Chapter 22

Twenty-Two

TAM

The water cools fast, but I’m faster.

I get Bhodi out of the shower, dry him with a towel, and take him to my room.

To my bed.

Because I know what he means when he says he needs me, and that he trusts me enough to give it to him is the greatest gift in the fucking world.

It makes it easier to handle the subtle tremble still simmering beneath his skin. That he’s shaking for a reason that might give him nightmares. Bhodi doesn’t deserve bad dreams. He deserves to smile and laugh, and to believe the love I’ve felt for him over the past few weeks is real.

I leave the towels on the floor and drop my face to Bhodi’s neck, breathing him in. He tilts his head, giving me better access, and I weave my hand into his thick, damp hair.

God, he smells good. He always has, and it has nothing to do with outside elements or the soap I washed him with in the shower. It’s him , and a primal need to claim him for myself, once and for all, washes over me.

River always said I was wolfish. That one day, I’d find my person and basically piss on them. This isn’t quite that, but I get the sentiment. I feel it, and I sink my teeth into the juncture of Bhodi’s throat as candlelight flickers around us.

Bhodi’s tough. He doesn’t flinch away from the pain. If anything, he leans into it, and I bite harder, embedding a mark that I ghost with the barest brush of my lips, teasing him as a frustrated whoosh of air leaves his lungs.

“Tam, I need you to kiss me.”

His voice scrapes over the plea, compelling me to comply, as if I could ever refuse him. I bring our mouths together, slipping my tongue between his lips, owning him with it, giving myself to it as my head spins with the heat of it.

Sensual and raw, it’s every shade of perfect, and I can’t get enough. I can’t breathe and I don’t want to. Not if it means stopping this for the sake of a little oxygen.

Nice sentiment, but I’m human. The tightness in my lungs gets the better of me, and I pull back, getting my reward in his wide eyes and flushed face. In the slow smirk that’s starting to chip away at the trauma he’s brought home.

I love you.

With that on my mind as I kiss him again, I push him onto the bed, feeling him already hard against my leg, while I’ve been a rod of pent-up arousal since we stepped into the shower. My dick aches —I need this as much as he does. I need him and he knows it, sitting up to reach for me.

“No,” I whisper. “Let me love you. Please?”

Bhodi hesitates, but he must see in my face that I can’t be moved, and after a beat, he nods and lies back on the bed .

I crawl over him, spreading his legs, a low rumble of a groan rolling through me as I kiss his thigh, scraping my scruffy jaw over his sensitive skin.

Bhodi grits out a curse, squirming.

I laugh and pin him down, repeating the motion over and over until his spine arches from the bed and I’ll die if I don’t get his cock in my mouth.

With no warning, I swallow him whole, and Bhodi swears louder this time, his hands in my hair, his strong thighs a vice around my head, as consuming as he is when he’s fucking me.

It’s not the first time I’ve blown him, and God willing, it won’t be the last. But this feels different. Timeless, and yet somehow brand-new. I can’t get enough—and that’s not new. Not even close. But long minutes pass before I come up for air with salt on my tongue.

Bhodi stares down at me. “You’re playing roulette with my stamina if you want me to fuck you.”

I always want him to fuck me. He’s amazing at it. But it’s not on my mind right now. I move up the bed until I’m looming over him, keeping my weight to myself as he ignores his own warning and surges up to take my mouth, his soft lips as harsh and demanding as they’ll ever be, breaking my resolve to tease him a little, to draw this out, my imagination writing cheques my willpower can’t cash. “I was hoping you’d let me fuck you .”

Bhodi blinks, his jewel-bright eyes already dark with desire. “Let you?”

“I’m not a bloke who makes assumptions.”

He snorts. “There’s no scenario where me wanting you to fuck me isn’t a given. Only being inside you comes close. ”

“Now, you say that…” I’m still hovering over him, my dick screaming out for friction. “What if I’m shit at it?”

Bhodi starts to laugh. Then changes his mind and knocks my elbows, bringing me crashing down on him as he seizes my jaw in his hot hand. “Nothing between us could ever be bad.”

“I’m not always okay.”

Humour dies, obliterated by deeper emotion as we stare at each other in the dim glow of the room. Bhodi strokes my cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. “Neither am I.”

“I love you.”

His eyes redden. “I love you too—I’m so fucking sorry it scares me so much.”

I take his hand, kissing his wrist before I bring it to the pillow above his head. “Don’t ever be sorry for loving me. I know how lucky I am that you found me.”

Doubt looms in his gaze. I need to vanquish it, but I know I can’t. Not in one night. This thing between us—this love, this bond. It needs time, and I’m here for it.

I kiss the worries from Bhodi’s lips and we roll around on the bed for what feels like hours. A lifetime. Until I’m a mindless mess for anything but him. For the want in his eyes, and flush creeping up his perfect pale torso. For the dig of his fingers into my back as he urges me to press inside him.

The feel of him tight around me is deliriously fucking good. I slide forward, slow at first— careful . But a cautious fuck isn’t the kind of care Bhodi needs right now and another carnal rumble rolls through me, my body craving more as much as he is, the slick, blunt head of my cock driving deeper.

Bhodi groans, hips chasing friction. Chasing heat. Leaning into the stretch and burn I know so well. “Harder. ”

I fuck him harder. Not faster. Punching my pelvis forward, searching for the spot that will make him forget everything—what he saw at the scene of that accident, that it’s two days before Christmas. His own fucking name by the time I’m done with him.

But this is more than fucking. I’m buried in Bhodi’s body like it’s my home. Like it’s the safest place I’ve ever been and I’m never going to leave. And like everything else, it should scare me . But it doesn’t. I’m not afraid to love Bhodi. I never have been. It just took me a while to figure it out, and the thought makes me smile as a wave of bliss unhinges my jaw and I press my forehead to Bhodi’s, my breath matching his in short, sharp gasps.

We’re close, in every sense of the word. I’m fucking him so slowly that his eyes roll with every thrust, but it has nothing on the effect it’s having on me . My heart thumps with a blazing tattoo, pleasure gripping every nerve and muscle in my scarred body. My blood burns as it pumps through my veins at breakneck speed, and my soul?

Bhodi’s.

Forever and a day.

Or at least for as long as he’ll have me.

I don’t have the words to express that to him right now. I can only fuck him, sinking my gaze into him as his heated exhales dance over my skin, and hope he hears every little thing I haven’t said yet. The things I need to say louder , until they’re imprinted on his heart and his battered self-esteem stands up for him.

The snap of my hips grows louder. We shunt along the bed as Bhodi meets me thrust for thrust, and we become nothing but the crazed sensation binding us together.

Bhodi’s dick weeps against his stomach. I grip it in my fist, feverish, insatiable need sweeping over me, and my world narrows to the sweet bliss that’s going to ruin me.

He comes. Like, really fucking comes, his whole body jerking from the force of it, a rough, punched-out groan ripping from his chest. He’s so beautiful, I’m lost. But then that wave of sweet destruction finds me, and I detonate too, every sinew straining with release, euphoria echoing in my head until I’m nothing but how it feels to dive into his awed gaze and stay there for the rest of my fucking life.

Instead, maybe I fall asleep.

Or maybe he does.

All I know is that I’m dazed as fuck and him calling my name feels like a distant dream until I dial back into the universe.

I refocus.

Bhodi kisses me, biting my lips. “Fuck me again? Please?”

I fuck him all day.