Page 22 of Price of Victory (The Saints of Westmont U #5)
I reached up to trace the line of his jaw with trembling fingers, feeling the slight roughness of stubble that had appeared there.
The contrast between the soft skin of his throat and the more textured area along his jawline made me want to explore every inch of him, to catalog each different sensation my hands could discover.
When I leaned in to press my lips to the pulse point at his neck, I felt rather than heard the soft sound he made. The vibration traveled through his throat and into my mouth, and I found myself addicted to the taste of his skin, salt and soap and something uniquely him that made my head spin.
The steam was building around us now, turning the small space into something dreamlike and surreal. Every breath I took was saturated with humidity and the clean scent of his shampoo, making me feel like I was drowning in the best possible way.
I let my hands explore his shoulders, feeling the way the muscles moved beneath his skin when he reached up to thread his fingers through my damp hair.
The touch sent shivers down my spine that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the gentle way he was holding me, like I was something valuable that might break if handled too roughly.
“Aiden,” he whispered against my ear, and the sound of my name in his voice made my knees weak. There was something almost reverent in the way he said it, like he was testing the weight of the word on his tongue.
I responded by nipping gently at his earlobe, earning another one of those soft sounds that went straight to my core.
The confined space meant that every movement, every touch, every breath was amplified.
When he shifted against me, when his hands found the small of my back and pulled me closer, it felt like the most natural thing in the world and the most earth-shattering at the same time.
His hard cock pressed against my leg, rubbing against me with his movement.
Rhett’s hand descended over the curve of my ass, grabbing me with force before he dragged his body against mine on his way down to his knees.
When he dropped, he lifted his gaze to mine, and his red lips parted with desperate desire. His hands worshiped my legs on their way up, moving over my knees and along my thighs until he wrapped the fingers of his right hand around my dick, stroking it once before it throbbed hard in his fist.
With a small and annoyingly victorious smirk, Rhett opened his mouth and leaned in. He closed his pretty lips around the tip of my cock and sucked it deep into his mouth, exhaling through his nose so suddenly that I could feel his heated breath on my skin.
The back of my head thumped against the door as I thrust my hips forward, sliding deeper into Rhett’s throat.
A moan broke from him, but he hurried to suck me deeper to make up for it, as if he couldn’t stand it otherwise.
He bobbed his head back and forth, taking me deeper down his throat with each nod, his mouth wide open and his eyes glistening with the shower water or tears; I couldn’t tell the difference.
I could only tell they looked like gems that caught sunlight for the first time in a thousand years.
The water continued to cascade over us. I could feel steam rising from my skin where his hand touched my abdomen, could taste it in the air between us as my cock rammed against the back of his throat. My hands moved over his buzzed hair, feeling his movement.
Time became elastic, measured only by the rhythm of our breathing and the steady percussion of water against tile.
Minutes could have passed, or hours—I had no way of knowing and no desire to find out.
All that existed was this moment, this space, this perfect storm of sensation and emotion that was building between us with each passing second.
When he pulled his head back and said my name, breathless and urgent, I felt something fundamental shift inside me.
I lost myself completely in the feel of him, in the way his hands gripped my ass like he was afraid I might disappear, tugging me closer and taking me deeper into his throat.
The small sounds he made when I reached particularly deep, the way his breathing hitched when I jammed myself inside, every response was like a gift, something precious he was giving me that I wanted to treasure and remember forever.
The intensity built slowly, like a tide rising around us, until we were both trembling with the force of it. “Fuck,” I growled. “I’m coming.”
I yanked back from him, pulling my cock out of his mouth, but Rhett’s hands grabbed my ass hard, squeezing me and pulling me close, not letting me out.
His eyes widened with want, and I pretty much lost it.
Even if I hadn’t been teetering on the edge of it for countless minutes, his needy look and his gentle submission would have sent me falling over the edge.
Hot cum filled Rhett’s sexy throat and welled out the corners of his reddened lips as I pulsed and throbbed inside his mouth.
He worked his cock with urgency, muscles knotting all over his body, but I lifted him as soon as my dick stilled a little.
Even the sensation of his lips dragging along my length sent unbearable shivers down my spine and through my limbs. My very toes tingled.
Rhett rose to his feet, and I slammed my mouth against his, crushing lips against lips and tasting myself to the last drop as my tongue explored him.
I flipped him around easily after the shock of it had stunned him, pinned his chest against the wall, slipped my softening dick between his cheeks for no other reason than that it felt right to feel his ass so close against my crotch, then reached around and held him in my right hand.
Rhett groaned, thrust his ass against me, pressed his face hard against the white tiles, and let out moan after moan as I worked him toward his climax.
It was easy. He was already strung so tightly that a whisper into his ear would have done it. The trick was to make it last, make it feel earned.
