by Selena Scott
“I kissed Arturo,” she told him.
He went still for a second and then sighed. “I thought that might happen.” He sounded sad and a little nervous. But not angry. “Was it, uh, was it as good as our kiss?”
The memory of the kiss she’d shared with Tre flooded her, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t warm enough to thaw the block of ice inside her. She was freezing from the inside out; she worried that if the ice Arturo had put into her made it to her heart she’d die.
“I’m cold, Tre.”
“Caroline?” Realizing something was very, very wrong, Tre rose to his feet and stepped toward her. “Love, what is it?”
She blinked at him through a cloud and saw something blue flicker between them. It was bright, like lightning.
“Jesus,” he growled and lunged forward as she swayed. He picked her up in his arms and stared down at her. He’d never, as long as he lived, forget the blood-freezing terror of watching her eyes roll back in her head as blue energy began to cocoon her. Kissing Arturo had done something horrible to her. It was the same blue death that had happened to everyone who came in contact with Arturo. It was killing her.
Tre’s mind raced as he turned on his heel and jogged to the bathroom that connected to his bedroom. He thanked God he’d had the audacity to pick a room with an ensuite because he needed to get her into warm water immediately. He knew what she was feeling. He’d been critically injured by Arturo just like this. He knew that warm water was a sort of ancient medicine that would wash this away.
Tre flicked on the shower and, without bothering to remove her clothes or his, stepped right in. The water was freezing for a full ten seconds before it began to warm. He kicked the stopper into the drain at the bottom of the tub and laid down with her, letting the shower fill up the bath. She stirred and shivered. He watched as the blue energy that had been wrapping her up started to drain away into the water.
He realized, in a sort of dim confusion, that the energy hadn’t tried to enter her or strangle her the way it had with Jean Luc—it was merely surrounding her.
Caroline let out a soft sob and clung to Tre as the water rose up to her elbows. He tightened his grip around her as she tightened hers around him. His heartbeat raced so fast it was as if it were a single buzzing line of tension within him. It occurred to him that he should shout for help from the others.
But then the water covered her shoulder and Caroline went lax. She lifted her head, her wet hair swirling around him and when she looked at him, it was with her eyes, her regular Caroline eyes. He knew she was going to be alright.
“You’re so warm,” she whispered.
“That’s the water, love.”
She blinked down, as if surprised to see that they were in a bathtub together. “Oh. No. Trust me. It’s you.” She blinked again. “We’re dressed. In the tub.”
“I was kind of in a hurry to get you in the water.”
“It’s gone, right? The blue?” She held up a hand to inspect and turned to him.
He nodded. “I watched it leave you. How do you feel?”
“On the outside I feel warm. But on the inside I still feel cold.”
He stiffened. “Is Arturo’s energy inside you still?”
“No.” She shook her head after a second, taking stock of her feelings. “It’s not that kind of cold, I don’t think. It’s something else.” She leaned forward and pressed her wet lips to his. A jolt of heat bloomed between them. “That helps.”
A relieved chuckle came out of him. “Ohhhhhkay. I think you need to get checked out by Martine and then get a good night’s sleep.”
He sat up in the water and frowned when he realized how much of a mess their wet clothes were going to make on the bathroom floor.
“Not without you.”
“What?” He turned to Caroline who was standing beside him.
“I’m not sleeping without you.” She reached down to her pajama top and slicked it right off, dropping it back into the tub.
Tre’s eyes followed the shirt’s path through the air and into the water. It swirled to the bottom of the tub like a blue cloud of ink. As he watched, another blue article of clothing hit the water. Her pajama shorts. They swayed and settled in the water. He thought of seaweed dancing in the current. And then one more piece of clothing joined. A pair of powder pink panties, swirling to the bottom of the tub.
He dimly heard a splashing noise that he knew was Caroline stepping out of the tub. He didn’t take his eyes off the underwater clothes. He knew what he’d see when he looked up.
He’d see a naked Caroline Clifton. And then his life as he knew it would be over. So instead of looking up at her, he just looked down at the clothes at the bottom of the tub.
Something touched his midsection and it was her soft hands at the bottom of his T-shirt. He let her strip it off of him. Still, he looked away. He watched his green T make a life at the bottom of the tub with her pajamas. He watched two white socks join his shirt and it made him smile to realize that she’d been butt naked except for those socks just a second ago. Her fingers tangled with the button of his jeans. He pressed the flat of his hand against her fingers and stilled her.
“Tre,” she whispered, though his gaze stayed away from her. “Make me warm like you’re warm. Give me some of your warmth. I’m so cold. Make me warm.”
He knew what she was asking for. But he only dimly understood what it would mean. He removed his hand and let her finish opening his jeans. It took both of their hands to shove his jeans down and wrestle his legs out of them because wet denim was more effectively constricting than fishing line when it came down to it.
Tre stepped out of the tub and stared down at his own dripping feet. She was three feet away in the brightly lit bathroom. Equally naked. Dripping wet. Breathing. Alive. Cold and needing warmth. She needed him. She’d been scared, hurt. She’d come to him. She wanted him.
He raised his eyes to her all at once.
