Chapter 364: I Also Need to Take a Bath

Lucas drove.

The black BMW moved cleanly through the late-night streets, low and responsive under his hands. It was not his Bugatti. Nothing in the cabin had that same raw, violent authority. But the sedan was still a serious machine ~ tight steering, deep engine note, a body that sat planted on the road like it had been built for exactly this kind of quiet speed. Lucas felt the difference and respected it anyway.

Beside him, Rechelle sat in silence, one hand resting lightly against the door, eyes on the passing lights. Every so often the city opened around them in stretches of glass and empty pavement. The night made everything look sharper.

Lucas glanced at the dashboard once, then back at the road.

It was hard not to admit it.

Her taste in cars was better than he wanted to admit.

---

The Mandarin Oriental rose ahead of them in warm stone and glass, lit against the dark like a place that never fully slept. Lucas pulled into the front approach and brought the BMW to a smooth stop. A valet started forward, then slowed when he took in the state of the man stepping out of the driver’s seat.

Lucas ignored it.

He walked around the car, opened Rechelle’s door, and followed her into the lobby.

The air inside was cool and expensive. Soft light. Polished floors. The quiet hush of a hotel that dealt mostly in people who arrived already perfect. The receptionist looked up at once. Recognition moved across her face the moment she saw Rechelle ~ polite, practiced, familiar. Then her eyes shifted to Lucas.

The contrast was impossible to miss.

His clothes were still marked by the night. Dirt along the lower half. Dark stains that had not fully dried. The look of a man who had not come from dinner or a private car service, but from somewhere harder. And yet none of it managed to bury what was underneath. The build. The face. The calm way he stood there as if the lobby belonged to him just as much as anyone else in better clothes.

People who came through these doors usually arrived prepared.

Lucas had arrived as he was.

The receptionist recovered quickly.

"Ms. Rechelle," she said, already moving to the system. "We have the presidential suite available. I’ll have it prepared at once."

Rechelle gave a small nod. Lucas said nothing. Within minutes they were being led upward through private halls and into a suite that opened wide around them ~ soft lighting, deep furniture, floor-to-ceiling glass looking out over the night city, and a bed large enough to make the rest of the room feel secondary.

The door shut behind them.

For the first time since the mansion, the world went quiet in a way that felt real.

Lucas stood still for a moment, then moved to the nearest chair and sat. The weight of the day settled into his shoulders only now that there was nothing left to chase or burn. When he looked down at his hands, the traces were still there. Blood. Dirt. The faint chemical ghost of fuel that one quick wash had not fully removed.

He needed a shower.

He rose, pulled the ruined shirt over his head, and dropped it aside.

Rechelle was already on the edge of the bed.

She had meant only to sit. To breathe. To let the safety of the room reach her. But when Lucas stripped the shirt away, her eyes caught on him before she could stop them. The lines of his back were clean and hard under the suite light, the muscle cut deeper than she remembered from ordinary moments ~ as if the violence of the night had left something sharper in the way he carried himself. Sweat and strain had burned everything unnecessary off him. What remained was solid, controlled, and impossible to ignore.

She looked away.

Then looked again.

Lucas did not call attention to it. He gathered what he needed and walked toward the bathroom with the same unhurried calm he had carried through the rest of the night. The door closed behind him a moment later, and the sound of water followed soon after.

The shower ran in a steady rush behind the closed bathroom door.

Rechelle sat on the edge of the bed and tried to talk herself down.

She told herself she was being stupid. That she was still shaken from the night. That gratitude and fear were mixing in her body and making her want things she should not reach for so quickly. She pressed her palms against her thighs and stared at the bathroom door like it might give her a better answer than the one already forming in her chest.

It did not.

The sound of water kept going. Soft. Continuous. Impossible to ignore. Every second of it made the room feel smaller. Made the space between her and that door feel thinner.

Rechelle’s fingers moved to the front of her clothes before she fully accepted what she was doing.

