Unwrapped by Chantilly White Read Free Book Online Page B

not take
that stupid fall as a sign.
    For the second time in less than an hour, she walked
straight into the surf, hoping for the water to cleanse the heat of
embarrassment from her body.
     
    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
     
    Derrick waited impatiently, but kept it casual when she came
back, as though nothing had happened. If anything, the smile he greeted her
with when she dropped to the blanket beside him probably said a bit too much
about the thoughts in his head, which had nothing to do with her falling. But
she kept her eyes downcast, fussing with the edge of his shirt where water
continued to course down her smooth, honey-toned legs.
    "Nice swim?" he asked, by way of an ice-breaker.
    Mia shrugged, color still riding her cheekbones. Derrick
took her blush for a positive sign. He wanted her a little off-kilter.
    "Where's Allison?"
    "Entertaining her latest conquest, by now," he
said.
    "Oh."
    Her blush deepened. Maybe thinking about Allison at home
having sex would get Mia thinking about touching him again, too. Being with him.
The more she thought about it, the more receptive she'd be to his plans.
    He hoped.
    She sighed, twisting her hands in her lap. The silence
between them stretched. By contrast, the cries of the gulls overhead seemed
suddenly over-loud. Distracting. He shifted, trying to recall his persuasive
arguments.
    Now that she was sitting beside him again, the words stuck
in his throat. He hadn't counted on nerves, not now. But this was too important
to fuck up. He had to go carefully, make sure he expressed himself just right.
    Derrick opened his mouth, but before the first syllable
crossed his lips, Mia spoke.
    "I've been thinking," she said, still not looking
at him.
    "Me, too."
    This was it. His heart took up lodging in his throat. Their
lives were about to change forever.
    "We've been friends a long time."
    "Good friends," he agreed.
    "Right. So. Here's the thing." She took a deep
breath, then looked him straight in the eyes. She had such pretty eyes. He
wanted to cup her cheek and pull her in for a kiss. "I'm really, really
tired of being a virgin."
    "I know, I—" Wait. "What?"
    "I think it's time to just, you know, be done with
it."
    "Be done with it." His brain couldn't seem to
process. What was she saying?
    Another deep breath. "And you know I love you, so much,
and I trust you more than anyone."
    The rest of the world faded away. Stunning silence seemed to
roll over the earth like a muted sand storm, blocking everything but her voice
and the pounding of his pulse in his ears. The bright autumn sun sailed behind
a passing cloud, everything going momentarily dark and cold.
    "I love you, too," he said slowly. These were
words they'd said to each other for years, and meant them. As friends. But. . .
"Mia, what—"
    "I realized earlier," and she was suddenly
speaking very high and fast, "there's no one else on earth I would want to
help me get rid of this problem but you, and I was wondering if you'd be
willing to help me."
    She finished on a squeak, her breathing shallow, but he was
the one who felt dizzy. Words like relationship, commitment, love, even
marriage had swum through his mind as he worked up his nerve to talk to her.
And she was talking about sex. An arrangement of some kind.
    Derrick stared at her, at her nervous, fiddly fingers, at
the blush riding high on her cheekbones. His mind stuttered and stopped and
stuttered again. He kept adding two and two and getting five. None of this made
sense. Thirty seconds ago he'd been certain they were headed down a new path.
Together. All his dreams coming true. Now, they were like two trains on
parallel tracks, about to take a ninety-degree turn away from each other. Did
she mean—
    "What do you mean, like a friends-with-benefits kind of
thing?"
    She glanced at him sharply. "What? No, of course not.
That never works out, you know that. Look what happened to Debbie and
Steve."
    Debbie and Steve. Disaster, chaos, recriminations. A
nightmare to be avoided at all