Page 31 of Taming Liberty

He doesn’t trust me. He actually doesn’t, after everything I’ve told him and everything he’s put me through,hedoesn’t trustme.

I don’t trust him either. Maybe that’s part of the problem.

“Fair enough,” I say, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

We walk a few minutes in silence, an awkward tension hovering over us like a rain cloud.

“Almost there,” Angel says to break the silence, walking ahead of me as he picks up his pace.

My heart thuds from exertion as I follow. When I hear the rush of the waterfall, I try to glimpse it through the trees but still see nothing. Another minute, and it comes into view.

My steps slow and eyes widen as I take in the beauty before me. The waterfall must be fifty feet high and roars loud enough that the calm in the plunge pool it drains into doesn’t make sense. It’s serene and boisterous at the same time.

“Nice, right?” Angel asks from behind me.

I turn to him and grin. “Like a scene from a movie.”

He comes to stand beside me, resting his palm on my lower back. I close my eyes at his touch, a warmth spreading inside me, and I fight the urge to pull away. It isn’t even that I want to, I just feel like an idiot letting him have any effect on me. It’s like I feel that if I fight him, he can never win. But neither can I.

When I lean into him, he tenses like he wasn’t expecting it. I feel his eyes study me, and after a few moments, he slides his hand around to my hip and lightly pulls me into him.

“We should swim,” I say, not taking my eyes off the water.

I pull away and spin to face him while backpedaling to the pool.

He raises a chocolate-colored brow. “You want to hike back in wet clothes?”

I smirk, shaking my head. He must get what I mean because his eyes lower, trailing over my body. I don’t know what kind of power his eyes have, but every spot they land on tingles, and the warmth inside me moves to my core where it settles like oil droplets coming together in water.

I throw off the CamelBac and turn around. I pull the hair tie from my ponytail, leaning my head back and shaking my head to loosen the strands. My fingers grip the hem of my tank, and I pull it over my head and toss it to the ground. My sports bra is next, then I look back at Angel and wink.

His eyes are all over my body, but mine latch onto his cock protruding from his shorts. I’ve felt his erection numerous times, but I haven’t seen him unclothed since the day he and Sawyer made me ‘prove myself.’ I kind of want to pat him on the back for having such great self-control.

Angel is a lot of things, but he’s not a pig. A snake maybe, but not a pig.

I face forward and tuck my thumbs into my waistband, slowly pulling my yoga pants over my ass to make a show of it. There are many ways to get a man to say more than he should, but in my experience, this one’s the quickest.

“Hey,” Angel says, his voice weirdly serious. I look over my shoulder, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. He’s staring into the forest. “I think I hear someone.”

“What?” I frantically pull my pants back up then swipe my bra and shirt off the ground, covering my chest with them.

My gaze follows Angel’s into the trees.

Then I hear it too. A woman’s shriek.

“Shit.” I dart to the tree line with Angel on my heels. It isn’t long before a woman bursts from the trees a little ways down from us. Her red hair flows like a cape as she runs and looks behind her, shrieking again when she sees the man chasing her.

Sawyer. It’s Sawyer and Anna.

When she makes it to the water, she abruptly stops, but Sawyer doesn’t lose momentum. He flips himself around, grabs Anna’s hips, and pulls her into the water with him.

“He isn’t hurting her.”

I jump at Angel’s warm breath against my ear before turning to look at him. He nods to the pair. “They’re being playful.”

“Right,” I say, rubbing my chest, wishing my heart would stop racing so quickly.

Laughter reaches my ears, and I turn back to Sawyer and Anna. They’re maybe twenty yards away, and my view of Sawyer’s back swallows up Anna, but I can tell they’re kissing by the way his body moves.

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