Page 59 of Distant Shores (Stapled Magnolias #2)

His muscles were well-defined, both strong and safe , but when my gaze moved to his middle, he crossed his arms lightly in front of him, obscuring my view of the firm expanse of skin and fine, dark hair there .

I glanced up at him questioningly, but he couldn’t see it.

His glasses had fogged over.

With a muttered curse, he reached up to the top of the glass wall and grabbed a dry washcloth he must’ve put there before he got in. He wiped the condensation from his glasses and put them back on and holy God.

How does he make wearing glasses in a shower that hot?

My nipples tightened to the point of pain as he shut us in, muffling the music but intensifying everything else.

I took a step toward him as he white-knuckled the safety rail beside him, watching me intently. I only stopped when we were toe to toe, my chest against his stomach.

He made a noise in the back of his throat as I reached for him, his muscles tensing. I hesitated, looking up at him for guidance, but he didn’t say anything.

“You kept your glasses on,” I said quietly, “when you could have left them off. When you could have not seen me seeing you. So, let me see you. And please… let me feel you. I want to.”

His uncertain gaze stayed on my face as he gulped down a shuddering breath, but then he took my hand and pressed it to his stomach.

That remaining sliver of fear in his gaze, no matter how small or fleeting, made me murderous .

“Tell me,” I said, keeping my hand on his stomach still and smoothing my other one over his chest, feeling every twitch of his muscles beneath my palm.

“I was more fit,” he whispered, “before the accident. I’m just… I—” He blew out a breath. “I wasn’t healthy. As a kid. Poor and overweight because of limited choices, neglectful parents… it wasn’t a formula for any kind of success. ”

I hummed as I raked my nails lightly up his side, down the dip of his waist, and back up his ribs. He was firm all over, but he clearly didn’t see what I saw. “Do you feel that way now? Like you did then?”

His eyes grew distant, going somewhere I hoped was very far away.

“No,” he said eventually, his eyes clearing and snapping back to mine.

“No,” he repeated, then he smiled. “I don’t.

Just my demons, I guess. No matter how much I exercise or how clean I eat as an adult, I still expect to see that kid in every mirror. ”

“That kid was adorable,” I said, thinking of the photo I’d seen of young Adair in Dad and Pops’s apartment. “And the man,” I continued, stroking down the fronts of his legs, “is incredi?—”

He swallowed the end of the word, cupping my face and crashing his mouth to mine.

I rose onto the tips of my toes, throwing everything I had into him. He sank his tongue into my mouth, licking and stroking mine with a passion that had me panting in seconds.

“ Indigo ,” he rasped, tilting my head to the side to plant sucking kisses down my neck. My muscles clenched at how good it felt, and pleasure-filled flutters consumed my lower stomach.

He bit down on the juncture of my neck and shoulder, and I gasped, snaking my arms around him, seeking more.

More skin. More of him . I grabbed his ass in both hands and squeezed.

He choked on a startled yelp and bucked his hips, pressing his hard dick into my upper stomach, and my pussy clenched in response.

Glancing down between us, I watched in rapture as he rutted unabashedly into my stomach. He followed my gaze, his eyes widening before he slowly forced his hips to stop, raking his fingers through my hair .

“What,” he started, panting through his words. “What do you do to me?”

I laughed, but the steam swallowed the delirious sound.

His hooded eyes traced my face, and I looked right back, letting him see how he made me feel, and then I glanced toward the shower bench.

He followed my gaze, then his eyes snapped back to me. “Yeah?”

I gently pushed him toward it in answer, and after taking a couple of careful steps, he sat down on the bench. Just like the rest of the shower, the bench was patterned tile, with safety bars on each side and above.

Adair’s dick stood hard and proud between his legs, and my mouth watered. Following my instincts, I dropped to my knees in front of him.

His head hit the shower wall with a thud. “ Fuck.”

I kept my eyes on the column of his throat as I wrapped my hand around him, pumping slowly. I wasn’t going to draw this out for too long. I needed to feel him slide inside me more than I needed anything else right now.

Adair braced his hands on either side of himself as I pushed his knees apart, exposing all of him to me.

He lifted his head off the shower wall just as I licked a stripe up his dick from base to tip.

His lips parted as he panted heavily, his expression almost pained.

I rubbed my thighs together as I sucked him into my mouth, which only made me more desperate to get him inside me.

He tasted just as I remembered. Clean, heady, and perfect.

When I popped off his tip and then sucked him down again, Adair yelled and jerked his hips forward. “ Ah, nope, time-out. Time-out. Just… hold on,” he breathed raggedly, but then he glanced down at me, and his eyes flared. “Oh God, never mind. Come here. Please . ”

I was on his lap in the next breath, straddling him. He blinked hard, like he had no idea how I’d gotten here, then shook his head before kissing me again, his soft, full lips demanding and consuming.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back just as fiercely. My thighs eventually started burning with the effort of holding myself above his lap, but it was nothing. I could stay like this forever if I needed to.

