Page 82 of Your Soul to Keep

He laughed as I shrieked under the cold water, so desperate to get the dust out of my hair I didn’t wait until it warmed.

He flipped it to hot for a moment, then twisted it back when it began to come through the pipes before setting me back under it.

The view of Gabe standing in all his naked glory was enough to set me to boiling.

He picked up my loofah and pumped bodywash onto it, his eyes trailing up the length of my naked body.

But when he met my eyes, he tilted his head to the side and studied me. “Would you like a big property? Somewhere we could do that all the time?”

I smiled. “If you’d asked me yesterday, I would have said no. Today? It doesn’t seem like a bad idea.”

He beamed as he edged toward me. “You were pretty funny out there.”

I leaned back in surprise. “Funny, how?”

“Loud,” he emphasized with a grin. “The instructor couldn’t stop laughing.”

I dipped my chin and covered my face but couldn’t quell my smile. “I felt free.”

“What?” He dipped his knees and tipped my chin up. “What did you say?”

I wrapped my arms around his waist, slicking our bodies together, and tipped back my head. Looking up into his gorgeous face, I repeated, “I felt free. For the first time since I can remember, I felt free.” My eyebrows slanted together. “But somehow safe as well.”

His face softened as he ran the loofah down my back and gently pushed me back under the spray.

I inhaled deeply and moaned as the hot water sluiced over my head. Cracking one eye open, I promised, “I’ll give you a turn in a minute.”

He dragged the loofah over my front, his other hand following leisurely behind. Over my shoulders, across my collarbones, around and under each breast.

I hummed my appreciation, my arms hanging limply at my sides, my head dropped back.

Lowering to his knees, he washed my legs, then ran his palms up and down the outsides of my thick thighs.

The sight of this man caring for me on his knees humbled me. Did I deserve him? Could I?

“Turn,” he murmured.

His words snapped me out of my reverie. Turn? Present my large posterior in line with his face? I gulped, looking down at him. “Turn?”

He looked up, his face serious. “Turn.”

With trepidation, I did as he asked.

He continued his ministrations, his free hand trailing over my hips, around the swells of my ass and down my legs. Pausing, he wrapped his arms around me, crushing my ass to his chest and dropping a kiss to my hip before standing up to do my back.

My shoulders slumped and I rolled my neck and sighed. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” he retorted softly. “Shampoo?”

I handed it over, and he gently worked it through my long tresses. “This hair,” he murmured. “It’s the stuff of my dreams.” Sighing, he pushed me under the spray. “Rinse, Shae-baby.”

Once satisfied, he worked the conditioner through my hair end to end.

“Wrap your arms around me and lean back.”

Skin to skin, heart to heart.

He angled my head under the water and combed through my hair with his fingers until it ran clear of bubbles.

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