Reckless

Chapter 24

Toni closed her eyes as the warm spray of water slowly began to relax her stiff muscles. While she was at the hospital, the medical staff only concerned themselves with the obvious dislocation of her shoulder. She suspected she actually hurt more than that when she slammed both her feet into the heavy steel door of the silo and bounced off, skidding against the hard packed dirt. Her entire body hurt. There was a giant purple bruise welling up on the side of her rounded hip. And her head had been pounding on and off since she woke up in the hospital.

Toni grew up watching her mother struggle with opioid addiction. The drugs consumed what was once a beautiful woman, turning her into a hollow shell of a person before the police found her dead in the trunk of a stolen car. Because of that, Toni absolutely refused to take prescription painkillers. Even if she needed them, she'd rather suffer than risk it. And she was prepared to do just that. But with the ibuprofen and the muscle relaxer she took, she found that being held under the warm spray of the water was enough to chase most of the pain away. There was still a dull throb in her shoulder. But she hardly noticed it as she leaned back against Spencer's chest.

"It's not too hot?," he asked, his hand cupping the elbow of her injured arm to keep the weight off her shoulder.

"It's good," Toni promised. She tilted her head back, letting it rest against his shoulder as her lips brushed along his jawline. "I like a hot shower… that way I can practice burning in hell for all the bad things I'm going to do to you," she teased.

Spencer let out a soft chuckle as he dipped his head down. "You don't do anything bad to me," he whispered. Toni closed her eyes, anticipating the feel of his mouth on hers. But instead of capturing Toni's lips, he pressed a chaste kiss to the side of her forehead. The soft contact made her smile. His message was clear whether he meant it to be or not. She was injured. He might have climbed into the shower with her. But Spencer wasn't expecting to do anything but hold her under the water. That small gesture made her heart swell. Spencer was genuinely kind and gentle, the sort of man that she would have been too immature to appreciate ten years ago. The things she'd seen in her line of work, along with a messy divorce, left her with a different perspective on life.

Toni shifted her body, moving away from the spray of the water as she reached for her body wash. The adjustment of her body placed Spencer's under the shower head. Her eyes roamed over him as he bent his knees and dipped his head under the water, letting it wet his hair. Toni coated her loofah in vanilla body wash. As she dipped it under the water, the warm musky scent began to fill the steamy space around her.

The water was sluicing down over Spencer's body as she reached forward, softly running the soapy sponge down the center of his chest. He was slender, but not what she would describe as skinny or scrawny. There was subtle definition in his chest and in the muscles of his arms, especially when he lifted them to push his wet hair back. She knew from personal experience that he was stronger than he looked.

The loofah left a trail of suds behind it down the center of his chest. Toni switched the sponge to her other hand, reaching forward to caress his body. Her fingers skimmed over him, reading his skin like braille. She committed every ripple of his chest to memory, stopping when she reached the slight protrusion of his hip bone.

"I thought I was supposed to be helping you wash…," he teased, catching her by the wrist and lifting her hand to his lips. Spencer kissed the back of her palm before brushing her knuckles back and forth across his lips.

Toni smiled. The muscle relaxers were tempering her arousal. But they weren't dampening it completely. A steady throb was building up between her legs as she pulled her hand back and used it to offer Spencer her loofah. Once it was in his hand, she turned, facing away from him. Toni sighed when he reached for her hip first, assessing the large bruise that was forming there with the soft brush of his fingertips.

"Thank you," he said, his voice deep and soft as his eyes lingered on the injured side of her body. "...for saving my life earlier."

Toni glanced back over her shoulder. Her darker eyes locked with Spencer's hazel orbs. But she only held his gaze for a moment. The emotion behind his eyes was so intense, she had to look away. A slight shiver rippled up her spine despite the warm steamy air curling around her.

Toni sucked in a ragged breath before she responded. "I'd do it again, even if it killed me," she admitted. A second shiver puckered up the dusky buds of her nipples. What she said was the absolute truth. And that made her feel more exposed than being naked in the shower ever could.