He realized then that he’d never really understood what the word ‘stunning’ actually meant. He’d always just thought it meant ‘very pretty’. But that’s not what it meant at all. Here she was, the perfect example of stunning in the true sense of the word. Seeing her there stunned him. He felt as if he were caught in the beam of some hypnotizing light, drawing him forward into a new world. She was beautiful, yes, there was no doubt about that. Her small breasts were high and proud on her chest, her nipples a rose pink just like the lips of her sex that peeked from a tidy little thatch of silk hair. Her hips curved audaciously out, creating an unusual silhouette. She was deliciously pear shaped, her graceful shoulders and elegant neck accenting the illusion. Her hair was darker than normal, wet as it was, and hung clumpily over one shoulder. Drips of water raced themselves for the honor of slicking down her body.
But it wasn’t the physical that stunned him. It was something else. He had the strangest sense of deja vu for a moment. She was looking at him and he was looking back. Her pretty, round face was open and curious and excited and heated. She looked at him with longing and desire and something that he couldn’t put his finger on. He hadn’t been here before. He knew that without question. But also, this feeling inside him was familiar.
He stepped forward and so did she, but they didn’t meet. They walked a small circle around one another, almost as if it had been choreographed. They were close enough to feel the heat kick off one another’s skin; he could scent her exhales on the air.
The light was so bright, but not harsh. It, too, had a certain kind of heat to it. They circled again, stepping toward and away from one another at the same time.
“Do you feel that?” she whispered in her perfect Caroline voice. She circled one finger in the air to indicate the way the light and the heat were following them in a circle.
He did feel it. Strange as it was, he did. “It’s like a whirlpool.”
“Exactly.” Her eyes held his. “A whirlpool of warmth.” She stopped circling and stepped toward him. “And want.”
“And want,” he agreed. And then he stepped forward and slipped his arms around her back, banding her to his chest.
Her forehead hit the skin of his neck as he bent down to hug her to him. It felt so good, he returned the favor, nuzzling into her throat. Her arms came around him too, and one of her feet laid gently over the top of his. Their knees knocked against one another as they entwined their legs. His cock pressed into the softness of her belly and the heat that had been whirlpooling swirled faster, closing in on the two of them.
Unwilling to let go of each other, they stumbled clumsily from the bathroom to the bedroom, tipping to the side when their legs hit the edge of the bed. She shivered and Tre wasted zero time getting both of them under the covers where they continued to hug and tangle and nuzzle.
He planted his temple against hers and then slowly, firmly traced their foreheads together and placed his other temple on the other side of her. She tipped back and jammed the sides of their noses together. They both laughed when their plugged nostrils made Tre’s breath whistle. Her eyelashes drew a picture on his cheek and he kissed the messy part of her hair. They were still wet and when her hands left their chokehold on his back, the cool air that replaced her heat made him shiver.
Her breasts jammed against his chest. Caroline could barely get a hand between them to trace his collarbone where the leaves of green originated. But she got one good trace in before he rolled them so that he was on top of her. She automatically locked her ankles around his back and her arms around his neck. As sexual a position as it was, it was also something else. Tre got that same deja vu feeling again.
“I feel—” he tried and then shook his head.
“What?” she asked softly.
“I almost feel like I’ve been here before, with you.”
“I think,” she whispered slowly, “it was always supposed to happen just like this.”
Her fingers zipped down his spine as she let her heels trace down the back of his legs. She had a shockingly firm, heavy touch that delighted and aroused Tre. He felt like she was anchoring him to the earth. That there was nothing that she would let get in between them. There was nothing that could rip him from her.
Tre had a combination of born swagger and hard-won sexual skill. He was used to being in the driver’s seat, to leading sex in one direction or another based on his partner’s reactions. He got the feeling, though, when Caroline stuck her tongue out one corner of her mouth in concentration and stretched her leg down as far as she could to press the pad of her foot firmly against his, that he had somehow stumbled upon his perfect sexual equal. Like they were two halves of one broken coin. He’d never felt that way before and a wave of relief, surprisingly, washed over him.
“I’ve never touched foot bottoms with someone before,” he whispered, a smile on his lips.
“Me neither.” She grinned and it was that friendly Caroline smile of hers, all white teeth and lines at the corners of her eyes, that finally reeled him in.
His eyes on her mouth, Tre dropped his head and immediately met her tongue with his. She was right there with him.
Caroline had never been so warm in her entire life. She remembered learning once that heat was simply the vibration of atoms. And now she understood that on a personal level. Every lick of Tre’s tongue into her mouth had her about to come apart at the seams. She was wrapped in warmth, drowning in it. She couldn’t even remember what it felt like to be cold. She’d never been less lonely in her entire life.
She was filled to the brim with Tre. Surrounded by him. And surrounding him, too. She knew without a doubt that he was as overwhelmed and swept away as she was. If she needed proof, all she had to do was drop her mouth to his neck and bite. Which she did.
“Shit, Caroline,” he groaned, jutting his hips forward and pressing his cock into her stomach. “Are we—Is this—What’s—” he gave up and just groaned again, rolling with her so that she was laid out over top of him.
