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I stood up and pulled Sutton to her feet. Even the most casual touch of this woman made me hotter than hell. That should have bothered me, but it didn’t. "Mosquitoes are waking up. We should get inside before they eat us alive."

I slid my fingers through hers, interlacing them tightly, my thumb stroking the soft skin of her knuckles. The contact was electric, a continuous circuit of heat running between us. The air around us contained a simmering, expectant hunger that was distinct from the frantic adrenaline of the storm sex. That had been about survival and release. This was about choice.

We didn’t speak. The conversation had shifted from words to the pressure of our hands, the synchronization of our steps, the heat radiating between our bodies in the gathering dark. As we walked, I enjoyed the way her hips swayed and how she navigated the uneven planks without looking down, her eyes fixed on the cottage ahead. She wasn’t running to hide anymore. Sutton moved with a new confidence, a groundedness that suited her better than any red-carpet strut.

When we reached the porch, I pushed the door open and stepped aside to let her pass, inhaling the scent of her hair as she brushed by me—salt and flowers. Sutton stepped over the threshold into the cool, dark interior of the cottage, then turned back. Her eyes were dark, dilated in the dim light, and they held a promise that made my blood run hot and heavy in my veins.

"Are you coming in?" she asked.

It was a question with only one answer. "Try and stop me."

Chapter Twenty-One

SUTTON

The heavy, metallic thud of the deadbolt sliding home left whatever restraint we’d carried up from the dock on the other side of the door. Inside the cottage, the air conditioning hummed a low counterpoint to the chorus of cicadas screaming in the humid night. A sticky film of salt and sweat coated my skin after a marathon of manual labor and emotional exposure. But our sexual tension pressed against the walls of the entryway, a heavy, confident weight demanding to be acknowledged.

Ben closed the short gap between us, his damp shirt clinging to his chest, and settled his hands on my hips. "You’re covered in swamp dirt."

"So are you." I slid my hands up his chest, then tilted my head back to meet his dark, dilated gaze. "I need a shower."

A slow, devastating smile curved his mouth. "I can point you to the bathroom."

"I know where the bathroom is." I rose onto my toes to skim my lips over his jaw. "I’m telling you to come with me."

Ben let out a low, rough groan. He wrapped an arm around my waist, lifting me flush against his body, and walked us down the short hallway. Pausing at his bedroom door, he detoured to reach into the nightstand drawer without putting me down. I ran my tongue over the shell of his ear as his fingers snagged a condom. He made a deep strangled noise. “Goddamn. You’re killing me here, Sutton.”

I smiled against his rough cheek as he resumed carrying me out of the bedroom. “Do you have any idea how hot it is that you can carry me like this? Well, I’m going to show you.”

The bathroom was small, tiled in vintage white squares that had yellowed with age, and dominated by a shower stall roughly a quarter the size of mine in Los Angeles. Stepping into the bathroom, he finally set me down and tossed the small square onto the edge of the sink, then twisted the shower handle. The pipes groaned before a spray of hot water fell, fogging the mirror instantly.

He gripped the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head in one fluid motion. He tossed it into the corner, revealing the wide expanse of his chest, the lacing of scars on his ribs, and the heavy muscles that had built the structure of my safety for the last week. I shed my own clothes just as quickly, kicking my denim shorts aside. We stood skin to skin in the small, steam-filled room.

After giving me a long, devouring kiss, Ben stepped inside the shower. He held his hand out to me. “Let’s go.”

I stepped into the stall.

The space was impossibly intimate. The water rained down on us, sealing us into a private universe of steam and tile. Picking up a plain white bar of Dial soap, I worked it into a thick lather. Ben watched the process, his hands settling back on my hips as his thumbs traced the flare of my hip bones. Stepping into his space, my soapy palms flattened against his chest. The slow, reverent motions washed away the salt and sweat, but cleaning him was only half the point. This was about learning him. The texture of his skin, the twitch of muscle beneath my touch, and the ragged catch in his breathing as my hands slid lower over his abdomen burned themselves into my memory.

I moved to his arms, washing down the biceps to his hands. I took his right hand in mine, running my thumb over the scarred knuckles—the legacy of the violence he hated so much. He tried to pull away, a reflex of shame, but I held on tight. I washed the scars gently, honoring them. They weren’t marks of a monster. They were the armor of a fortress.

"God, you are so sexy." I lifted his hand to my mouth and pressed a kiss to the largest scar on his knuckle, then turned my head to kiss the faded white line on his jaw. "All of you."

Ben let out a sound somewhere between a groan and a prayer. "Sutton..."

"Shh."

Sliding my slick palms down his torso, the suds traced the hard ridges of his abdomen before dipping lower. I wrapped my fingers around his thick shaft. He was blazing hot, the velvet skin stretched taut over iron-hard flesh. A sharp hiss escaped his teeth as I glided my hand up and down. The thick soap and cascading water eliminated all friction, leaving only the smooth slide of intense pressure.

I brushed my lips over the rapid pulse hammering at the base of his throat. My mouth traveled upward to capture his in a slow, wet kiss while my hand kept up the steady rhythm below. His hips jerked forward involuntarily, chasing the movement of my fist. Deep, guttural noises vibrated in his chest against mine. Broad hands pressed hard against the tile wall on either side of my head as he tried to anchor himself against the sensory overload.

I lifted my hands, flattening them against his wet shoulders to shove him backward. Ben yielded to the pressure until his back slammed into the tile. Following him, I pressed my body flush against his. The slick friction let him feel every curve and hard edge of my desire. My arms wrapped around his strong neck as I rose on my tiptoes to crush my mouth against his.

Deepening the contact, my tongue swept past his teeth. The pace I set was demanding and fierce. I needed to show him I wasn’t breakable glass, but steel wrapped in velvet. I could handle whatever he gave me. With a deep groan, Ben reached a long arm outside the glass enclosure, where his fingers snatched the foil packet off the sink. He tore the wrapper open with his teeth. Sheathing his thick length in one quick, practiced motion, he pivoted and pressed my back against the opposite wall of the shower. The cool tile sent a shock across my heated skin. Water cascaded over us, turning our tangled limbs into a single, slippery entity.

"Wrap your legs around me," he commanded against my mouth.

Locking my ankles behind his back, I clung tight. The man didn’t stagger or even sway. He held my weight effortlessly, a solid, unmoving pillar of strength that thrilled me to my core.