Page 79 of Boy of Ruin
Ria and Nicolas both wore their swimsuits under their clothes, but I know Sid didn’t. I felt her sports bra under her shirt.
She’s got her backpack beside her on the rock, her knees close to her chest but not pulled all the way up. The baby, I think, is getting in the way.
I wonder if she’s self-conscious. She’s petite, and for a while, wasn’t showing at all. With her flowy tank, she isn’t now, but I felt her bump beneath my fingers earlier, when I had her backed against the tree.
Just thinking of it makes me want to fuck her right here on the rocks.
Her gray eyes meet mine and she quirks a brow. “You’d swim in there?”
I smile, shaking my head. “You seem to think I don’t have any fun.”
Her eyes widen. “Uh yeah,” she says, wrapping her arms tighter around her knees, “because you don’t.”
I bite back my laugh, my palms splayed behind me on the warm rock, my bag still on my shoulders. “I do. When the time and place calls for it.” I rake my eyes down her body. “And right now, I think I wouldn’t mind having some fun.”
Her cheeks flush pink and she rolls her eyes, something flitting across her features that make me feel sick. Something like pain as her brow furrows.
I wonder if she’s thinking about him.
What I showed her last night.
He’s a piece of shit.
She’s resisted me all this time, and he’s already fucking two women. He’s disgusting.
I wonder how she’d feel if she knew what he did to me in that cave at my first Noctem.
But I don’t want her to choose me because she feels bad for me. That shit just pisses me off.
“Let’s get in the water,” I tell her, standing and offering her my hand.
She eyes it warily, then dips her eyes down to her stomach, swallowing. “I’m fine,” she insists, jerking her chin to the pool behind us. “You get in, I’ll be okay.”
I laugh at that, wrap my fingers around her wrist and jerk her arm from her shins. “Funny, sis. I’m not leaving you alone here.” I glance around at the families around us, dogs, couples.
I’ve got a blade in my backpack. A gun, too. I’ll have to leave them both on the bank to get in the water, but I want her ass in there.
I want her to have fun too.
Reluctantly, she lets me pull her from the rock, and I yank her to me, laughing as she catches herself on her palms against my chest.
“Come on, let’s find a place for you to change.”
Her eyes widen. “What about you?” she asks.
I smirk down at her. “You don’t want anyone to see me naked, baby?”
She glares at me, rolling her eyes. “Shut up, Jeremiah.”
I laugh, then turn from her, holding her hand as I guide her through all the people in my fucking way.
Finally, we come off the trail, behind the stone built into the mountain, deserted, the echoes and splashing from the waterfall muffled now.
Sid swings her backpack around to her front, plucks out two pieces of black fabric. A swimsuit I bought her, but now, imagining her wearing just that in front of all those people, jealousy threatens to work its way into my fingertips, rip that shit in half.
I fight it back.
She looks up at me through her long lashes, dropping her backpack in the grass beside her.
