Page 116 of After All This Time

It isn't wrong. It's fucking everything.

"What happened to sleeping on it?"

"I hated that idea." His laugh rumbles through me as he steps back, running a hand through his hair, before rinsing himself under the stream.

We wash together, laugh together, completely bare in every sense of the word, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

When I step out and wrap a towel around my body, I catch his reflection in the mirror as he comes up behind me.

"One day at a time?" I ask softly, meeting his eyes in the reflection.

"Yeah, one day at a time, Mills."

He's always steadied my soul, always been my safe place. But now, he's also fire in my veins. And I'm done fighting it. I'm not questioning it—not until the world forces me to.

Chapter 45

Tobias

It's been two weeks.

Two weeks of the kind of sex that wrecks a man in the best way. Two weeks of Amelia—of her laughter filling the apartment, her legs wrapped around me every night, her body arching off the bed while I claim her in ways I never thought I'd have the right to. But it's more than just the sex. It's her—her fire, her softness, her everything. And now that she's mine, the thought of anyone else touching her—or me—feels like a betrayal of something I didn't even know I was waiting for.

Not that anyone else could ever compare.

The way she tastes, the way she touches me, the way she screams my name—it's not just different; it's a whole other fucking universe. She's this perfect contradiction of fierce and soft, of take-no-shit strength and melt-in-my-hands surrender, taking what she wants while giving me everything I don't have to ask for—all wrapped up in this woman I thought I knew but clearly had no clue about.

I'm not about to slut-shame myself for the number of women in my past—hell, I'd never judge anyone's body count, including hers. But there's this ache in my chest when I think about it, this wish that I'd somehow known she was coming and that everything before her was just killing time.

But the past is the past, and I'd burn every memory of anyone else just to show her she's the only one who's ever mattered.

The door to the tattoo shop flies open, and Levi strolls in like he owns the whole damn world.

"Why are you looking so pleased with yourself?" I ask while setting up my station.

"Your boy's got an actual date tonight," he announces, leaning against the counter with a smug grin. "And it's not with a stripper at a strip joint, thank you very much."

"Bullshit." I snort, organizing my inks.

His face falls, his grin replaced with exaggerated offense. "Dude, I swear! Her name's Sienna. I met her at that little bookstore on Mason Street."

I stop what I'm doing and raise an eyebrow. "What the hell were you doing in a bookstore?"

"Have you been to one lately? That's where all the hot girls with actual brain cells hang out."

"So you're just creeping around bookstores now?"

"Why do you have to make me out to be some kind of pervert?" he shoots back, throwing his hands in the air. "I was browsing."

"Sure you were." I shrug, picking up a stencil.

"Screw you. Istarteda book last night."

"What's it called?" The shop door opens, and Harry walks in, my first client of the day. The timing is perfect—I need someone else to witness Levi's transformation from manwhore to bookworm.

"Hell if I remember the title, but it's basically porn with proper grammar."

"Jen has so many of those books. Everyone's usually got daddy issues or too much money."

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