She stretched out over him, her toes pressing against his hairy ankles and her hands tangling in his hair. He held the full weight of her and it didn’t seem like enough. He wanted her to crush the breath out of him. He wanted there to be no more choices. He wanted to not be able to think.
If he thought about anything right now, he was going to ruin this swirling world of warmth and want that had somehow dropped down over them and trapped the two of them inside. He could either crack a metaphorical window and let the two of them catch their breath, or he could make sure the metaphorical doors were locked and keep them lost in this world.
Her tongue answered the question for him. He was lost in her kiss, her flavor, her eager devouring of him.
Caroline delighted in Tre’s flavor. He was so different than anyone she’d ever kissed before. He was slightly minty from toothpaste, but she tasted something smooth as well, almost almond-like. Her nose knocked his glasses and she reared back.
“Can I take your glasses off?” she asked, rearing back to straddle him, her hands floating in the air on either side of his head.
“Yeah.” But his hands gripped her wrists when she moved forward. “But first let me just look at you for a minute.”
“Oh.” Caroline pulled her hands back and tried not to wiggle as his eyes made their way inch by inch over her body, lingering at her breasts and the flare of her waist.
“Want me to stand up?” she asked, genuinely curious if he’d want to look at all of her in this same unhurried way.
“Yes,” he answered immediately.
She rose off of him and stood a few steps away from the bed, turning slowly so that he could get the whole picture.
Tre groaned and his head slipped off from where he’d been balancing it on his palm. “Your ass. Jesus. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prettier backside.”
Caroline looked back over her shoulder. “I always liked it, too. Makes it hard to find pants that fit, though.”
Caroline looked thoughtfully up at Tre and stepped forward to pull his glasses off his face. She danced back before he could reach for her and this time she was the one who was doing the memorizing.
He lay on his side, one palm balancing his chin and the other palm flat on the bed, his arm crossing over his body. Without his glasses, his face appeared longer, his eyes greener, his hair redder. His long body draped over the bed, the coppery hair on his legs catching the dim light. He had so many more muscles than the first time she’d seen him naked two months ago. His shoulders were defined and stately, his forearms corded. His chest was wider and shadowed, though it was hard to see all the muscle definition through his tattoos. It was not hard to see the V of muscles that arrowed down toward his groin. And that was where Caroline allowed her eyes to bottom out. The gloriousness that was Tre’s dick.
Her fingers played absently in the ends of her hair as she stared at him there. Under her direct gaze, she watched it grow another inch, spearing up toward his stomach. She’d only ever seen him flaccid before. And if she’d been honest with herself, she’d been partial to it even then. He’d been kind of square and pink and friendly looking. Now, however? Friendly wasn’t quite the right word. His cock was still square and thick, but also much longer than she’d imagined it would be.
His size was intimidating, especially considering that it was still growing, even as she watched. But there was something extremely appealing about it as well. She took a step forward, but then stopped and kept looking.
Peter would never have let her do this. Look her fill without prompting her to move on to the big show. In fact, Peter hadn’t liked to do anything that wasn’t an extremely fast whirlwind of lust that was usually over almost before Caroline had realized it had begun. And he really didn’t like leaving the lights on. Sex with Peter had not been visual. It had usually been under the covers. With most of his clothes on.
Tre watched her carefully as she took another step toward the bed. His tattoos were swirls of greens and oranges and reds and purples and blues. Most tattoos tha
t she’d seen had some sort of substantially black outline. But not Tre’s. There was almost no black in Tre’s designs. From what she could see, they were all color. She set a knee at the edge of the bed and still he just looked at her, still as could be. She reached forward and felt as if she were about to dive into a jungle of color. His tattoos gave the strangest illusion that he was a world all unto himself. She wanted to dive inside him. To wrap herself in him.
Caroline planted one hand on Tre’s shoulder and pressed against him, hard. He didn’t fall back. He pushed forward into her hand. She lifted her other knee to the edge of the mattress so that she balanced there, leaned over him. With no preamble, Caroline leaned down and kissed the top of his cock. He stiffened in surprise but didn’t say anything or pull away or push closer. He just continued to watch her.
She was eye level with his cock, staring at it in what seemed to be some sort of meet and greet that Tre would not have interrupted even if someone were to have busted into his room waving a bazooka. He was fascinated by her innocent sexiness; there was no ‘maybe’ with Caroline. He could feel her. She was all in. She was exactly where she wanted to be. She didn’t need Tre to seduce her or convince her that this was right. She was already there.
Desire for her had him by the throat and he had it pinned right back. Tre’s blood thrummed under his surface like a rushing river under a layer of ice. His demeanor was calm, his palm planted flat against the bed, laying casually on his side. But all he really wanted to do was press her flat against the bed, give her all his weight, push into her wetness until her eyes rolled back in her head.
As he watched, Caroline lowered her head again and this time she really tasted him. The head of his cock disappeared into her mouth and her warm, perfect tongue swirled around him like a lollipop. “Gah—fuck.”
She eyed him, smiled around his cock, went very serious and swallowed him to the back of her throat and beyond.
