Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Boss was swimming just fine until you try to drown him,” he says in a heavy accent, throwing the words at me from behind the magazine.
I whip my eyes back to Darius. He’s trying to get off his knees, but I can tell things are not so good in the family jewels area. He’s obviously in a lot of pain.
“What?” I whisper-yell. “I thought you were drowning. You were splashing all weirdly.”
“That’s how I swim,” Darius gasps. His throat sounds raw from the water he took in and also the wreckage in his groin, but I catch snippets of words through my horror. “Shoulder doesn’t have the range of movement…exercise in the pool…sometimes can’t sleep…water therapy…hard to do it with one arm…”
Wow. I have to say, I monumentally misread the situation and fucked it up big time.
My face is burning red hot as I hoist myself over the edge and sit down on the tiles. They’re hard but warm and not sharp under my bottom. I pull my legs up, cross them, and lean my elbows on them, tucking my chin into my palms. “God, Darius, I’m really sorry. I thought you were in trouble.”
He glances over at the goon, Hans. I really need to start using his name. Calling him the goon is too mean, even if he spontaneously drugged me at my own wedding. “Nope,” he wheezes. “I always swim with a buddy.”
“I didn’t think he noticed you were in trouble. His fashion magazine seemed to be totally engrossing.”
“Oh, it is,” Hans says smoothly without looking up, ignoring my accusatory tone completely. “It most certainly is.”
I swipe a trickle of water out of my eyes, pushing my wet hair back. Now that Darius has regained his breath and cleared the water off his own face, I really have to try hard not to notice what a thing of beauty he is. He basically defines the term hyper-masculine. Like holy Hannah, abs much? He’s so cut that he looks like he was carved from a diamond. Because they cut anything, right? He’s solid, with chiseled abs, hard pecs, and nicely bronzed skin. There’s a smattering of dark hair around his naval and disappearing under his swim shorts, but that’s it. He either doesn’t grow hair naturally on his chest, or he gets expensive man waxes, and okay, that shouldn’t be hot, but it’s so, so hot. Not that I have anything against chest hair. Bear-skin rug dudes are fine, too. It’s just that this way, I can see all the droplets of water standing out on his very nice skin, his very nice muscles, and his very hard nipples.
Oh lord, I did not just go there.
“I’m sorry I interrupted your exercise session.” I can feel myself fizzling to a crisp of mortification on the spot. And what’s crispy? Bacon. I’d be extra well done if I was a piece of bacon. Or like tissue paper. Wait, no, newspapers. That’s crispy. I’d be the perfectly printed kind. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought a swim would be nice.”
“Was your room too cold? Too hot? Was the bed not comfortable? Was there something not to your liking?”
“Goodness, no, it was fine. It’s just…a lot to process. My mind won’t shut off, and it’s a full moon.” I point up like the moon is right there in the room with us. The ceiling here isn’t glass, but it is painted with vines and a fake sun. “It’s nice in here,” I say with a cough to cover further embarrassment. “Really nice. I like it. You’ve done great things with the place.”
“Yes, well…I should probably head to bed. I could use a shower.”
“And some icing down,” Hans remarks smartly.
Fuck with a side of double fuck. “I see that I’ll have to up my saving-a-drowning-person skills. I’ve never had to do that before.”
“You could have asked me,” Hans chimes in again in that same bored tone. “If you were concerned I wasn’t doing my job, you could have come and listed your demands.”
“Right, while he drowned.”
“No. I would have informed you that he was doing just fine. I would never let D drown.”
“You call him D? Your boss?”
Hans ruffles the magazine, turning a page as water sluices off of him and puddles beneath the chair. “No English,” he quips, effectively shutting me right up.
“He calls me D, yes,” Darius groans. “Anyway, you can keep swimming if you want. Enjoy the pool.”
“Actually, I think I’ll go shower and head to bed too. I’ve probably had enough excitement for the night. And also, um…done enough.” I duck my head because I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. “I’ll, uh, see you at breakfast tomorrow? Or lunch or something?” I’m not sure how meals work here, and I shouldn’t just assume. I’ve made a bunch of bad assumptions already. And now I feel tremendously silly.