Page 66 of Vicious Temptation

Clenching my jaw, I take a step back. My foot slips on the gravel, and I wince, hoping Bella didn’t hear it. But I see her flinch, freezing where she’s standing at the pool’s edge, and she slowly turns.

Her eyes go wide when she sees me there, her lips parting slightly, and I know she’s going to be furious. Hurt. Afraid.

She has every right to be.

“I’m sorry,” I call out quickly. “I saw movement from inside the house and was worried. I came out to check, and make sure no one was on the grounds who shouldn’t be. I’m headed back in.” It all comes out quickly, the words crowding together, and I hope that she doesn’t notice my arousal. That I’m far enough into the shadows that she won’t be able to tell.

Bella looks like a deer caught in the headlights. Her arms wrap around herself, and I see her flinch again, as if she realizes that she’s only wearing a bathing suit.

“I’ll head back in,” I repeat quickly, starting to turn, and then I hear her voice behind me.

“Wait!”

Her voice sounds a little shaky, unsure. I can hear the hesitation in every word as she starts to speak again. “I just wanted to come out for a swim. When I knew no one would see me?—”

And you did. You ruined something she was trying to do for herself. Great job.

“But—do you want to come join me?” Her voice cuts through my mental castigation, and I pause, wondering if I heard her correctly. “It’s kind of fun, being out here at night.”

I know that taking her up on her offer is a bad idea. The worst of ideas. It’s been hard enough for me to remind myself of the professional distance that I should be keeping, the way I should be maintaining the boundaries I’ve set for myself, when we’re in the house with others around. When I’m doing the simplest things around her. When we’re in the gym. When she sleeps in my bed. All occasions where other people are a floor or two away, where we’re alone but not entirely alone.

This is the most isolated we’ve been together. And I know that going for a swim with her in the dark, with so little clothing between the two of us in the hushed intimacy of the night, is a recipe for disaster.

And yet, I find myself turning back towards the gate.

“I have a pair of boardshorts in the pool house,” I call out, closing the gate behind myself and latching it. “I’ll just go and change into those.”

Bella nods, biting her lower lip as she lowers herself onto the edge of the pool, dangling her legs into the water and then pushing herself off into it fully.

My pulse kicks up another notch, hammering in my throat. I should go back to the house. I should tell her?—

I have no idea what I should tell her. But right now, all I can think is that she’s in the pool, half-naked and dripping wet, and I want to know what she feels like under my hands. Under me.

My cock throbs again, and I grit my teeth, walking towards the pool house.

I know I should leave, and I want to do this, all at the same time. It’s the same as racing the Ferrari down the back roads, or that impromptu dinner—this is the kind of thing that the man that I used to be would have eagerly jumped at. A late-night swim with a gorgeous woman. It’s exactly the kind of thing I loved, once upon a time.

I feel that craving again, that need to remember what that was like, as I step into the pool house and shuck my clothes off into a pile, reaching into a drawer for my boardshorts. My cock is still stubbornly hard, and I reach down, squeezing the base with my fingers as I urge it to soften. I can’t go out and join her in the pool like this, that’s for sure.

That thought, the idea that I might miss out on getting to spend time with her because of my stubborn arousal, is enough to calm me down a little. Enough to let me get a grip on myself, at least—figuratively speaking—so that I can get my boardshorts on and go out to the pool.

Bella is standing in the water, shoulder-deep, her chestnut hair floating darkly out behind her on the water. “It’s warm,” she calls out, skimming her hands over the surface. “Really nice, actually. Like being in the bath.”

The thought of Bella in a bathtub is like a live wire over my skin, and I have to take a deep breath, steadying myself. Reminding myself that I need to keep a rein on my desire.

She’s not mine. She never will be, not in any way. And she deserves so much better than what I can offer her.

I step down into the water, and realize immediately that she’s right. It is warm, soothing almost, and I let out a breath. “I honestly can’t remember the last time I came out here and went swimming,” I admit, and Bella laughs.

“Really? In your own pool?”

I shrug. “I guess I just haven’t really made the time. I always make plans to go and do things with Cecelia and Danny on the weekends—you know that. I try to keep them entertained, make them feel special, like I’m always thinking about what we can all get up to together. But maybe I should think more about what we can do here. Just hanging out by the pool, for example.”

Bella smiles. “They’d probably like that. That’s one of the things I like best about you, by the way,” she adds. “How much you care about them.”

I suck in a breath as her gaze catches mine, the admission sinking deeper than I think she realizes. I tell myself that it’s just an offhand comment, a figure of speech—but the way she said it sticks with me, echoing in my ears. One of the things I like best about you.

I want to ask her what else she likes about me. What else is on that list. But instead, I hear myself asking something else.

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