AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I can tell. Her skin is bronzed everywhere. Every perfectly proportioned, tantalizing curve of her is the same shade of caramel. I want to take a bite of her and see if the taste matches.
“I never would have guessed this was hiding under your clothes.”
“This wasn’t hiding under my clothes. Nothing was under my clothes.”
Heat coils low in my belly. “You’re not serious.”
She shrugs and walks past me, moving purposefully slowly so I have plenty of time to watch. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. You’ll never know.”
She’s wrong about that. She just doesn’t know it yet.
51
TIMOFEY
I follow Piper outside and pull my shirt over my head with one hand. Ashley whistles as soon as I’m bare-chested. “Is Mr. Boss Man going to join us? Does this place have an HR department? Because this can’t possibly be kosher.”
It’s Piper’s turn to stare. Her green eyes are wide as saucers as I shuck off my jeans and undress down to my boxer briefs.
“I make the rules. If I say it’s allowed, it’s allowed.” I hop over the edge and slide beneath the warm, bubbling water.
“What if we don’t want you here?” Piper asks.
Ashley taps the surface of the water and splashes Piper. “Of course we want him here. We needed a little sausage in this taco soup.”
“Oh my god. Ew, Ash!” Piper wrinkles her nose, but she’s fighting back a smile. “You’re disgusting.”
“Just saying what we’re all thinking.”
“Literally no one was thinking that.” Piper looks over at me like she wants to apologize, but her eyes drop low over my chest before she jerks them away. Her cheeks flush.
Just like I predicted, within a few minutes, Ashley is lolled back against the back of the hot tub. A grating kind of snore erupts from her once every thirty seconds or so.
“We should take her inside, right?” Piper peers across the hot tub at her friend. “She’s going to drown.”
“Not on your watch. You’d never let that happen.”
She sighs and sinks lower into the water until it bubbles around her chin. “I’ll give it a few more minutes and make sure she’s good and asleep. I don’t want her to perk back up.”
The night is quiet without Ashley’s constant yammering. It’s not cold out, but there’s a haze of steam in the air that makes it feel like we’re in our own personal bubble.
“I’m not going to be able to lift Ashley out of here by myself,” Piper says quietly.
I sigh. “Fortunately for you, my altruism knows no bounds.”
“You’ll help?”
“Considering all the shit I’ve done for you, you shouldn’t sound so surprised.”
There’s a pause before she nods. “You’re right. It’s just… you’re not what I expected. Not entirely, anyway. You can be caring. When you choose.”
“It runs in the family.” I saw the way my father was holding her arm when Ashley and I walked through the front door. It’s the first time in my life I’ve genuinely wanted to hurt him.
“After my run-in with your dad, I’m going to confidently say it was nature, not nurture. Your mom must be really nice for you to have even a sliver of it left once Sergey was done with you.”
“My mother is dead.”
There’s a beat of hesitation before she lays her hand lightly on my bicep. “I’m sorry.”