She told herself it was only because she needed to bathe too. That she would not sleep with the night still on her body. That this was practical. Ordinary. Nothing more.

The lie was weak even inside her own head.

She stood, unbuttoned her top, and let it fall. Her skirt followed. The suite air touched her bare stomach and thighs as she stepped out of the rest, leaving only her bra and panties. Her reflection in the dark window glass looked flushed already, chest rising too fast, nipples pressing visibly against the thin fabric.

She crossed the room on quiet feet and opened the bathroom door.

Steam spilled out around her.

Lucas was under the water, head tilted slightly forward, water running down the hard lines of his shoulders and back. When the door opened, he turned.

His eyes moved over her at once.

The bra did almost nothing to hide her. Her nipples were already tight, pushing clearly against the cups. The soft curve of her breasts, the narrow line of her waist, the full shape of her hips in only panties ~ all of it stood under the bathroom light with nowhere to hide. For a second neither of them spoke. The shower continued behind him, loud in the silence between their bodies.

Rechelle felt his stare land on her chest and stay there.

Heat rushed up her neck.

"I also need to take a bath," she said, too quickly. "Nothing else."

She tried to sound normal. She failed. Her voice came out thinner than she wanted, already marked by nerves and want. She stepped farther in, closer to the steam and the water, as if finishing the sentence would make the excuse solid.

Lucas moved first.

His hand closed around her wrist and pulled her in under the spray with him. The hot water hit her shoulders and back at once, soaking through the thin bra and panties until the fabric clung to her skin. Rechelle’s breath caught. Before she could recover, Lucas turned her slightly and drew her back against his body.

Her ass pressed directly against him.

She felt him at once ~ hard, thick, and unmistakable through the water and the last barrier of wet cloth between them. A soft sound left her throat before she could stop it. Lucas lowered his head to the side of her neck, mouth brushing the wet skin just below her ear, and both of his hands came up over her stomach and higher until they filled with her breasts through the soaked bra.

He squeezed.

Firm. Slow. Possessive.

"Ahh... Lucas..."

The moan slipped out of her as his palms pressed into the soft weight of her chest, thumbs dragging across the stiffened peaks of her nipples through the fabric. Her head tipped back against his shoulder. Water ran down both of them in continuous sheets, making every touch hotter and more immediate. Lucas kissed her neck properly then ~ open-mouthed, deliberate ~ tasting the wet skin as he held her breasts and pulled her tighter against the hard length of his cock.

Rechelle’s hands found his forearms and gripped them.

She could feel every shift of his body behind her. Every slow grind of his hips that pressed his dick more firmly between the soft cheeks of her ass. Her bra was useless now, transparent and heavy with water. Lucas’s fingers slid beneath the lower edge of one cup, then the other, and with a practiced motion he unhooked it completely.

The bra fell open.

He pulled it down her arms and let it drop to the wet floor.

Her bare breasts filled his hands at once ~ full, soft, and already sensitive. Lucas groaned low against her neck as he squeezed them properly for the first time, kneading the warm flesh, rolling her nipples between his fingers until Rechelle’s knees weakened under the pleasure. She arched into his palms with a broken little sound, ass pressing back harder against his cock as the water continued to pour over them both.

"Lucas..." she whispered again, breathless now. "Ahh~yes..."

He turned her face toward him with one wet hand and kissed her mouth.

It was not gentle for long.

The first contact was deep and hungry, lips parting at once, tongues meeting in the heat and steam. Rechelle moaned into the kiss as Lucas kept one hand locked on her breast, squeezing and teasing the nipple without pause, while the other slid down her stomach and over the soaked front of her panties. She clung to him, kissing him back with the same desperate intensity that had been building in her since the gate, since the hug, since the moment she realized she was still alive because of him.

Water streamed down their joined mouths.

Her bare breasts stayed crushed in his hand.

And behind her, his hard cock remained pressed tight against her ass, throbbing with every shift of their bodies under the shower.