A small crease between his brows let me know he was also nervous. Maybe he was nervous this was all a big tease, or that he might step over some kind of line and go too far with me. I didn’t know.

Picking up my sopping hair to expose the knot of my swimsuit, I turned and presented my back to him. “Can you take this off me now please?”

His fingers touched my neck and spine. The top gaped forward and I pulled it off, letting it smack the floor of the shower. He stepped in close, his arousal hard at my back.

… Causing an involuntary shudder to run through me …

His hands slid around my belly, and after a brief hesitation, up and lightly over my breasts.

I clenched my teeth at the shock of sensation.

Holy shit.

I let my head fall back.

Reactions cascaded one after the other, a relief of having his hands on me. It wasn’t nearly enough. How did I let him know how much I wanted him?

Sometimes the look in his eyes was completely at odds with his slow and gentle touches.

I wanted him to lose control. I wanted to see Jack at his most primal. I wanted to be the object of his lust. Of his love, not his pain or revenge.

Hearing his breath in my ear, I came to a decision.

I grabbed the miniature shower gel bottle and poured some in my hand and moved away, sliding around behind Jack in the shower. Exchanging places.

Lathering up the soap, I slid the suds over his muscled back, massaging my hands over the slick and tense terrain, and up into his hair, using my nails to scrape lightly over his scalp.

“What are you doing?” He hissed in a breath, dropping his head forward into the spray. His hands came up to brace on the wall as the water sluiced over him. “Damn that feels good.”

Smiling, I got some more gel, the scent of rosemary and bergamot swirling with the steam, and ran my hands down his back again. I glided over his buttocks then, as I felt him tense, and swallowing my nerves, round to the front of him where I grasped his firm thickness in my hand.

Jack’s hand immediately clamped down on my wrist, hard. “Christ,” he gasped, his voice breaking over the word. Then he moved, spinning me toward him, lifting me through the hot spray and back against the cold tile wall that took my breath. I barely got a chance to see his flushed face and beautiful eyes before his mouth took mine.

Grasping his neck and his head, I hung on, returning his fevered kisses, lashing my tongue against his. Tension coiled tightly in my body, a mass of heat that seared me from the inside out, a scalding ache that begged to be eased.

“Please,” Jack whispered as he pulled his mouth from mine. “Please, stop me,” he repeated before seizing it again. He pressed himself between my legs where I literally ached for him.

“No fucking way,” I managed through a whimpered gasp.

Immediately Jack pulled back, looking at me in shock, and then bursting into a chuckle, his dimples creasing his cheeks. He kissed me again. “I seriously never know what is going to come out of your mouth. You kill me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re killing me right now. I need these bikini bottoms off. Stat.”

Jack snorted, and his shoulders heaved with silent laughter as he stepped back to lower me to my feet. Then he knelt down and pressed a kiss to my belly.

I inhaled and held my breath, my fingers tangling in his thick, wet hair.

When he looked back up at me, he was still smiling.

I watched, mesmerized, as he grasped the sides of my bottoms, and just as he had in the outdoor shower at Devon’s, when I hadn’t been able to watch him, peeled them down my legs. When they hit the floor, I stepped out of them.

As I looked down at him, he held my eyes. He seemed to be communicating some kind of challenge, maybe expecting me to call this off. Perhaps he felt nervous. I was. But there were other feelings that were a lot stronger. Running a hand back up my calf, he pulled my knee forward and then, when I still didn’t stop him, hooked my leg over his shoulder.

Shock and arousal sent a startled whimper past my lips.

He cocked an eyebrow, then continued running his hand up the inside of my thigh. Okay, I didn’t think I could watch this, but I sure as heck wasn’t going to stop him from doing whatever it was he was thinking of …

“Oh God,” I whimpered as his fingers found my slickness and didn’t even stop before sliding inside me. I closed my eyes, my head falling back and hitting the shower wall.

Jack’s breathing was as quick and shallow as mine.

“Don’t get shy about watching now, Keri Ann.” Jack’s voice was rough. I peeled my eyes open and looked down at the expression on Jack’s face. I’d never seen a more desperate and restrained set to his mouth. It added a thick layer of intensity to the already building sensations that were spiraling through me at the drag of his finger, his thumb circling me.

My breath started coming in pants.

“Fuck,” Jack rasped. “I could come, just doing this to you.”

His words shocked me, yet thrilled me at the same time. “So do it then,” I breathed desperately. “I don’t want to be feeling this on my own.”

Jack groaned. “You’re not … I promise.” He reached down with his free hand.

I willed my eyes to stay open. To watch him.

Oh my God. I didn’t think I could ever see anything sexier.

In. My. Life.

Then, with a sound like a starving man, he leaned forward and replaced his thumb, that had been dancing a rhythm over me, with his hot mouth and I shattered apart, gasping and shuddering against the tiled wall. I cried out as the sensations went on, a long wail, and I pressed against his mouth, my hands in his hair holding him against me. Wanting it to never stop.

“Oh, God, Keri Ann,” Jack ground out, and his entire body jerked. My hands left his hair and I slid down the wall to join him on the floor, reaching to cover his hand with my own, to be a part of his release.

He grabbed my face, kissing me deeply, then we wrapped our arms around each other, holding our still heaving and convulsing bodies.

The shower water, now running cooler, poured over us.

Jack, in fresh shorts and a t-shirt, since he’d actually known we had a sleep over ahead of time, and me just in the fluffy white robe I’d found in the bathroom, made ourselves comfortable on the wicker love seat out on the front porch. We elected not to use the rocking chairs, as cute as they were, so that we could sit together.

We’d found chilled local shrimp and cocktail sauce in the fridge, and we were now feasting on them, along with the champagne.

I felt heady and decadent and not entirely sure I wasn’t in a dream.

Even though the sky was still light with leftover sun, we’d lit the hurricane jars and citronella candles that surrounded the deck in an effort to keep any early mosquitoes away.

“Thank you for sharing your journal pages with me,” I said, broaching a subject I’d been meaning to get to. “What does taking the piss mean? You said the rain there “takes the piss”?”

He chuckled. “It’s a British term for taking the mickey, or teasing. Like it’s not really rain, it’s just insulting you by pretending to be …”

“Hmmm. It sounds like England is a tough place for you to spend time in. You seem … darker there, than how you are with me. Here.”

Jack took a sip of his champagne. The glass looked so delicate in his strong hand. He set it down on the table. “I am, there. But really, I have been like that for a while. I …” he took a breath and looked at me with a strange lopsided grin, his brow furrowing as he tugged on the crown of his hair. “I’m no good at expressing this stuff. I know I seem different with you. I notice it too, but I feel more me than anytime else. Does that make sense?”