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  He pumped himself slowly as he passed the water again over her clit, then down. She wanted him inside her, but the water had brought her so close she couldn’t speak, not even to ask for what she wanted. She couldn’t stop her hips from rocking against the spray. Her orgasm swelled inside her, refusing to be denied or put off, not even in the pursuit of what she knew would be equally as pleasurable.

  Bess gave a low, guttural cry as her entire body contracted and her wet skin skidded on the tiles. She cried out again as he directed the water onto her pussy, just below her clit and over it to just above. Nick jiggled the showerhead and Bess came, arching her back.

  He was on his feet before the final spasms had finished surging through her. He turned and bent her, her hands going to the bench where her foot had been a moment before. Nick parted her folds with his cock and pushed inside slowly, then began thrusting almost at once.

  It felt so good she cried out again, pushing back against him and tilting her body to open deeper for him. Her feet slipped a little on the shower floor but her grip on the bench kept her steady. Nick fucked into her, hard, as the pulsing water beat against her back. A moment later it was replaced with the swipe of his hand down her spine as Nick angled the showerhead below her. The water spurted up, coating her breasts and belly, but also hitting between her legs. Bess let go of the bench with one hand just long enough to push the showerhead lower against her clit.

  Nick gasped out something incoherent, probably when the water hit his balls, and thrust faster. Bess rocked against his cock and the water, biting her lip and finally giving in to the desire to moan and cry out his name, over and over.

  He answered, murmuring and then gasping a mingled stream of curses and endearments that tipped her over the edge into orgasm again. He followed with a shout and dropped the showerhead, which writhed at the end of its hose, whacking her in the ankles.

  Bess gasped for breath in the steamy air, and Nick withdrew slowly. He helped her up, the took the water and dialed the massage function to the gentlest spray so he could wash her all over, taking his time until at last he reached her still-tender places. Bess jumped when the water sprayed her there, but Nick didn’t let it linger long enough to hurt.

  “Guess I can cross that off my list,” he said when it was time again to speak.

  Bess laughed and reached around him to turn off the water, which was growing chilly. “I might have a list of my own, did you think of that?”

  “Bring it on.”

  He handed her a towel and took one for himself, rubbing at his hair until it stood on end. Their eyes met in the mirror.

  “I’ll never get tired of you,” he said suddenly, and with such sincerity Bess blushed.

  “I hope not.”

  “No.” He shook his head, reaching for her. “I mean it, Bess.”

  “Okay.” She kissed him, hugged him, held him tight against her with nothing but the towel between them. “I believe you.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Then

  “So, when am I coming down?” Andy’s voice sounded tinny with distance.

  Or maybe just wishful thinking.

  Bess didn’t have a calendar in front of her, as if that would have mattered. “When do you want to come, Andy?”

  In the past three summers she’d worked in Bethany Beach, the same three summers she’d been dating Andy, he’d only visited her twice. He said it was because, though he had the weekends off, she usually didn’t, and he didn’t want to hang out by himself. He didn’t want to sleep on the couch, or worse, the floor, and since Bess’s family was always occupying the rest of the house, sharing her bedroom was out of the question. Bess, who thought a free stay at the beach would have easily trumped any of those insignificant inconveniences, had stopped pushing him to visit.

  Now, of course, when she no longer wanted him to, he’d decided it was time.

  “I work every weekend,” she added before he could answer. “And the house is booked for the rest of the summer, too. You can have the cot on the screened porch, I guess.”

  “Very funny.”

  She hadn’t been joking. “It just seems sort of silly, Andy, to drive all the way down here for two days when I won’t even have the time off.”

  “Can’t you get the time off?”

  “I’m a manager,” she explained for probably the fourth time. “And I really need the money.”

  “Yeah, right. The money.” Andy hadn’t ever suffered for money in his life. “I guess I thought since I haven’t seen you since May, you might want me to visit.”

  “We were supposed to see each other for the Fast Fashion concert,” she reminded him. A week ago she wouldn’t have dared bring it up. Now everything he said made her want to fight him. “How was that, by the way?”

  “Is that what this is about?” Andy’s laugh curled her toes—and not in a good way. “Are you still mad about that?”

  “About the fact you gave another girl my ticket to see my favorite band? Why should I be mad about that, Andy?”

  “Don’t be such a bitch.”

  “Why is it that whenever I call you out on something you’ve done, you call me a bitch?” Bess looked into the living room, where a new set of relatives were happily making themselves at home.

  This week it was her cousin Danielle and her husband, Steve, with their three adorable but exhausting kids. Bess had already promised to babysit one evening, an offer that was less generous when you considered Danielle and Steve were offering to pay her almost as much as she made at Sugarland.

  “Do you want me to come or not?”

  “I wanted you to take me to that concert,” Bess said in a low voice.

  “Jesus, can’t you let it rest?”

  “No,” she said. “I guess I can’t.”

  Andy gave a heavy, long-suffering sigh. “If I’d known you were going to be such a pain in the ass about it, Bess—”

  “I think you might have guessed, Andy,” Bess interrupted. “It’s not like I didn’t tell you how I felt. It’s not like I said it was okay with me if you went without me. You knew, and you did it anyway.”

  That was what bothered her more than the fact he took some other girl. The fact she’d told him how she felt, and he’d disregarded it. Now she couldn’t stop remembering all the other times he hadn’t paid attention to her, or what she wanted. What she said.

  Andy was quiet. “I’m sorry, okay?”

  “It’s not okay!” she cried, her voice high and thin.

  “What do you want me to do about it now? It’s over! I went, okay? There’s nothing I can do about it now!”

  “No. You’re right. There’s not.”

  “I said I was sorry, Bess.”

  It would’ve been easier to forgive him. Put it aside. Make it all right again. But Bess said nothing, and the silence between them grew and grew while she couldn’t guess what Andy was thinking, and couldn’t stop imagining Nick’s face.

  “I love you,” Andy said.

  “Do you? Really?”

  He hung up on her. She stared at the phone for a few seconds before hanging up herself. Bastard. Her stomach churned and her hands felt shaky, but she didn’t cry.

  Leaving the cacophony above, Bess retreated to her room. It was clean because she couldn’t afford to let it get messy. She had barely enough space as it was. At the wooden desk, she pulled out a box of stationery. Embossed with her initial, E for Elisabeth, it had been a Christmas gift from a maiden aunt a long time ago. Bess never used it because she didn’t equate herself as an “E” and writing on the stationery had always felt like putting on a costume. Now, she pulled out a piece along with a pen and the matching envelope.

  Dear Andy,

  I don’t love you anymore.

  Andy. I’d hate you but I can’t even care enough about you to do that.

  Andy,

  I fucked someone and he made me come so hard I went momentarily blind, and I think I’m falling in love with him. So you can keep your little twat from