CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE #3
After about twenty minutes of exhausting myself with freestyle swimming, I jut out of the water, letting the night air and scent of chlorine feed my lungs. I shake out my hair, wipe the droplets from my face, and turn to find the most breathtaking creature there ever was.
And the boulder is back.
She’s kind of a mess. In the most exquisite way. Her dark hair is swirled into a knot on top of her head, her eyes are red-rimmed but honest, my T-shirt is devouring her petite frame, and her cute little toes are perched on the first step inside the pool.
“Good to see you, Palmer.” I swim until I reach the depth where I can stand, wading there so I don’t close in on her too quickly. “How long you been there?”
“A while.” She rolls her lips, peering at the city before looking back at me. “Ten or fifteen minutes maybe.”
“You okay?”
“No,” she rasps, just loud enough for it to be heard over the cacophony from the fire-bowl fountains. “I’m restless, and I wanted to see you.”
Whatever breath I had left in my lungs gets squeezed the hell out.
I wade a little closer. “I’m here. What can I do?”
Her gaze traces my shoulders and pecs, down to my waist and back to my face. “I was wondering … it’s been a lot, and I’m feeling reckless. I think I need to blow off some steam.”
I drag a hand down my face, confounded by the shit life is throwing at me. “You came out here to proposition me, Sly? I thought you were disgusted by my choices.”
Her lips pop open on a muted gasp. She’s offended. “I was upset.”
“I know.” I hold up my palm because that’s on me. “Of course you were. It’s okay.”
She’s quiet for so long that I settle in mid-pool, with one elbow propped on the travertine so I’m relaxed but facing her, until she finally breaks the silence.
“This can just be tonight. Like a friends-with-benefits situation.”
I don’t show any of the frustration or confusion surging through my veins. “Because that’s what you want or because you think that’s what I want?”
She hitches her ambers to me with absolute resolve. “It’s what’s best.”
“Go back to bed, Sylvie.”
“Really?” she huffs.
“Yes. Really.”
Several minutes tick by when she doesn’t move and doesn’t speak, so I swim the length of the pool, trying to clear my head, until I emerge closer to her.
“On my birthday, the girls,” she starts, a little more unsure of herself than she traditionally is, “they acted as though … When was the last time you had sex?”
Bold.
“The day before Mardi Gras.”
She rubs the neckline of my T-shirt. The movement causes the hemline to drift far enough that it appears she has no shorts underneath, emphasizing her mission. “Then why say no?”
My patience is fucking gone. “That’s what you gleaned from that answer? That I’m hard up?”
She stiffens her shoulders, defiance written in every luscious curve of her perfect body. “I am trying to … I just don’t know why you’re making this so hard.”
She’s testing me. If she hadn’t been through hell, maybe that would piss me off.
But my track record with women sucks, her past is still a bitter fucking pill, and I’m not the kind of guy you bring home to the fam.
Well, actually, to her family, I am. But when she was a little gymnast, dreaming of the Olympics, she probably didn’t fantasize about falling for the guy who would maim and murder for her, so I can grant her some leeway.
But I will not tiptoe around what I want. “Because when I finally bury myself inside you, it will be because you know I own you. Every piece. Not because you’re renting yourself out to me. Or blowing off steam.”
“Aren’t you a short-term-lease guy?”
“The great thing about short-term leases is that they aren’t in the way when you find something permanent.”
She ponders that for a split second, only to snap back, “They also don’t cancel each other out. Lots of people have vacation properties.”
“Not me. I like my current view. There’s no greater paradise.”
“I’m sure you do since being in charge of a sex club is part of it.” Despite the insinuation, there’s no venom in that, but it’s clear my role over Magie Noire bothers her.
She’s been camped out in my room all day, convincing herself of all the reasons this won’t work. That also means she got past the part where I’d killed the guys.
Progress.
I boost myself out of the pool, wipe my hands on a towel, and while I’m still dripping all over the tiles, I grab my phone and make a call on speaker.
“Yeah?” Maddox answers, undoubtedly noting the sound of the tinkling water cascading off me. “Everything okay?”
“Not exactly. I need you to have the Magie Noire managers report to you from now on. I will no longer be overseeing the club. I’m happy to take something off your plate in return.”
“I’m good,” he assures me, grasping the root of the request. “I’m sure I’ll pawn something off on you, but it’s no trouble. I’ll send an email, letting everyone know about the change. Consider it done.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll talk to you later.” I hang up, drop my phone, and turn back to the mystified brunette who has turned my whole world upside down. “Next objection?”