“I was planning ahead,” she whispered.

“Love a woman who plans ahead.” He set the condom on the soap rack, and then nudged a wet cami strap off her shoulder. Lowering his head, his lips grazed her jaw, her throat, across her collarbone. “Mmm,” he murmured against her skin, then pulled back a fraction of an inch to meet her gaze, his own hot as fire and intense. “Tell me this is what you want, Becca.”

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Why was nothing coming out?

“If I stay,” he said very gently but with utter steel, “I’m going to take you to your bed and make you feel so good that you forget whatever is putting that hollow look in your eyes. I promise you that.”

Another promise, but this one seemed as irresistible as the last one, so in answer to his very alpha-man statement, she mustered up some courage and pressed up against him, running her hands over sleek, hot, wet, male skin. God. God, he felt good.

His hands went to her hair, releasing it from her ponytail so that his fingers could run through the wavy, wet mess. “Becca?”

He wanted the words. “Stay,” she said.

He peeled her out of her cami and panties and groaned at the sight of her bared before him, kissing her long and hard and wet and deep. He grabbed the soap, and with a dark, heavy-lidded smile, started with her arms. Her stomach and chest were next. Slowly and deliberately, his hands stroked upward, teasing the heavy undersides of her br**sts until she sighed with pleasure, her head falling back to thunk against the tile. “Sam.”

“Learning what you like,” he said, and then kept teasing her until she said his name again, not so soft, and finally, oh God finally, his thumbs brushed over her ni**les.

She sucked in a breath and trembled from head to toe. So long. So long since she’d felt this way.

He let his fingers come into play then, meeting up with his thumbs, gently rolling. “Well, you like that.”

She couldn’t talk, but if she could have, she’d have said she loved it. Luckily he didn’t seem to need words because he dropped to his knees and soaped up her legs next, running his hands up the backs of them, cupping her ass, squeezing, before stroking back down. Then he began again with the front of her, up her shins, her thighs. And then between.

She gasped. “Sam—”

“Open, babe.”

“Um—” she started, thinking she was in way over her head, but he took over, his hands urging her to spread her feet. She did, and found herself wide open in every possible way, but there wasn’t any space in the shower or her head for self-consciousness, not with his hands on her.

And his mouth. And God, his mouth . . .

He took his sweet time about it, too, stroking, touching, kissing, licking every single inch of her so that she was breathing like a lunatic, worked up into a near frenzy. “Sam,” she gasped again. “Sam, I’m going to—”

“Do it,” he said, mouth still on her. “Come.”

She flew apart, but he was right there to put her back together again, holding her, slowly bringing her back. When she could, she blinked her eyes open and caught his slow, sexy-as-hell smile.

He’d watched her lose it, and she realized she badly wanted to do the same for him. Pulling him upright, she admired his gorgeous, tough, hard-muscled body with her hands first, and that was so good that she had to taste, too. She slid to her knees to do just that.

Pressing her mouth low on a very sexy spot just beneath his hip, she watched in pleasure and fascination as the muscles in his abs jerked. She wasn’t too sure of her skills in this arena, but he looked good enough to lick. So she did. And then again.

And then she took him into her mouth.

He made a low, rough noise, and she looked up at him through her lashes. His head was tipped back, eyes closed, the water flowing over his face and down his chest. His fingers slid in her hair and held on. She tensed, but his hold remained gentle, not guiding or pushing her. It was more like he needed the grip just to hold on, which actually made her feel powerful, and sexy. So sexy . . .

All good signs, she figured, and continued on, absorbing the groan that came from above her and echoed against the tiled walls when she experimented a little bit.

“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered, his body as tense as a tightly coiled spring ready to snap. After a few moments, he swore and roughly hauled her up.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Nuzzling his face in her neck, he shook his head. “Gotta slow down or I’m gonna come.”

“Wouldn’t that be only fair?”

He groaned again, kissed her, and then said against her lips as he hoisted her up, “I want to be inside you when I come, when we both come.”

The words nearly sent her up in flames, but she needed to tell him—

“Hold on to me,” he said. Leaning her into the tile wall, he slapped a hand out for the condom. “Magnum blueberry,” he read with a lip twitch.

She’d had her hands around him. And her lips. So she was speaking on good authority. “At least the size is right.”

He snorted and, holding her pinned against the wall, seared his mouth to hers. She parted her lips for him and garnered herself a low, sexy growl from the back of Sam’s throat as their tongues touched. She’d been doing her best to stay lost in his gaze, in his kisses and touches, and not let Real Life intercede, but she still had to tell him. “Sam.”

He sucked at the sweet spot right beneath her ear and her eyes nearly crossed in ecstasy. “Sam,” she said again, but he wasn’t listening. She tapped his chest. “Sam, I need to—”