24. Just Keep Swimming
just keep swimming
. . .
Davian
For the first time in years, my mind wasn’t on the job.
My men had spent weeks looking into our latest loyalty problem, and they’d brought in Lorenzo last night. The rat had been stealing money and could’ve shared secrets with rival families, but I’d ditched questioning him to go comfort a scared girl.
And today, instead of cleaning out the filth or getting revenge, I was thumbing through a collection of pink lace panties and bras with cartoon cupcakes. For such a sweet girl, Sadie’s underwear drawer was… intriguing .
It was the right decision not to let Shane paw around in it.
After grabbing a handful of the skimpier options and a few colorful bras, I left Sadie’s apartment and spent the morning handling family business in the city. Boring meetings. Illicit deals.
More than once, my mind wandered from work, thinking about a certain pair of frightened bunny eyes looking at me over the barrel of a gun.
Sadie was like a potent drug I should be weaning myself off—and quickly —but where was the fun in that? If there was a problem with doing something that brought a shred of sunshine into my life, then I’d handle the problem.
When it became clear no more work was getting done, I cut my last meeting short and drove back to the compound. Antonio must’ve known I was coming, because he had a tray of sandwiches and fruit already prepared in the kitchen.
“A tray?” I asked the chef, a talented man who I’d lured here from a restaurant in Bologna. With more grey in his hair than my old man, Antonio was the most respected member of the compound’s staff—mostly because he oversaw the food and was very skilled with knives. But this tray of fruit cut into bite-sized pieces was above and beyond what Antonio usually did for me. My brow rose. “That’s new.”
“Vince tells me you have a lady visitor out in the pool.” He waved a knife at the spread. He was already bustling around the two large islands in the kitchen, working on dinner prep and paying little attention to me. “Take the tray and eat outside with her.”
I blinked up from the strawberries in surprise. “Sadie’s swimming?”
She hadn’t brought a suit with her, and I hadn’t thought to grab one. Though from what I knew of her, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was swimming in her pajamas.
Antonio shrugged and plucked a tomato from the bowl. “That’s what Vince said. I wouldn’t know, because I’ve been in here all day, slaving away and feeding all your men, who have pits for stomachs.”
His complaining was all for show. He loved feeding the troops. “Are we expecting more guests? This is too much food for me and Sadie.”
“She didn’t come in here for breakfast,” he said, making me frown. “So, I added extra for your girl.”
There it was again. Someone calling Sadie my girl.
I didn’t bother correcting him, because as far as I was concerned, she’d be mine soon enough. Plus, I liked the little kick in my chest when someone said it. “Appreciate it, Tony.”
He shooed me out of the kitchen, insisting he needed to get started on dinner, so I took the tray and followed my new lead on where to find Sadie.
Outside, my suit turned into a heat magnet for the summer sun before I’d made it halfway across the patio.
My steps slowed as I got closer to the pool and Sadie’s shock of pink hair popped out of the water next to a huge inflatable alligator. A pair of goggles covered half her face, while a yellow snorkel stuck out of her mouth.
I came up short.
Where had she found a snorkel ?
“Davian!” she called when she spotted me—at least I was pretty sure she said my name. It came out garbled around the snorkel, which she spat out before giving me the sweetest smile. “Your pool is amazing .”
Leaving the tray of food on one of the tables, I slid off my suit jacket and took in the crystal-clear water of the rectangular pool. How long had it been since I’d gone swimming? A couple years, at least. “This must be the first time I’ve seen someone snorkel in it.”
“Malcolm showed me where all the pool stuff is. I wanted to try the flippers, but they were too big for my feet.” She kicked a foot out of the water with a splash, wiggling her toes. “Bear loves the inflatable alligator. He kept trying to get it to play with him.”
My lips curved, and I looked around the yard for her furry friend, but he was nowhere in sight. “Where’s your beast now? I thought he’d be out here guarding you.”
Sadie rolled her eyes behind the goggles. “Bear’s not a beast. He’s a German shepherd.”
“No German shepherd is that big.”
