Chapter Seventeen
Jaxson
Had Ariella just shot me a sultry glance to come join her in the shower? Was I reading into her sad gaze because I wanted her to desire me as much as I craved her?
Skylar droned on with question after question asking about the hostage ordeal. If anyone was hurt, what they wanted, why they’d taken hostages if there were demands, the list continued on.
I hadn’t stuck around to find out why the gunmen had taken hostages. It had been obvious they were after something. My guess was money, but they weren’t about to get a truckload of cash from their heist. SWAT was handling rescuing the other hostages. I’d been told to go home and that our services were no longer wanted after the stunt I’d pulled to save Ariella and Hazel.
It wasn’t good for our company, but the local sheriff didn’t seem nearly as perturbed as the lead on the case. We hadn’t tried to step on any toes or insult the big guys with badges, but we did what needed to be done to save our people, and I told them I’d have done it all over again. That’s what got my ass in trouble. I had no regrets, at least not with how it went down.
My only regret was that I’d hurt Ariella.
She’d be even more upset with me if I didn’t join her in the shower, assuming that was her intent. Maybe she wanted me to sneak upstairs so we could finish what we’d started? Or I could have been completely off, and she’d reem me the minute I invited myself into the shower unannounced. Yeah, talk about sexual harassment in the workplace. That’s one for the books, but let’s face it, she was living with me, her boss. We were bound to cross some lines a little more than others.
I wanted to cross the line that with her, the one that kept us strictly as friends and professionals. I was over being just her boss. If she gave her consent, what was the harm in falling into bed again?
Skylar continued droning on about how worried she was, how every local station had the crisis on television, and that she didn’t want Izzie to see it but that she felt it necessary to watch it herself.
I found myself nodding, agreeing with her, pretending to listen, just to make the conversation over and done with. I was being an ass, I knew it, but Skylar and I didn’t get along. We hadn’t in years since Dad died. She blamed me. I blamed myself. It was a great situation, really.
“Do you smell that?” I asked and sniffed my shirt. “I need to get showered and cleaned up. I stink, and I’m sure no one wants to smell this body.” Anything to get her to leave me alone for twenty minutes, maybe an hour.
“We need to talk, Jaxson, when you’re done.” Skylar folded her arms across her chest.
I stripped out of my shoes and headed for the stairs. “Just say it.” Skylar never beat around the bush. She was brazen a little too much so at times. Since when did she wait for permission for anything?
“I’m staying in Breckenridge permanently. I applied for a job and got hired at the coffee shop in town,” Skylar said.
“Great,” I muttered, storming up the stairs.
“I thought you’d be happy that I was around more,” Skylar said.
“I said great!” I shouted back down at her as I hurried upstairs. The guest bathroom light was off and the door open. Sneaky. She’d snuck into my private bathroom. I slipped into my bedroom and noticed the bathroom light was on and the door had been left ajar.
I stripped out my clothes, my shirt on the ground, my pants, my boxers, and lastly, my socks. I opened the bathroom door naked, hoping I hadn’t misread her signal. Did she want this? Did she want me?
I yanked back the curtain and stepped into the shower with her. Unlike the last time where she’d been curled up on the floor, this time, she was exactly as I would have imagined, standing under the spray dripping wet.
I climbed into the steamy shower and pulled her tight. My lips crushed hers. I needed to feel her all around me. Frenzied, I lifted one of her legs and guided myself inside of her warmth, burying inside of her.
Ariella moaned as I swiftly entered her. Her fingernails gripped my back, digging in, marking me. Her head dipped back, skin flushed. Was she blushing from desire or the heat of the shower?
Steam surrounded us. The sound of water pouring out the shower I prayed hid the noises we made from listening ears.
“Harder,” she grunted into my ear, her teeth tugging on the lobe.
I groaned and tried to concentrate on satisfying her and not ruin an incredible moment.
I lifted her hips, her legs wrapped around me as I backed her up against the shower wall. She shivered with her back to the interior.
“God, that’s cold,” she muttered and pulled me tighter, deeper, squeezing down.
It took every amount of measurable self-control I had not to disappoint her. “Won’t happen again.”
“I hope it does.” Her breath tickled my neck before I captured her lips again.
I tried to go slow, drag out the inevitable moment, but the thought of losing her had torn me apart inside. I’d broken every protocol today. None of it mattered, only that we were here now, together.