He stroked me everywhere, his hands almost frantic in their exploration.

He went from cradling my face like I was precious to groping my ass like he wanted to destroy me.

Then he slid his hands up my spine and gripped the back of my neck like he wanted to possess me, only to hug me to him like he needed to shield me.

And then one of his hands traveled past my ass, caressing my thigh before reaching all the way under me to my pussy, where he ran his fingers through my wetness and pushed his fingers deep inside me like he wanted to own me.

I loved all of it. Craved it all.

I rocked into his fingers experimentally, leaning forward and gripping the safety bar by his head for balance. Adair glanced up to see what I was doing, and muttered a curse. He looked back at me, and I arched my spine in offering.

He pulled his fingers from my pussy, brought them to my breast, and smeared the wetness around my other nipple before sucking off the mess.

“ Adair ,” I gasped, and he smiled against my skin before planting a wet kiss there.

He clenched my waist in both hands and met my gaze, his skin flushed and lips swollen. With aching slowness, he lowered me down and pushed his hips up, rubbing my sensitive flesh down his shaft .

Our sounds of pleasure tangled, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I was glad for the thick walls between us and the rest of the house. My eyes rolled back at the utter bliss as he slid his dick through my folds again and again.

He bent forward and grazed his teeth against both my nipples, one and then the other. “These tits,” he whined, “are going to kill me.”

I circled my hips, rubbing myself on his dick, inhaling sharply at the bursts of pleasure. “I can’t believe—” I circled my hips again before looking at him. “—that you say ‘tits.’”

His laugh was silenced when I writhed on him more firmly, but then he found his words again as I let up.

“That’s the only word suitable for these—” He cupped one in each hand. “—besides glorious .”

I laughed as I moved my hips just as he pushed forward, and we both startled as his tip dipped inside me.

“Oh, God .” Adair’s hands flew back to my waist, holding me above him. “Protection.”

My eyes widened as I looked to where his dick, slick and angry looking, rested against my swollen, throbbing pussy.

“I’m on birth control,” I said. “I guess that wasn’t in one of our notes.”

He laughed in a pained way, his fingers flexing against my skin.

“I had a full checkup before surgery. I’m good, but…

” His cheeks burned red, but he straightened his shoulders and soldiered on.

“I should practice what I preach. And even with birth control, if I fuck you bare, we’re choosing to risk pregnancy. Are you okay with that?”

My pussy clenched violently, and I had no idea if it was hearing the word “fuck” from Adair’s lips or the thought of…

I fluttered again, and my breasts ached .

Oh, shit.

“What is it?” Adair asked, cupping my face and turning me to face him.

I hadn’t even realized I’d looked away.

My mind had run far away from me by the time I met his hazel eyes. The implication of me getting pregnant from any other man, real or imagined, would’ve made me straight up hostile. But… from Adair?

He was searching my face, trying to hide his worry, and that brought me back into myself. He’d told me something honest, something personal in here, and I could be brave enough to do the same, even if it killed the mood.

“The idea…,” I started, my labored breathing giving me away already, “of you… getting me pregnant.”

He leaned toward me, hanging onto every word.

“Does not turn me off.” I imagined it again and rolled my hips into him. “At all.”

He stared at me in stunned silence for an eternity of three seconds before his jaw flexed, and my stomach flipped with dread.

But then he banded one arm around me and hugged me to him fiercely, burying his face in my shoulder. “You cannot,” he started, his words muffled in my skin, “say that kind of thing to me, Ireland.”

Still holding me tight to him, he braced one arm on the bench and raised his hips, pushing his dick through my wetness again. I let out a surprised sound, fireworks lighting and exploding my nerve endings.

I planted a kiss on his bare shoulder before pulling back to look at him. He kept me firmly planted in his lap with his dick wedged between my legs, his eyes wide and glasses askew.

It might’ve been the hottest combination of things I’d ever experienced .

“You mean it?” he asked, tucking my hair behind my ear. “You would be okay with having kids with me, Ireland?”

My nails dug into his shoulders as he continued to tease me with his body, his words.

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing,” I managed, my eyes fluttering shut as I gripped his shoulders, and he slid through me again.

“You want me bare?” he asked, pulling back and teasing me again with his tip. “That risk is okay with you?”

“Yes,” I moaned, trying to push down on him, but he stopped me, proving his strength, because damn if I wasn’t putting everything I had into it.

“Look at me,” he whispered.

His tone was so serious that I did so immediately.

“I want that too.” He smoothed the back of his hand over my cheek. “I know right now wouldn’t be the best time, but… yeah. It wouldn’t be the worst thing. Not at all.”

“Not at all,” I agreed quietly.

His smile was huge, the one that showed his pointed canine, and he took his hand off my waist to grab his dick, lining himself up.

His smile morphed into a silent yell as I dropped right onto him, breath catching at the intense stretch.

Suddenly, I was back on my longboard, racing around a corner without fear of failure.

It was reckless.

And it was everything I needed.