Her smile softened, and she swam to the side of the pool nearest me. She slipped off the goggles and set them aside, then rested her arms on the pool’s edge. “He swam for a bit, but then he took off after a squirrel. I think he’s having fun with all the land you have.” She saw the lunch tray, and her eyes lit up. “You brought food?”
“Antonio made lunch.” I walked closer to the pool. Strands of wet pink hair clung to Sadie’s neck, and her smile was infectious. “Hungry?”
“Starving.” She used a hand to block the sun and squinted up at me. “Is there any new information on what happened last night?”
My smile dropped. I would deal with whoever Fessy’s mystery friends were, but it was probably for the best she didn’t know what I had planned for them. “Not yet. Vince and Malcolm are still looking into it.”
When Sadie swam to the pool stairs and climbed out, my brain ground to a halt. She hadn’t worn her pajamas to the pool, after all. But in the absence of a swimsuit, she’d borrowed one of my undershirts.
A white undershirt.
How was I supposed to string two thoughts together while she was soaking wet and wearing that ?
“Interesting choice of swim clothes,” I said through a rapidly drying throat.
Sadie glanced down in surprise, as if she hadn’t realized she was wearing a see-through shirt with very, very little underneath. Pink crested her cheeks before she shrugged. “Sorry I didn’t ask first, but is it okay I borrowed your shirt? It was the best I could do since I didn’t have a swimsuit.”
I didn’t mind at all—not one bit—but the urge to touch her was maddening.
On any other woman I knew, the shirt would’ve been a calculated move. An attempt at seduction. A play to get the heir to Westport’s underground into bed—and help their own standing. But unless Sadie was secretly some strategic mastermind, all she wanted to do was swim, and I needed to stop this train of thought before I pounced on her.
But with how little the shirt covered, I couldn’t resist prodding the oblivious bunny just a little. “I take it you didn’t have a bra, either?”
She looked down again, and her cheeks turned crimson. “Oh my.”
She pinched the front of the shirt and pulled it away from her body—but it only stuck right back to her like a second skin. And like a fucking teenager, I almost swallowed my tongue as I forced my gaze up to the sunny sky overhead.
This girl was going to kill me.
“I don’t sleep in a bra,” she said with a nervous laugh, which I was already all too aware of after last night. She cleared her throat. “And to be fair, I thought I’d be alone out here.”
Needing to cover her up, I blindly grabbed a towel off the stack and held it open with my eyes still on the sky. “Come here.”
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Since when had I become such a gentleman?
She walked straight into my arms and let me wrap the towel around her.
“Thank you,” Sadie whispered, pushing up on her tiptoes and tugging on my arm until I leaned down enough for her to press a warm kiss against my cheek.
Luckily, the towel made it easier to focus on getting Sadie fed, even though her perfectly shaped breasts was seared into my brain forever.
“If I knew you liked the water so much, I would’ve brought a swimsuit from your place.” I reached for her hand and led her toward the table.
She squeezed my hand and smiled down at it. “It’s fine, really. I haven’t been swimming in ages, and your pool is so cool. I’ve never seen one with a waterfall before.”
I took a seat and pulled her toward my lap.
She scrunched her nose, eyeing my dress slacks. “But I’m all wet.”
“I can see that,” I said, unable to resist a smirk. “Sit.”
Eyes narrowing, she eased sideways onto my lap. Grateful to Antonio for cutting all the fruit, I picked a piece of strawberry off the plate. When Sadie moved to get one for herself, I lifted it to her mouth. “Here.”
Her eyes narrowed further, but she let me feed her a few pieces of fruit. The intimacy of the simple act was new. Sitting on the back patio in the middle of the day and feeding a woman was far from typical for me, but I could easily get used to it. Sadie smelled of chlorine mixed with sunshine, and it made me want to take a dip in the pool, too.
Maybe I would after lunch.
My guest watched me closely while I fed her a medley of things from the tray.
“Why are you doing all this, Dav?” she asked after a bite of sandwich. Her head cocked to the side, and she fiddled with a corner of her towel.
“Feeding you?” I asked, not hiding my amusement.
“Not just that. But also taking on my enemies and letting me stay here and… and being so nice to me?”
I fed her another slice of strawberry before answering. “I thought it was obvious.”
