Page 27 of Knife Thrower

I twist the faucet. Hot water blasts from the showerhead, filling the tiny stall with thick white steam. Then I step under the spray. The heat bites into my skin, melting the tension from my shoulders, but it does absolutely nothing for the pulsing ache between my thighs that’s been there since Cole kissed me.

I close my eyes. The music hums in my memory. The solid, anchoring weight of Cole’s palm on my hip. The intoxicating slide of his mouth over mine.

I haven’t kissed a man like that in my entire life. I haven’t let myself want a man like that.

My nipples tighten into hard, aching peaks. Blood rushes south, a heavy flood settling directly over my clit, making my pulse thud in my groin.

I drag a soapy hand down my chest. My fingers find my breast, gripping the slick, wet curve, my thumb dragging across the sensitive peak. A ragged breath tears through my lips.

I push my hand lower, tracing the flat plane of my stomach, trailing through the dripping water until my fingers slip through the wet blonde curls between my legs.

I’m drenched. Slick, hot wetness coats my folds, entirely separate from the shower spray. I press two fingers against my clit and trace a slow, agonizing circle. My hips jerk forward of their own accord.

Cole’s face flashes behind my eyelids. I picture him at the outdoor gym. The gray muscle top clinging to his broad chest. The sheen of sweat coating his skin. The dark, predatory heat in his eyes as he watched me tear into the heavy bag.

A low moan vibrates in my throat.

I reach up, unhook the showerhead from its mount, and bring it down between my thighs. I angle the nozzle, letting the hard, pulsing stream of hot water hit the swollen bundle of nerves directly.

My spine bows backward. My head hits the wet plastic wall of the stall.

“Oh fuck,” I whimper, the sound bouncing off the tiles. “Oh fuck.”

My eyes flutter shut. The physical sensation drags me under, morphing into a vivid, consuming hallucination.

I’m back in the Big Top under the fairy lights. Cole doesn’t stop with a kiss. He drops to his knees in the sawdust. He drags my pants down my hips, his large hands gripping the backs of my thighs. He buries his face between my legs.

The hot, rhythmic pressure of the shower spray becomes his tongue. Lapping. Devouring. Relentless.

I grind my hips into the water, my fingers twisting into my own wet hair. The tension coils tight, pulling my muscles taut like a drawn bowstring.

The orgasm hits like a lightning strike.

“Cole,” I sob, the name tearing out of my chest.

My hips stutter against the spray as pleasure rips through my core, bright and blinding, shattering every lingering thought in my head. Before the spasms even begin to fade, the relentless heat of the water pushes me straight over the edge again.

The first climax bleeds violently into a second.

A broken cry leaves my mouth. My pussy clenches down hard over nothing, milking the phantom pressure, waves of intense aftershocks leaving my legs trembling violently.

I return the showerhead to its holder, brace my forearms against the wet wall, and rest my forehead on the slick plastic. The hot water rains over my back as I drag air into my burning lungs, my chest heaving, listening to the heavy, frantic drumbeat of my own heart.

Alive.

I am so incredibly alive.

I fall asleep with damp hair and a bone-deep exhaustion dragging me under.

I don’t dream about Cole. The lingering, phantom heat of his mouth and the heavy rush of my own climax fade into the dark. I don’t dream about June, either.

Instead, I am fifteen again.

The air smells like cedar, stale cigarette smoke, and suffocating dread. I kneel on the patterned runner rug in the hallway of my stepfather’s house. The metal of a bobby pin bites into my thumb as I work it inside the brass keyhole of his study door.

I am terrifyingly good at this. Muscle memory guides my wrist. I never fully understood why I spent so many hours breaking into this room. Some desperate, fractured part of my child-brain believed I would find a smoking gun. A ledger of crimes. Proof dark and illegal enough to drag Raymond out of our house in handcuffs and lock him away forever.

A naive fantasy. The system never protects the victim. Justice belongs firmly to connected men. Men with money, country club memberships, and pristine reputations.