Page 24 of Kneel with the King
That needs to change. Walter Davenport as a client would be invaluable. If I don’t secure him as a client, then this whole thing will be for nothing.
The sound of King getting out of his plunge stirs me out of whatever cold-water haze I’m in, and before I know it, large, strong hands are pulling me out.
“Stubborn asshole,” he mutters, pulling me onto the ice. “Your lips are blue.”
“I-I’m f-f-fine,” I stutter, barely able to speak. Or move. “S-s-so h-hot out-t,” I add, warm air rushing over my skin.
“It’s not warm. It’s freezing. But compared to the lake, it feels like a furnace. You’re going to freeze to death. Put this on.”
He grabs a jacket and holds it out for me. It’s something similar to what I used to wear when I was a swimmer in high school—waterproof on the outside, thick, with fleece inside. It has some sort of heated technology in it to warm up from inside.
When King helps me stand on shaking legs, I breathe a sigh of relief as he wraps the jacket around my shoulders. With two hands, he grabs my shoulders and looks right into my eyes.
“Don’t die.”
Turning, he grabs his jacket and zips himself into it as I thaw out. My skin tingles, and as the seconds tick by, I find myselfbreathing easier—like I just did a hard workout. The throbbing headache I’d had after being abruptly woken up is gone.
Everyone is already walking back, and King is speaking to the employee who was overseeing this exercise. I look around the white tundra and take a deep breath. It feels like the first deep breath I’ve taken in months. Years. Maybe evendecades.
Snow is falling softly—an almost-muted cushioning sound. The air still feels warm, but slowly, I can feel the bite of cold air nipping at my frozen skin. The tingling feeling gives way to an awareness of my body that I haven’t felt in a long time.
I feel… new. Refreshed. Like if I did this every day, I’d be a new and better version of myself.
“It’s nice, huh?”
I don’t turn to face him. Instead, I take another deep breath, and it feels like some integral part of my soul feels revived.
“Yeah.”
“You know, people all over the world do this every day for their mental and physical health. Little risk, big reward. There’s something to be said for a few minutes of torture when you feel this good after, wouldn’t you say?”
This time, I turn to face him. I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or if he’s serious.
“It depends on who you ask,” I retort, my lips curling into a smile.
King doesn’t smile back. When I look past him, I see that we’re all alone standing on this frozen lake.
“I need a long, hot shower,” I say by way of breaking the tension. King laughs, shaking his head as he looks away. “What’s so funny?”
“You really need to work on your acting.”
I stare at him. “What does that mean?”
King looks over at me, looking amused. “Before, when I was trying to put on a show.”
“You mean when you almost kissed me?”
“You looked like you hated every minute of it. Real convincing, Harrison,” he adds, his voice mocking.
I scoff, tilting my head just slightly. “It’s funny… Iknowwhat’s in it for me. But what’s in it for you?” I ask, my voice caustic and cruel.
King grins, and it pisses me the hell off, flaring some long-forgotten aversion to people with teasing attitudes. “I get to boss you around for a week. What’s not in it for me?”
My hand automatically goes to my neck, where the collar had been before I took it off last night to sleep. I didn’t have time to grab it when he abruptly woke me up this morning.
His eyes flick to my throat briefly, as if he can read my mind.
“We need to make this believable. Jacques is watching us like a hawk.”
