Warm water rolls down my shoulders, over my breasts and sneaks into the impossibly minuscule crevices between me and Noah. As it flows between us, I swear the water becomes hotter. Noah shifts, and his body glides easily with mine. The lack of friction births a strange sensation—a sensitivity, an awareness...a hunger.
I lick my lips and taste clean water. Noah watches the movement, his eyes growing darker by the second. My thumb swipes across his wrist, and his pulse pushes past his veins and skin. Standing so near, can Noah feel my heart beating?
Noah holds my gaze, and I silently thank him for giving me a good excuse to not look down. Because I want to look down, but I don’t want to look down, and if I look down I want to look down without Noah knowing I’m looking down.
He squeezes my hand. “Do you want me to let go?”
I shake my head then discover the courage to speak. “No.”
With his other hand, Noah frees a tendril of hair sticking to my cheek. As if the brush against my skin is a lightning rod, energy zaps from my head to my toes.
“I want to kiss you,” he murmurs.
I’ve lost the ability to breathe. “I want you to kiss me.”
Noah releases my hand and as he leans forward, I inch back and find myself against the cold wall. It’s a strange tingle in my body, to be warmed on one side and cold on another. As Noah presses against me, the wall starts to absorb my heat, and I’m suddenly toasty.
I take in Noah’s heady scent. It’s a mesmerizing smell, one that causes my mouth to water and my muscles to relax. As if sensing my give, Noah wraps an arm around my waist and cups my face with his other hand.
I feel Noah. In a different way than I ever had before, and I wait for the panic or the insecurity, but none of it shows. As I stare into Noah’s eyes, I only sense peace, as if this moment is natural and is meant to happen.
“I love you.” So much that sometimes it hurts.
Noah tilts his head down, and his nose skims against mine. “You’re my whole world, Echo. Someday, when you’re ready, I’ll show you how much.”
Small drops of water trail down our faces, and it’s like little teasing fingers. I run my hands up his back, exploring. When they tangle into his hair, I whisper against his lips, “Maybe soon.”
Maybe now.
Noah
Echo’s different, and as I take her lips with mine, every ounce of my being responds to the change. She holds me closer, melts farther in and she’s lost her hesitancy. Her hands are everywhere, and mine behave the same. I can’t touch enough of her fast enough, and the urge for more drives me to press my body against hers. The flames are consuming both of us, pushing us to transform into a blazing wildfire.
My tongue slips between her lips, and Echo arches into me. I bite back a growl, terrified of scaring her. My hands tangle in her hair and skim along her wet body, enjoying each sensual curve.
The kiss is wild, passionate and deep. Kissing Echo has always been steaming, but this is beyond. As if a dam’s been breached, and the pent-up attraction floods out.
Echo gasps for air, and my mouth brushes down her cheek to her neck—nipping, kissing, devouring. She tilts her neck to the side, granting me access, inviting me to explore more...explore lower.
“Noah,” she says in the way I’ve dreamed of since the night I backed her against a wall outside of Mike Blair’s house in January. My name falling from her lips has been a major part of every erotic dream.
She glances up at me from below her eyelashes, and my world stalls into slow motion. There’s a depth in her eyes that’s never been there before—a slow sexiness, an expectation. With the shower angled at her body, running down her beautiful curves, steam rising into the air, Echo’s red hair reshapes into ringlets.
I slide my hands down her arms until I link our fingers together. “I need you to be sure.”
Her chest moves as she inhales deeply. A bit of the tentativeness I’m used to with Echo returns as her fingers tighten around mine. “I think I am.”
I want her. More than I’ve ever desired anyone. Need is a damn pulse in my body, and I can barely breathe with trying to keep myself under control. Image after image of taking Echo, right here, right now, becomes a virus in my mind. “Not think, Echo. You’ve got to know.”
Echo places a hand on my chest and nudges me back. I’m cautious, watching her stare at my stomach. She’s thinking, weighing, and I need to give her space. A rush of air escapes her lips, her arms fall to her sides, and my damn little siren switches her focus and looks down.
My lips edge up as her eyes widen. “No,” she whispers.
“No what?”
“There is no freaking way that will fit.”
Echo
The smugness radiating from Noah is nauseating. He wears this infuriating grin that encourages me to smack him upside the head, but the guilt from throwing his clothes into the pool prevents me from tackling him.
With a towel wrapped around his waist, he lays out his clothes on the floor, on the table and over the chairs. Basically anywhere there’s an open spot. The cross tattooed on his biceps stretches as he hooks a hanger holding his dress shirt onto the heater vent near the ceiling.
I saw Noah tonight...all of him, and he was gorgeous. I mean, I knew what to expect as I’m not a nun. We have biology books at school, and I’ve had sex ed, but it was different, standing there, seeing him...and then I went and said the most epically tragic thing ever: There is no freaking way that will fit.