’m lured into sleep.