Toni felt Spencer's arms around her, pulling her against his chest. "Don't talk like that," he urged. "I don't like thinking about bad things happening to you."

Toni hummed. His hold on her was possessively tight. But she could tell he was still being mindful of her injuries. She melted into him, sighing when she felt the hard press of his arousal against the curve of her ass. He might not have any intention of bedding, but his dick had other ideas.

When Spencer pulled her against him, he squeezed the soapy sponge in his hand. A trail of suds were snaking their way down over one of her breasts. Toni reached up, cupping her hand over his and guiding his movements. After a moment she was able to let go. Toni leaned into him as he slowly worked his way from one of her rounded breasts to the other. The insatiable craving she always had for him was still there, bubbling under the surface. Normally she felt like she couldn't get him inside her fast enough. But the medication she took was helping to calm her need. For the moment, Toni was content to simply close her eyes and let Spencer explore her body at his own pace.

One of his hands moved to cup her elbow as the other slid down over the hollow of her stomach. He ran the loofah over the tattoo she had on the inside of her hip, a small cluster of stars in the shape of the gemini constellation. Next to that was the area just above her mound. Her skin there was littered with faded stretch marks from her pregnancy. Toni hummed as she felt Spencer adjust his hold on the sponge so he could trace his fingers over the softly textured patch of skin. She smiled when she realized that Spencer was doing exactly what she'd done to his chest a moment before, memorizing the look and feel of her body. Appreciating all the tiny details that made her unique.

Toni knew the old scar on Spencer's thigh was from a bullet wound he sustained on the job before they met the first time. And that wasn't the only permanent damage he sustained over his tenure with the FBI's profiling unit. Just like her, he had a small collection of scars to go along with the emotional trauma. Unlike her, he didn't have any tattoos. Not yet anyway. Whether he was ever planning on getting one hadn't yet come up in conversation between them.

"Is this okay?"

Toni hummed her approval as Spencer's hand reached the junction of her thighs. The soft texture of the sponge tickled the sensitive outer folds of her sex before he began to adjust their bodies. Spencer shifted her under the spray of the shower, reaching forward to hang up the loofa. As the water rinsed her body clean, he returned his hand to its previous position.

"Are you sure?," Spencer asked, his voice quiet and full of concern for her. "...you're hurt."

Toni reached her hand up and she tilted her head back, pulling his lips down to meet hers. "I landed on my shoulder," she reminded him. "I'm not hurt down there… It feels good, and it's helping me relax."

Spencer kissed her again as he began to move his hand with more confidence. Between the warm water running down over her and his fingers, it wasn't long before she found her release. The orgasm wasn't as intense as she was used to. But it seemed to last longer, the pleasure washing over her in slow euphoric waves. Toni didn't realize her knees were starting to buckle until Spencer abruptly cut the water off.

"You're tired. We should go to bed," he suggested. He meant they should go to sleep. But from Toni's smile and the enthusiastic nod of her head, Spencer knew she had other plans. He helped Toni out of the shower, wrapping her in a towel before he reached for the bathroom door. The room was thick with curls of vanilla scented steam. Spencer cracked the door and clicked the fan on to help some of the moisture dissipate.

"I've got to peek in on Romeo before I go to bed," Toni said, rising up in her tiptoes to kiss Spencer's cheek before she shuffled from the room with her bad arm tucked against her body like a broken wing. It upset him that she injured herself. But it also made him feel good. Toni was willing to risk herself to save him. It was more than Spencer ever allowed himself to hope for from any romantic relationship. He couldn't begin to describe the way he felt about her. Love didn't begin to cover it. For the first time in his life, Spencer was at a loss for words.

