Bound (Hidden Pleasures, #4) Read Free Page B

normally did—grainy and thick. All the research suggested that not eating a quick uptake protein supplement after a hard work out only led to the body cannibalizing muscle for energy. A wasted work out.
    Mr. Practical and well-researched. That’s me.
    Sweat dripped down his forehead, neck, and chest. His shorts were plastered to his ass. The stairs creaked under his feet as he stomped up to the main floor of the house. If he was going to be ready for work that night, he had to get a shower.
    He went straight to his room with its adjoining bath, careful to avoid looking down the hall. Right now wasn’t the time to think too hard about what was going on. There were girls at the club who’d fall over themselves to be with him, but he just wasn’t interested. Ronnie was the only woman he wanted.
    Sharing her with Gavin wouldn’t make sense to most men, but for him, it fulfilled a soul deep need for connection and family. Maybe if he’d grown up differently, he wouldn’t be this way, have this damn hole inside him he couldn’t fill with nothing but vanilla sex.
    But he was the way he was. He was at peace with that.
    He toed his sneakers off near the bathroom door and dropped his shorts on top of them. The socks stayed where they landed on the tile. He popped the glass door on the shower enclosure and turned the knobs, letting the water warm up while he got a towel and washcloth from the cabinet.
    The shower spray cascaded over his short hair and down his back in a pounding spray. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, all his focus on relaxing and not thinking about Gavin and Ronnie. Joining them for sex after what he’d witnessed made something inside him recoil. He didn’t want to be with them if she didn’t feel the same about him. It would hurt him, leave him on the outside looking in, much as he’d felt he’d been doing his entire life.
    Coveting.
    When he’d been a child, it had been the mothers other kids had. He’d see them, at the park three blocks away, when he snuck out of the house while his mother was passed out drunk with some random stranger she’d brought home the night before.
    Thank God he’d gone into foster care and met Gavin in high school. Fate brought them together with the same foster parents, and they’d bonded. More than brothers, more than just friends. They’d had each other’s backs through a lotta shit.
    If Gavin and Ronnie were meant to be, he knew he’d stand aside and let it happen. Gavin should be happy.
    He squeezed out a larger gob of shampoo than he needed and scrubbed it over his head, letting the bubbles skim down his chest and back. The spray hit him directly in the face, and he kept his eyes closed, planted both hands on the wall in front of him and dug his fingers into the grout.
    A click reached his ears, and he jerked when two small hands slipped around his waist and across his stomach.
    Ronnie?
    “Hey. Why are you in here alone? I missed you earlier.” She kissed his back, right over his tattoo, and he found he couldn’t speak around the lump in his throat. “You know I’ve never gotten to really look at your tattoo. You’ve always got a shirt on unless we’re having sex, and then I’m usually too...busy...to get to see it. It’s amazing.”
    He chuckled at her innuendo, but he knew it sounded sad and half-hearted.
    She moved in closer and her breasts flattened against his back. His cock stirred, getting semi-hard just from her nipples and the soft curve of her tummy touching him.
    “Thanks. I worked out, so I had to come in here and shower.” He wanted to put his hands over top of hers where they were clasped just above his dick.
    “I saw your clothes on the floor. You always that messy?”
    “Yes.” No reason to lie, all she had to do was look at his room and she’d know what a disaster he could create. “I’m organized in my business, that’s what I think about pretty much all the time. I tend to not pay attention to the other