Page 119 of Best Served Cold

I step away to turn on the shower, and remember we still need the next condom from the strip in the bedroom. When I turn toward the door, she thrusts out her leg to bar my path. “You’re not allowed to leave me in here.”

“You can’t shower alone?” I tease.

“Not anymore. There’s a spot on my back that’s very hard to reach.”

“I’ll be happy to assist you. But I need to grab the neon green condom.”

She keeps her leg in my path, firmly pressed against me, “I’m on birth control. And I’ve gotten tested, you know, since…

I feel like a firebomb just exploded inside of me. That asshole. That fucking piece of shit. Imagine having Sophie and deciding she wasn’t enough…

I grit my teeth and force myself to concentrate on what she’s telling me. Because, oh, fuck…

“I’ve always used condoms,” I say.

“I want you inside of me now. Without anything between us.” She lowers that sexy leg. “If that’s okay. I mean, if you really want to make it through the rainbow, we can. I don’t want to destroy our goal by?—”

I lean in and kiss her hard. She opens her legs wider for me, and is it strictly necessary for us to make it into the shower? Because I want her here, in my shirt. I press closer to her, and she makes a sound deep in her throat, angling her head back far enough that it touches the mirror, her long hair a tumble down her back. Her legs cinch around me, pulling me in close.

I reach down to touch her, finding her ready for me, so damn ready, and the strangled sound that releases from her lips into mine tells me it’s time. So I line myself up and push in—slowly at first, enjoying the difference in sensation, the fierce pleasure of being inside her like this, skin to skin, raw. And then I can’t take it anymore, so I drive in deep. Sophie rocks forward, taking me deeper, her heels urgent against the small of my back.

“Oh my,” she whispers.

Oh my indeed. I pull out and thrust in again, grabbing hold of her hair. Needing the feeling of her to engulf me and change me even more than it already has.

“You feel like a revelation,” I pant into her ear. Then I tug at the hem of the shirt, because she’s right—as good as it is on, it’ll be better off. She helps me tug it off over her head, and then I carry her—still buried inside her—into the shower stall, where the warm water rains down on us.

Like rain on a sunny day.

The words sing inside of me, another addition to the record of us, as I press her back into the wall. My mouth and my hands and my dick are all desperate for her. She’s soaked with water, soft and wet and so beautiful it hurts.

So beautiful it hurts.

That’s part of our song too, part of us, and I drive into her again, and again, feeling her clenching around me, falling apart. The sight of her like this—lips parted, eyes closed, neck taut and hair a wet tumble—shoves me over the edge into a kind of abyss. Pleasure spirals and curls around us as I clutch her to me. I don’twant to let her go, but everything in life has an ending. It’s what makes this time we spend alive so special. So painful.

I gently set her down on her feet, my arms still around her, and hold her as the water cascades over us, until we’ve recovered enough to actually use the shower for its intended purpose. And then I clean that spot between her shoulder blades, determined to treat her every bit as well as she deserves.

“Wow,” she says, pressing her face into my chest beneath the constant stream of water.

“Wow,” I repeat. “I may be unqualified to offer a scientific opinion, but I’d say this scientific experiment has had pretty definitive results.”

“It’s my unscientific opinion that you’re right. I’ve been feeling pretty lucky lately. Do you think it’s because of your lucky guitar pick?”

“Or maybe your unlucky penny. Maybe we should keep carrying them around just to be sure.”

Laughing, she slicks my hair back from my face. “I’ll make a Pollyanna of you yet.”

Maybe she already has, because it feels like we’re floating along on a cloud with no care for the miles of open air just beneath us.

Before we leave, I slip away for five minutes, saying I have to discuss the band’s rehearsal schedule with Travis, which is enough time for me to call Dottie and make some arrangements.

When we get to Tea of Fortune, Dottie is waiting for us. So is the rest of the Wise Women Group.

“Didn’t we do this yesterday?” I ask.

“None of us have lost our sense of time yet, young buck,” Constance says. “But we weren’t going to miss out on the fun.”

Sophie looks confused, but before she can start asking questions, I hurry to introduce her to all of the women, giving Ann credit for her excellent taste in scratch-off tickets.

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