Chapter 542 | Customer Service

Chapter 542: 542 | Customer Service

The suit fought me the whole way down. Neoprene doesn’t peel off like fabric; it clings and sucks and refuses to cooperate, so every inch came away from my skin with a wet sound no lingerie commercial has ever featured.

I dragged it over my shoulders first, and Belle watched the leopard scars come into view under the spray. Then I rolled it past my stomach, and I took my time there because the lady had paid for a show and I believe in customer service.

"You’re doing it slow on purpose to annoy me," Belle said.

"You literally asked for slow."

"I asked for slow because I wanted to enjoy it, and now you’re enjoying it more than I am."

"That sounds like a you problem, Fox."

She kicked my ankle under the water. It would have hurt more if my Endurance hadn’t jumped to B-rank that morning, and if I hadn’t just stabbed a monster the size of a church in its brain. I shoved the suit past my hips, and it slapped onto the plastic floor in a black heap that smelled like low tide and poor decisions.

Belle stopped pretending to be annoyed.

Her amber eyes dropped and stayed there, and the tip of her tongue touched the corner of her mouth before she caught herself. Steam curled around her thighs. The water ran off her chin and down between her breasts, where the soaked black lace had given up any pretense of coverage and simply outlined everything like an expensive crime scene sketch.

"Every single time," she muttered. "I keep telling myself I exaggerated it in my head, and every single time I’m wrong."

"You’ve told me that four times now."

"Five, and I’m keeping track, so don’t get smug."

"I’m never smug. I’m just correctly informed about my own excellence."

She grabbed my wrist and pulled me under the showerhead with her. The hot water hit my back and I groaned out loud, because my body had been cold and wet and full of monster juice for an hour and this felt better than half the religious experiences I’d read about. Belle pressed herself against my chest, and the cold of her skin soaked into me until she started to warm up too.

Her hands went straight to my scars. She traced each ridge with two fingers, from my left collarbone down across my ribs, slow and careful, and her face went blank the way it does when she runs numbers she doesn’t like.

"You got new ones," she said.

"Where?"

"Right here, on your hip, where that tentacle grabbed you." She pressed her thumb against a raw ring of red skin I hadn’t noticed. "It’s a sucker mark, Jace. You have a hickey from a sea monster."

"Is that a problem for you?"

"It’s a problem because it’s bigger than mine, and I refuse to lose a hickey competition to a fish."

"Technically it was a frog-seal with cephalopod traits."

"Say one more word about taxonomy and I’m leaving you in this stall."

She didn’t leave. She reached behind her back instead, unhooked the bra with one hand, and let it drop onto the floor beside my suit. Her breasts spilled free, heavy and flushed pink from the heat, and both nipples stood hard and dark. A bead of white formed at the left one before I had even touched her. Six weeks of the graft had trained her body to know exactly what I was for.

My chest lurched. The graft behind my sternum sat up like a dog hearing the treat bag open, and the amber ring in the back of my skull flared hot enough to make my eyes water. I told myself it was the steam.

"Look at you," Belle said, and her voice had gone soft and mean in equal measure. "You’re staring at me like I’m the last cup of water on earth."

"You kind of are, since I spent one of your cups in there."

"Then refill it, and put it straight in the Vault, because I want to see that number go back up before we get on the ferry."

I cupped her breast in my palm and felt the warmth pour into my hand before the milk did. Her head tipped back against the tiled wall, and the sound she made bounced off the plastic and came right back at us. I bent my head and closed my mouth around her nipple, and butterscotch flooded my tongue, rich and sweet under the hot water.

I didn’t swallow this time. I let the graft take it instead, routing the essence straight into the Vault. The notification ticked in pale gold at the corner of my vision, and I watched the count climb from three cups toward four in slow pulses that matched every pull of my mouth.

Belle’s fingers dug into my hair.

"Is it going in?" she gasped. "Tell me it’s going in, or I swear I’ll invoice you."

"It’s going in, and it’s going in fast."

"Faster than Naomi?"

"I am not answering that question in a locked shower stall."

"That means yes." Her laugh broke apart into a moan when I sucked harder. "It means yes, and I’m writing it down later."

I switched to her other breast and slid my free hand down her stomach, over the soft curve of her belly, and under the band of her soaked panties. She was slick and hot, and it had nothing to do with the shower. My fingers found her clit, and I rolled it in the slow circles she likes, the ones I’ve drilled since our first night in the Sanctum. Her thighs clamped around my wrist.

"You don’t get to do both," she whined. "That’s cheating, and you know it."

"You told me to refill the Vault with interest."

"Interest means compound, not simultaneous."

"You’re doing finance math while I’ve got my hand in your underwear."

"I’m always doing finance math, Jace. It’s how I stay calm around you."

I pushed two fingers inside her, and her calm packed its bags and left. She rocked her hips against my hand, and milk spilled faster over my tongue, and the counter in my vision ticked past four cups and kept going. I curled my fingers forward and pressed my thumb flat against her clit, and I gave her a small dose of Euphoric Feedback, a level five, just enough to set every nerve under her skin on edge.

Belle came fast and loud. Her back arched off the wall, her fingers yanked my hair so hard my scalp stung, and she screamed my name into the steam without any shame. Milk jetted from both breasts at once, and I caught what I could while the rest washed down her stomach and swirled into the drain.

I stayed with her through the shaking. I kept my fingers still inside her until her legs stopped trembling, and I kissed the underside of her breast while she caught her breath.

"That’s one," I said against her skin.

"You’re counting out loud now?"

"You count everything, so I figured you’d appreciate the professionalism."