BargainWiththeBeast by Naima Simone Read Free Book Online Page B

mid-stroke and Gwendolyn stared at him over her shoulder.
    “Sorry,” he murmured, the word husky as thoughts of having
her wet, tight sheath surrounding him and the sugary spice of her on his tongue
flooded his mind. “Lean your head back so I can rinse the shampoo out.”
    As he stood and removed the detachable showerhead from its
anchor, she snickered. “I didn’t really call you Jesus, did I?”
    He couldn’t prevent the grin from stretching his lips any
more than he could have tamped down his lust. Water poured from the spigot in a
thunderous rush before he twisted another knob and the downpour switched to a
steady stream from the showerhead. He waved his fingers under the water to test
its warmth. Satisfied with the temperature, he lifted the nozzle to Gwendolyn’s
hair. The loose honey-colored curls darkened to caramel under the spray and
tightened into the corkscrews that had always fascinated him. Still did.
    “Yes, ’fraid so.” He would have added she’d also poked his
chest and called him a lumpy but warm blanket as she’d burrowed closer to him,
but revealing that bit of information would involve explaining he’d slept in
the bed with her. Yeah, not the best time to expose how intimate they’d
actually become over the past two days.
    “I don’t see why my supposed divinity surprises you,” he
said, setting the showerhead on the side of the tub. “I delivered your sweet
ass out of so many scrapes when we were younger, I might as well be your
savior.”
    Her laughter bounced off the tiled walls. “You’re
exaggerating, Xavier. I may have been curious and… active , but I wasn’t a
terror.”
    He snorted his disbelief and poured more shampoo into his
hand before rubbing it in her hair. Again Gwendolyn emitted a small moan and
the low, dark sigh rippled down his cock. His fingers tensed momentarily before
resuming the massage.
    “What about the time you scheduled a fight for three o’clock
behind the community center with the biggest eleven-year-old God had ever
created, and I had to break it up before that girl handed your ass to you in a
sling?”
    “She was a bully.”
    “And the time I had to drive out in the middle of the night
to pick up you and your girlfriends on the side of the road because your car
broke down on the way home from sneaking into that all-male revue?”
    “A rite of passage?”
    “And we can’t forget about the streaking incident in
college. Not only did I have to go down to the police station and bail you out,
but I also had to promise all sorts of things to the dean of students so she
would agree not to suspend you from school.”
    “You did take one for the team that time, Xavier.” She
chuckled and leaned her head back for another rinse. Her grin stretched wide.
“But at least she was pretty.”
    “She was at least fifty years old to my twenty-three and I
had to dodge her phone calls for a year after our dinner,” he growled and
playfully tugged her hair.
    Her exaggerated yelp drew a rusty laugh from him.
    “I wouldn’t have made it through college without you.” She
closed her eyes as he threaded his fingers through her thick, sodden hair,
ensuring all the shampoo had been washed out. “Sacrifices notwithstanding, the
phone calls to check in on me, unexpected visits to cart me to dinner, even
help with my papers and exams…” She shook her head. “You were the best friend I
had. I never admitted this before, but when Joshua announced he was attending
Rhode Island University and leaving me in Boston, I was scared as hell. For the
first time since we were kids, I faced being alone. But with you there, I
wasn’t by myself. I’ve never thanked you for that. I’m sure you had better
options than spending evenings with your younger brother’s girlfriend.” She
lifted her lashes and he stared down into her dark-brown gaze. The laughter had
disappeared from her voice and the smile had faded from her lips.
    “I missed you.” Her quiet admission