Page 72 of Bargain With the Boss

A Home For You had been my entire life for the last year and a half. God, it was probably even longer. Seasons didn’t mean anything in a retail space. We were always racing two seasons ahead—sometimes three—from where people were in the world. It screwed me up on a number of levels. I was never able to fully be present, I was always thinking five steps ahead.

I tipped my face up to the spray.

Be present now, Sydney.

Soap sluiced down my body. I was afraid to touch myself. I didn’t want to wash him away. The fear of what we might have created couldn’t even combat that.

The click of the glass door of the shower had me turning around.

Xavier was there. All lean and perfect with his broad shoulders that made my mouth water. We’d been so wild for one another that I actually hadn’t seen all of him. Hell, my dress hadn’t even hit the floor.

I could feel my face flush with the memory of his hungry mouth under my skirt.

“Duchess, you are stunning.”

I turned back to the spray, unable to handle his eyes on me.

His arm slid around my wet waist, then his fingers slid right between my legs. “Fuck, you’re still wet from me.” His mouth trailed over my neck. “Filled with me.”

The sounds of the mess we’d made echoed in the small space. It made me want to curl in around myself. Not because I was ashamed, but because there was some part of me that wanted to protect the proof of how I’d come apart for him. That I wasn’t the frigid woman most people thought I was.

The shuddering sigh slipped out of me as his magical fingers found my clit and the proof of what had been swirled with new pleasure. My head fell back on his chest. “Xavier.”

“I want to make you come again.” His other hand came up to cup my wet breast, tugging at my nipple until it was achingly hard. “I think I’m addicted to it.”

My thighs shook as my hips grew restless.

“That’s it, Duchess. Show me what you like.”

“I think you know what I like,” I said on a shaky breath. My hips tilted up when he slid his fingers free. My breath jammed in my throat. Need and overwhelm crashed into the heat of the shower. Then he was delving deep, his clever fingers curling inside me.

“So soft.” He sipped from my shoulder when I tipped my head to give him more access. He went from breast to breast, tweaking and pulling until I was near mad with the way he held me tight against his body.

His cock dug into my hip. I wanted to reach back and be the bold, effortlessly sexy woman, but I was lost to how he affected me. Instead, I gripped his thigh, my nails digging in as I got close to the edge and he backed off.

The rumble of a laugh came through his chest and vibrated through me.

“Ever heard of edging, Duchess?”

Distantly, my brain tried to piecemeal the words together. “I read.”

His teeth lightly scraped up my neck to my ear. “Do you read those spicy books?”

I couldn’t think as his fingers pulsed in me and his other hand lightly toyed with my nipple. Keeping up with the constant change in how he touched me and trying to think at the same time didn’t seem possible.

He stopped and I groaned, my ass grinding against his thighs.

“Do you read those books?”

“No.”

He nipped at my ear. “You sure?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do. Which ones. The lusty fairy stuff or the darker ones?”

Leah had left one behind after one of our all night work-a-thons. Distantly, I remembered the cover with the man with the mask. “I don’t know.”