My mouth splits wide into a smile of dazzling magnitude. I step back from her, dropping my hands from her face. Coughing slightly to clear my throat, I extend my arm, palm sideways, and say, “Hi. My name is Hawke. Nice to meet you.”

Vale purses her lips, letting me know she thinks I’m a dork, but I can see the humor in her gaze. She takes my hand, gives me a firm handshake. “I’m Vale. It’s nice to meet you too.”

We release our grip on each other, but rather than do without touching her, my hand comes up to slide my fingers into the hair at her temple. In deep, curving around the back of her head. I bend down, put my lips in a low hover over hers. “I know we just met and all, but is there any way I can talk you into taking a bath with me?”

She giggles, a sound I haven’t heard in years. It brings elation to my heart that I’m not sure I ever recall feeling. Slapping a playful hand on my chest, she says, “That’s kind of forward, don’t you think?”

“I thought ‘forward’ was the point,” I say, just before touching my mouth to hers. I give her the softest of kisses, more of a reclaiming.

“Okay,” she says softly, her warm lips still resting against mine. “Forward.”

—

“Lean forward a little,” I groan as my hands grip Vale by the hips. I’m lying in the tub, she’s straddling me.

Riding me, actually. Cock deep inside and it feels fucking fantastic.

Vale obeys me, hands on my shoulders, and she leans forward.

Perfect. My mouth closes around one sweet nipple and I suck on it as she presses her knees into the bottom of the porcelain tub so she can stroke up and down on my cock. I’m so fucking close to blowing, but I want her to come again. I got her off once with my hands, and that came on the heels of the water starting to cool and relaxation time being over. After she came spectacularly, back arching away from me as she sat between my legs and pressing harder against my hand, she immediately turned and climbed on top of my aching dick and has been bouncing up and down ever since. Her movements alone have caused more than half the water to slosh out onto the floor.

It’s wild, passionate, and unrestrained. No holding back. All in.

The way we always were.

“Need you to come, Vale,” I say, letting her nipple go as I slide one hand from her hip to between her legs. I press my index and middle fingers against her clit and make short circles around the plump bud. Vale’s head drops back but she moves faster on me, which drives my impending orgasm closer to the surface. My mind wants her to slow down a little so I don’t leave without her, but my cock wants that amazing explosion it knows is going to come from deep within my balls. My hips involuntarily punch upward into her as she slams down on me hard.

“Christ,” I mutter, my fingers losing traction on her clit for a moment.

Vale pays me no heed, bouncing harder, tits jiggling in my face. I sit up in the tub, hands going under her ass, and I help her along. Pull her up my cock, slam her down on it.

“Yes,” she cries out, eyes squeezed shut in rapture.

So I do it again.

The minute our flesh cracks like thunder from the impact because there’s almost no water left to cushion the blow, Vale lets out a low keening sound of pleasurable release. My hands go back to her hips and I grind her down on me, feeling my balls shrink, knot tight for a moment, then liquid release blows out of me hot and deep into her body. My face falls to her chest, her arms circle around me holding me tight.

We shudder and quake together, not swamped in bitter memories of the past but cataloging this one as the first in a new future together.

Whatever that may be.

“Wow,” Vale mutters in a voice laced with mellow bliss.

“Yeah, wow,” I concur, wrapping my arms around her lower back. I sit up straighter in the tub, and squeeze her entire body to mine. “That was fucking fantastic.”

“It really was,” she agrees, and although I can’t see her face because mine is now burrowed into her throat, I can hear the smile in her voice.

We quiet for a few moments. I can feel my dick deflating and yet I don’t want it to leave the cocoon of warmth where it’s nestled. There were countless times in the past after I’d fucked Vale that I wished I could just stay inside of her forever. It was my favorite place to be. It’s where I felt whole.

Vale gingerly pulls back from me and groans. “Damn…my thighs are going to be sore after that workout.”

“Rode me like a champ,” I say with a laugh, my hands coming to her thighs to give her a light massage. My eyes cut down to the rose tattoo, only a portion of which I can see since her inner thigh is almost flush with my outer. I drop down my right hand that’s rubbing the top of her left thigh and graze my fingers over the edge of the roses. “This made it easier for me,” I tell her.

“What’s that?” Her head cocks to the side in interest.

“To believe the real reason you broke it off. For so long I just believed you were done with me. But you weren’t, were you?”

Something crosses Vale’s face then, so fleeting I almost think I imagine it. But I don’t. I recognize what it is and immediately press her. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“No,” she says immediately, and her voice is soothing…laced with comfort and care. “No, all that needed to be said has been said tonight.”

I stare at her, not sure whether to believe what she’s saying. Her eyes are clear, boring into mine with surety.