CHAPTER 80: STEAM AND SURRENDER (MINOR R-18)

The bathroom had become a fucking fever dream.

Steam was pouring off the marble like we were trapped inside some bougie spa fantasy gone wild. The mirrors were fogged, the lights were soft and golden, and the air was so thick with heat and lust it felt like it could choke you.

I was soaked to the bone—hair dripping, chest gleaming, water running in steady streams down every inch of muscle. My skin was flushed, glistening like molten bronze under the light, and the heat wasn’t just from the damn shower anymore.

Outlining every flex, every shift of power in my body. Each drop that slid over my chest traced the deep cut of my abs, flowing between muscle like liquid fingers, and Isabella... fuck, she was staring.

Her pupils were blown. Her lips parted, breathing shaky, shallow, erratic. She wasn’t just looking—she was devouring.

Her throat bobbed with a dry swallow as her eyes dragged down my torso, pausing on the sharp V leading beneath the waistband of my jeans. Her legs buckled a little. Just a twitch, but I caught it. She caught herself on the edge of the sink like gravity had sucker punched her.

"Jesus..." she whispered, and her voice cracked so hard it made her wince. Like her vocal cords were short-circuiting from the overload. She let out this breathless, desperate noise—half-laugh, half-moan—and quickly bit her bottom lip, like even she didn’t expect the way her body was betraying her.

And that sound? That fucking sound made my spine tingle.

Her cheeks flushed deep—rosy, burning, like someone had lit a match under her skin. She was blinking fast, eyes darting over my body like she couldn’t decide what to worship first.

Her fingers clenched the counter behind her like her knees were two seconds from giving out.

I could see the way her thighs pressed together, instinctive, needy. She was soaking in every drop of water running down my chest like it was foreplay, like just looking

at me was making her unravel.

I took a step closer.

She gasped—honest to god, gasped—and backed against the vanity like her body didn’t trust itself to behave. Her breath hitched, her whole chest rising with it, and her nipples—fuck—were already peeking through her soaked tank top like they were begging for attention.

"You’re okay with me, Bella~" I said, voice low, teasing, just to watch her squirm.

Her answer was a broken moan, soft and shivering. She shook her head, but there wasn’t a trace of denial in it. Her eyes locked on mine, wide, glassy, absolutely wrecked. Her bottom lip was trembling.

That kind of trembling that only happens when someone’s standing on the edge of something they’ve been dying for but too scared to ask.

’Look at you, Peter,’ I thought, heat pulsing through me as I took her in—this beautiful, lonely woman, absolutely trembling just from looking. Remember when you were the quiet kid, the one who didn’t even know how to make eye contact with girls? Now you’re making grown women moan without even touching them.

And Isabella Rodriguez? She wasn’t just wet from the steam.

She was fucking drenched—and not a damn drop had come from the shower.

"You said you needed something fixed," I murmured, my voice dipping low—thick like honey, dark like sin. The kind of tone that made good girls forget why they were good in the first place. "Didn’t say which pipe."

Yeah, I know. Real poetic, Carter. But she wasn’t laughing. Isabella looked at me like I’d just dropped a spell on her. Her lips parted, breath caught, and those big, dark eyes flicked up to mine—so damn wide, like she was afraid blinking might snap the illusion and I’d vanish.

"You’re..." Her voice trembled like it couldn’t handle what her eyes were seeing. "Beautiful."

She flinched a second later. "No. Not beautiful—unreal."

Unreal.

Unreal. Yeah, that’s what supernatural enhancement will do for you. I went from looking like discount Tom Holland to whatever the fuck this was—some kind of wet dream made flesh. The system had basically given me the cheat codes to human attraction, and Isabella was discovering what max-level stats looked like in real life.

Took me from boy-next-door to walking, talking sin. Every inch of me designed to ruin.

I stepped closer. Not rushed. Just... steady. Letting the space between us evaporate. The steam from the shower curled around us, thick and slow, like it knew this wasn’t just another moment—it was the moment. Her pants hung low on her hips, clinging to her curves like they didn’t want to let go, and I couldn’t blame them

Water ran down my chest, tracing the lines of my torso, gliding over muscles like they were sculpted just for this. The heat coming off me was unreal—like her body was sensing me before I even touched her. Like some primal alarm was going off saying this man is dangerous but she didn’t care. Or maybe she did. Maybe that was the point.

Her eyes drank me in. Slow. Greedy. Like she didn’t know if this was real, but she was willing to risk her soul to taste it.

"You know what you’re doing," I muttered under my breath, half to myself, half to the universe that handed me this moment. Her pupils were blown wide, her breathing all over the place. Four damn years of cold nights and lonely mornings, and now she was about to be wrecked in the best way.

I reached for the top of her blouse, fingertips brushing warm, damp skin, and holy hell—she shivered.

Her back hit the tiles, hands flat against the marble like she needed something solid to survive this. The fabric clung to her body, wet and nearly see-through, nipples hard and aching through the cotton like they were screaming for attention. I could see every curve, every line, and I swear my self-control cracked like old glass.

"Jesus, Rodriguez," I breathed, taking in the wreckage I was already causing just by being. "When’s the last time someone saw you?"

Not looked. Saw.

I reached for her wrists—slow, deliberate—lifting them above her head and pressing them to the wall. She didn’t resist. Didn’t flinch. Just let me take control like her whole body had been waiting for it. My body hovered close, not touching yet, but she could feel me. She could feel the heat, the weight, the promise.

The tension? Atomic.

She was trembling, thighs pressed together like she was trying to hold herself together. Like one more breath from me might break her.

"You want this?" I asked, my lips brushing the shell of her ear, voice low enough to make her toes curl.

She gasped, then—"Yes." It cracked out of her like she’d been choking on it for years. "God, yes."

And there it was.

That raw, aching truth. The moment she stopped pretending she was okay being untouched, unloved, unseen. The moment the hunger outweighed the pride.

I leaned in closer, finally letting my body press against hers—skin to skin, fire to flame.

"Then I’m gonna give it to you," I whispered, "until you forget what starving felt like."

I leaned in and kissed her—not that desperate, clumsy shit that looks good on screen but feels like nothing. No. This was slower. More dangerous. Like I had centuries to kill and nothing better to do than learn the shape of her mouth.

My lips barely grazed hers. Once. Twice. Then again.

Each time softer than the last.

And it broke her.

She started chasing me—subtle, tiny shifts of her chin, her mouth parting like she was hungry for something but didn’t quite know how to ask. Desperation without a word. It was fucking beautiful.

"Then stay still," I whispered against her lips, my breath slipping into her mouth like a secret. "Let me show you what it really means to be wanted."

I didn’t give her a chance to answer. Just dipped my head down to her neck, lips brushing the pulse hammering beneath her skin. She tasted like heat and luxury—like steam and rosewater and a body that hadn’t been touched right in way too fucking long.

I kissed just beneath her ear, slow and open-mouthed, and she melted. Literally. Her knees buckled, her shoulders slumped into me, and a soft, choked gasp slipped out like I’d pulled something out of her soul.

Goddamn.

She sounded like sin. Like a confession whispered too close to the altar.

And yeah—maybe I was doing something illegal here. Her husband was at work. We were standing in the same marble-tiled bathroom she probably used to wash off his cologne. But he hadn’t touched her like this.

Hadn’t kissed her like she mattered. Hadn’t seen her the way I did right now—with her back pressed to the warm tile and her entire body trembling just from the brush of my mouth.

Welcome to the fucking big leagues, Isabella.