She slowly shook her head.
“I’ve never met anyone like you, Sadie.” I settled my hands on her inviting hips. “Not many have the guts to point a gun at me.”
Mostly because they knew what I’d do to them if they tried.
She didn’t see it for the compliment it was, and her face flushed with indignation. “But I’m not normally like that!”
“Yes, you are.” I fought back a smile. “You went up against the Skulls with nothing more than a broom. You’re staying at a compound filled with armed men, and instead of hiding in the corner, you took over my pool.”
A round of playful barks sounded from the forest. Bear must’ve found his squirrel.
“It’s refreshing,” I continued. “I’m used to being around people who fear me or say whatever they think I want to hear. You do neither of those things.”
She shook her head. “That’s not completely true. I was terrified when I first saw you at Bruno’s.”
“Were you?” My lips twitched. “Could’ve fooled me when you aimed Vince’s piece at me.”
“It was before that,” she said dismissively, looking over my shoulder and tilting her head in thought. She waved one hand in the air. “This aura of menace and danger oozed from you?—”
I snorted. “ Oozed? ”
“And this instinct in my bones told me to run far away.” She tightened the towel around herself. “But then I remembered my friend’s advice. And when I grabbed Vince’s gun, this wave of adrenaline came over me. I think it canceled out the fear.”
“And that fear didn’t come back after the adrenaline faded?”
“By then, you were already helping me.” She shrugged. “We were kind of stuck together.”
My lips twitched again. “Lucky me.”
Sadie shook her head with a sheepish grin. “I’m just sorry it had to come at the cost of Bear slobbering all over your shoes.”
It was hard to hold a grudge against the mutt when he was the reason Sadie had tumbled into my life, gun blazing.
“That’s a small price to pay for what I get in return, especially when every minute I spend with you just makes me crave more. More of your sweetness. More of your surprises. More of these delicious lips.” I ran the pad of my thumb over the plump lower one, and her breath stuttered. “Have I mentioned how addictive you are?”
Sadie’s eyes grew comically wide, and she went stiff as a board.
“Too much too soon?” I whispered, smiling wryly and dropping my thumb from her lip. “Maybe I shouldn’t have shared that for at least a few more abductions, but I’m not one to stall.”
Not when I found something I wanted, at least.
“No,” she whispered. She lowered her gaze, and her fists clenched around the towel. “No, I’m glad you told me. And to be completely honest… I think I like you, too, Dav.”
The way she said it like she was admitting a grave sin made it impossible not to tease her, and I squeezed her hip. “Careful. You sound like you wish you didn’t.”
Sadie shifted on my lap and seemed to brace herself, even as she refused to meet my eyes. “It’s complicated. My friends warned me about you and your father and all that stuff. Something about you being his right-hand man?”
I leaned back in my chair, watching her closely. “Does that bother you?”
“Well, it’s not exactly ideal .” Her brow puckered adorably. “On the other hand, you rescued Bear. You’ve kept us safe. You opened your home to us.” She sighed softly as her shoulders slumped. “And let’s face it. I borrowed a gun and abducted you, so I’m not exactly innocent here. I guess I’m part of the criminal life now, too.”
That pulled an unexpected laugh out of me. She didn’t think she was innocent? “Sadie, you’re no criminal.”
“I am, but maybe it’s a good thing? Because I can’t deny I do feel a, um, well—” She cleared her throat, and her fingers fiddled with one of the buttons on my dress shirt. “A physical attraction… to you.”
The delightful blush creeping up her cheeks had me grinning like an idiot. “Is that right?”
Sadie’s gaze rose to my mouth, making my grin widen.
“And like I said,” she whispered, “there might be some feelings involved, too.”
That warmth hit me in the chest again, snapping like a damn rubber band.
“Join the club, sweetheart,” I murmured, wrapping my hand around the back of her slim neck and drawing her closer. When our noses brushed, a raw, stabbing hunger overran the last of my patience. “Now open those pretty lips and let me taste you.”
Sadie shivered under my grip but readily parted her lips, and I took full advantage by slanting my mouth over hers.
She tasted like fucking sunshine.