When he tensed, voice cut off like he choked on his very moans, I waited a heartbeat, then felt him swell and relax in my hand in a rapid succession.
His cum trickled down the back of my fingers, thick and hot and irresistible.
I lifted my hand, smearing the back of it over Rhett’s dirty lips, then turning him around with the ease of lifting a kitten.
I crossed my forearm over his chest and pressed him against the wall, then looked at my work.
His cum painted over his glistening lips, inviting and unbearably sexy.
As I kissed him, a deep, uncontrollable purr unraveled in my chest.
We held each other under the spray afterward, both of us trying to catch our breath and process what had just happened.
The water continued to fall around us, washing away the evidence of our passion but doing nothing to diminish the lingering heat that seemed to radiate from every point where our bodies touched.
We stayed there for a long moment, holding each other under the cooling water, both of us reluctant to break the spell that had settled over us. I could feel his heart beating against my chest, could taste the lingering salt of his skin on my lips.
“We should probably get out of here,” he said eventually, though he made no move to pull away from me.
“Probably.” But I tightened my arms around him instead, not ready to face the outside world and all the complications that waited there.
“Aiden.” There was something in his voice that made me look at him, something serious and uncertain. “What are we doing?”
It was a fair question, and one I wasn’t sure I knew how to answer. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But I know I don’t want to stop.”
“Even though it’s complicated? Even though our families…”
“Fuck our families.” The words came out more vehemently than I’d intended, and Rhett’s eyes widened in surprise. “Sorry. I just…I’m tired of living my life based on what other people expect from me.”
“Is that what this is about? Rebellion?”
The question hit too close to home, touching on the exact fear I’d been trying not to examine. “No. Maybe it started that way, but it’s not anymore. This is about you and me, nothing else.”
“You sure about that?”
I pulled back to look at him properly, taking in the vulnerability in his expression, the way he was looking at me like he was trying to see past all my defenses to whatever truth lay beneath.
“I’m sure,” I said, and meant it. Whatever this had started as, it had become something else entirely. Something that mattered in a way that scared and thrilled me in equal measure.
He studied my face for a long moment, as if trying to determine whether I was telling the truth. Then he nodded slowly, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “But we need to be careful. If anyone finds out about this…”
“They won’t. Not unless we want them to.” I didn’t need reminding. With Dad’s health the way it was, telling him I was falling hard for—and, let’s face it, inside of—Rhett Morrison would speed up my inheritance and crowning to an undesirably short timeline.
“Do we? Want them to?” His brow furrowed in concern, and I wanted to lean in and kiss the creases away.
The question hung in the air between us, loaded with implications I wasn’t ready to unpack. The idea of being open about whatever this was, of not having to hide or sneak around, was terrifying.
“Let’s just see where this goes first,” I said finally. “Figure out what we are before we worry about what other people think about it.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“Good. Now, come on. We really should get out of here before someone comes looking for us.”
We separated reluctantly, both of us reaching for towels and trying to make ourselves presentable. The intimacy of getting dressed together in the small space was almost as affecting as what we’d just done, domestic in a way that made my chest feel tight with unfamiliar emotion.
As we gathered our gear and prepared to leave, I found myself watching Rhett’s every movement, already addicted to the way he moved, the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.
“So,” I said as we headed toward the exit. “Your place or mine tonight?”
“Mine,” he said without hesitation. “Lennox is at Oliver’s until tomorrow morning.”
“Perfect.” I couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of my voice, and Rhett shot me a look that was half-amused, half-exasperated.
“You’re awfully confident about this.”
“About what? Getting you naked again? Yeah, I’m pretty confident about that.”
“You’re impossible.” But there was a smile on his face, even if he tried hard to conceal it.
“And yet here you are, inviting me over for a sleepover.”
“It’s not a sleepover. It’s…” He cut himself off, realizing he’d walked into that one.
“It’s what?” I pressed, grinning at his flustered expression.
“It’s whatever it is. We’ll figure it out as we go.”
That seemed to sum up everything about whatever was happening between us. We were making it up as we went along, navigating uncharted territory without a map or compass. It should have been terrifying, and maybe it was, but it was also exhilarating in a way I’d never experienced before.
As we stepped out into the cool evening air, I felt lighter than I had all day. The frustration from my mother’s call was still there, the pressure of family expectations still waiting to be dealt with, but for now, none of that mattered.
What mattered was the way Rhett’s shoulder brushed against mine as we walked, the anticipation building between us, the promise of another night spent discovering exactly what we could be when we stopped fighting it and each other.
I was probably heading for heartbreak, probably making the biggest mistake of my life. But looking at Rhett in the fading light, seeing the way he looked back at me with heat and affection and something that might have been hope, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
For the first time in my life, I was choosing what I wanted over what was expected of me. And what I wanted was him.