Spencer wrapped one of Toni's well worn used-to-be-blue towels around his waist before he headed down the hall in the same direction she went. On his way he passed a stray sock and a discarded soccer ball. There was never laundry or toys lying around his apartment. But Spencer reasoned that was probably because no one actually lived there. He was gone on assignment most of the time. And when he was there, he only had himself to clean up after.

The door at the end of the hallway was cracked open. Spencer paused in the doorway, smiling when he peeked in to find Toni sitting on the edge of her son's bed. Romeo was fast asleep with a well worn stuffed rabbit in his arms. Toni stroked his dark curls away from his face before she leaned down to kiss him.

The tender moment brought back childhood memories from the long buried recesses of Spencer's mind. There was a time, before his mother's sickness took her, that she tucked him into bed at night. Just like Toni was doing for her son now. It was the last time he could remember really feeling loved by someone. That was, until earlier that day, when Toni freight trained her body into a metal door to keep him from being suffocated by corn and grain.

Spencer did his best to shut off the profiling part of his mind when he wasn't at work. But it was hard not to look around Toni's apartment and draw certain conclusions. Her bedroom was similar to the rest of her home, furnished with cheap, mismatched furniture and sparsely decorated surfaces. The walls weren't painted. The only window dressings were the cheap plastic blinds that came with the apartment.

This apartment wasn't Toni's forever home. This was just somewhere she and her family were living temporarily, until she could find an apartment in a better neighborhood. Spencer wasn't sure if it would be appropriate for him to intervene in her living situation. But the wheels in his head were already turning. An elderly woman lived in the apartment next door to him. Since he helped her carry up her groceries, Spencer knew that she was planning to move to Florida to live with her daughter. If he asked the building manager, he could get first dibs on her apartment. He just wasn't sure when the right time might be to bring this up with Toni, or even how to broach the subject.

"Sorry," Toni said, whipping a small pile of clothes off her bed and back into the basket she probably dumped them out of. "I wasn't expecting company. And even if I was, this dump is never going to look as nice as your place."

Spencer smiled as he helped Toni straighten out the layers of colorful blankets on her bed. "You remember what my apartment looks like?," he asked. Toni was only inside once, six years ago. And he seemed to remember that a fair amount of tequila drinking happened beforehand.

Toni giggled at his question as if he was making a joke. "You're not the only one with a good memory," she teased. Toni slipped off her towel, hanging it from a hook on the wall. She moved towards him, pressing her naked body against his before she added, "...that was the best night of my life. I remember everything about it. Everything." Her voice turned thick with innuendo when she repeated the last word. Spencer's memory of that night was burned into his brain. He still had the note Toni left on his bedside table, though the paper was worn soft now from how many times he read it over the years.

Toni pulled on the corner of his damp towel until it released and she was able to let it drop on the floor near his feet. When she moved in, Spencer wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. Her skin was warm against his. He made her come in the shower, but he'd yet to find his own release. The walk from the bathroom to Toni's room cooled his arousal. But the moment he had her in his arms again, his dick went painfully rigid. He felt her warm breath against the skin of his neck. Spencer hummed, ready for the kiss that would follow. He liked everything Toni did to him. But having her kiss and suck on his neck was a personal favorite. There was no biological reason to explain why it felt so good. But that didn't stop it from making his balls tighten.

Spencer was anticipating her kiss. But instead, Toni whispered into his ear. "Do you remember that first night we were together… I asked you to fuck me." Spencer gripped her tighter as he nodded, feeling his dick twitch against her belly. He definitely remembered that. That wasn't something he was ever going to forget, even if he didn't have an eidetic memory. "If I asked you now, would you do it again?," Toni whispered. Her tone was flirtatious, almost like she was teasing. She had no idea the effect her dirty talk had on him.

Spencer slid his hands down to cup Toni's ass, gripping it tighter than he meant to as he jerked her hips against his. He captured her lips with his, letting all his feelings for her bubble to the surface as he kissed her. When he broke the kiss she was staring up at him, her pupils blown out with desire. There was only one thing left for him to say in response to her question.

"Get on the bed."