The hot water scalded Lucy’s skin, but she didn’t care.
She pressed her palms against the cool tiled wall, breathing heavily as the steam wrapped around her like a heavy blanket.
The day’s stress should have washed away by now.
Instead, it clung to her, humming under her skin.
Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him?
The way he said “Are you asking me to?” — it played on a loop inside her skull, gnawing at her sanity.
She closed her eyes, tilting her head back under the torrent of water.
And then she felt it.
Strong hands.
Gripping her hips, pulling her back against a hard, unyieldingchest.
The scrape of rough fabric against her skin.
Lucy gasped, arching instinctively.
Fingers slid along her waist, trailing fire wherever they touched.
A hot mouth pressed against her neck, claiming her, branding her.
She whimpered, caught between fear and uncontainable desire.
The hands traveled lower, around to her stomach, pinning her there — as if daring her to fight it.
Breath ghosted over her ear.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” Byron’s voice echoed, low and sinful.
Lucy shuddered violently.
Her head lolled back against a hard shoulder, mouth falling open as he pressed closer, harder, until there wasn’t a whisper of space left between them.
She turned her head slightly, desperate for more — desperate for him — and caught a glimpse of piercing silver eyes through the steam.
Their mouths crashed together.
It wasn’t soft.
It wasn’t sweet.
It was desperate. Hungry. Carnal.
Lucy clutched at him, nails digging into his soaked shirt, the world spinning away under the brutality of his kiss.
The heat between them was volcanic.
The kind of heat that promised no turning back.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
Lucy ripped herself away, spinning, panting.