Page 62 of Royal Pain

“I don’t know. There’s just something about you that is entirely different than the women I’m used to dating, seeing, knowing, and pretty much everything else.” I backed up, heading toward the stereo. When I turned it on, she shook her head.

“That sounds like yacht rock.”

“Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Not a little thing. You’ll need to tell me why I’m so different and how you would know since we’ve only just really started toget to know each other. Other than my sorrowful woes. But to answer your question, all I remember is that house I grew up in. I did find a beautiful picture of what appeared to be a small farm tucked away in a drawer. When I asked my mother about it, she just blew it off, saying it was our former life. Our. Not my parents’. However, when you are so young, nothing seems out of place. At first, I went to a nice but traditional public school. I had a couple little girlfriends I used to bring home or go to birthday parties. Then something changed.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I was brought to a community party and introduced to what I’ve considered my best friends. Yes, we hit it off easily. They were the same age. Our families lived in the same community. It all made sense. However, I was pulled out of the school I did enjoy, and shoved into this private one. There things started to get a little weird. And no, still as a kid, you can’t quite put your finger on why or how but over the years, it was like everyone was living a fake life. Always waving at people driving by. Always acting like we were happy to see people. But my father used to grumble we could never allow venom into our society. It was weird and I didn’t get what he meant.”

“Wow. Sounds a little bit like a nightmare.”

“It was. I didn’t really get it at the time, but it was. Anyway, by the time I went to college, able to get away, it was like an entirely new world. Hell, I had real New York-style pizza for the first time. I’d never known what I was missing.”

“Well,” I told her and leaned over the bar, lifting her chin. “No pizza tonight, although even in Southern California, we have one of the best New York-style pizza joints in the entire United States, I kid you not.”

“No way.” Her eyes were still glistening.

“I’ll bet you. We’ll go there for dinner and you might be shocked. But tonight, we are having gourmet burgers.”

“Gourmet, huh. You’re a chef?”

“Hardly, but as I told you, I do a mean burger on the grill.”

She feigned shock. “You know how to use a grill?”

“Very funny. Them is fighting words.”

After taking another long pull on her beer and heavily placing it on the bar, she backed away and at the same time yanked off her dress. She tossed it onto one of the chairs, still backing away and beckoning me with her hands. “Come on, big boy. Come get it.”

I was shocked to see her relaxing a little bit. What that meant to me was that she truly had placed all her trust in me to perform a miracle. A heavy weight was placed on me but in truth, nothing was going to stop me from saving that little boy, and protecting the woman I was… Oh, no. I wasn’t going there just yet. But I would destroy the closest thing to a dangerous cult I’d ever come into contact with.

So help me God.

Thank God the pool was clearly marked with depths. Seeing her jump off the edge, lifting her body high into the air before arching and coming down in a graceful dive was stunning. But it could have been detrimental.

The splash was light but when she rocketed back up, her glistening wet body made my cock rock hard.

“Are you coming or are you going to be scared?”

“I don’t have a bathing suit on,” I teased, although I didn’t. What the heck? At least I had boxer shorts on and they weren’t tightie whities either. I started to strip off my clothes and I’d be damned if the heated way she was looking at me didn’t just about turn me into molten lava.

Boy, oh boy, even distraught, the girl knew how to kick up the heat. When I was almost down to my boxers, she backed away toward the waterfall area. The things I wanted to do to her were as sinful as humanly possible. I threw a glance at the various sets of French doors and sighed. The girls who worked for me were well over age. And the water would hide everything I planned on doing to Evangeline at this point.

Later was a different story.

“Big boy, I think you’re scared.”

“Careful, woman. I am your master, you know.”

“Ha.”

I didn’t dive into the pool as it wouldn’t have been elegant. I jumped, curling into a cannonball, something I hadn’t done since I was a kid.

You bet she did her best trying to get away from me, but she should always know better. If she appreciated a hunt even a tiny bit, she’d learn I could be a dangerous predator. I caught her easily enough, pushing her under the waterfall to a slightly private little area where anything we did would become distorted.

She laughed as I intertwined our fingers, pushing her arms against the rock wall. “What are you doing?”

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