Page 56 of The Truths that Deceive

And cold like ice hits my skin, making me yelp.

“A wimp at heart. I’d say it’s almost endearing. Although, a little shocking.”

I grab the soap and lather up. There’s no shampoo, so I rub some in my hair, and then I snatch the washcloth from him. But he waits a second before he pushes me into the wall of the shower, soap dripping on my face in the tight cubicle.

He kisses me, a feather of warm lips on mine, and it’s so sweet it breaks a piece of me apart, deep inside. “You need to learn to pick your battles, little girl. And this isn’t one of them.”

“Everything’s a battle with you.”

“Playing, yes. Otherwise, it doesn’t have to be.” He steps back and gently takes the soap and cloth and starts to wash me, starting with my face. The water burns patches on my skin, and the rough cloth doesn’t do much to help. I must have grazed my face somehow.

Then it hits me.

From kissing him.

That’s what it is.

Whisker burn.

Oh man, I haven’t had that since I was years younger andspent hours and hours kissing my first real boyfriend, the one I lost my virginity to. Funny, I can’t conjure his face or his name now.

Smith and I… we didn’t spend hours kissing. But the kisses were fire, and they were rough and wild and—I swallow.

He doesn’t say anything, just shifts us around to run a hand through my hair, fingers against my scalp. He’s halfway through washing me before a thought attacks my brain. “Is this your fucked-up version of aftercare?”

There’s a telling beat of silence.

“It’s called a shower and saving time.”

I snatch the cloth back. “I can wash myself.”

He shrugs, turns his back, and rinses off. It’s a weirdly intimate jostling war for the cold spray as I finish up. And damn, dragging my eyes off his broad back with the tattoos and scars, the tight, hot ass of his, the huge cock that I’m a little too eager to catch a glimpse of, is harder that it should be.

Especially when he turns my way.

And I can see all of him. Scars. The tattoo. The washboard abs. That damn cock. The strong legs and kind of body most women would drool over.

Not to mention the mark on his throat that makes my heart lurch.

“I don’t know if you’re looking at me horrified you cut me or horrified you missed your chance to kill me,” he says.

“Maybe both.”

“Of course, that’s you. I can’t begin to think of a reason why you’re single.”

I push him. “And you? I’m pretty sure it’s your winning personality and warm ways that has you?—”

“Knee-deep in pussy?”

“Only knee-deep?” I say, giving him my best withering lookwhich is hard to do naked and cold. “And I had been about to say single.”

“I’m being modest. And the women want me for my big cock.”

“It’s what you do with it.”

He grins, rubbing up against me so I’m between him and the wall and no longer cold. Just wet.

“I know, little girl.”

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