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“Are you trying to convince me to fire you?” I growl. “Because you’re doing a great job. Open your mouth one more time and seal the deal. Go on. Do it. Fuckingdo it.”
She steps closer, pressing her body to mine. There is so little fabric between us. Her sheer cover up, my swim trunks, nothing else. I can feel my frustration inching into another kind of frustration altogether.
“Why are you keeping me at arm’s length?” she asks, her voice soft. “Why are you using Ilya as an excuse to push me away? I can tell you don’t want to.”
“As usual, you think you know everything. But you don’t know a damn thing.”
Her hips arch and brush against my erection. She glances up at me, her blue eyes simmering. “I know more than you think.”
I’m torn between dragging her back to her car and throwing her down in the sand when I hear a little voice from up the beach.
“Brady?” The little girl is calling for her brother.
In an instant, Rayne pulls away from me and throws a hand over her eyes to see better. “Lily? What’s wrong?”
The little girl is staring out at the water. I watch Rayne’s eyes flick from the girl to the water. She scans the beach, but she sees the same thing I do: nothing.
“Lily!” Rayne screams. “Where is Brady? Where is he?”
Lily points straight ahead in dumbfounded shock, but there’s no sign of her brother. Just an endless expanse of tossing waves.
24
RAYNE
“Brady!”
One scream and my voice is already going hoarse. My nephew’s name rips out of my throat, tearing my heart out with it.
Where is he? Where in the hell is he?
I’d know the answer to that if I hadn’t been busy talking to Kirill. If I’d been watching the kids like I told my sister I would.
Oh my God. Lana. Mitchell. What will they do without—
I shove the thought away the second it enters my head. He isn’t gone. Not yet.
“Where did he go in the water?” I shout.
Lily is pointing straight ahead, but I don’t see him. I’m running towards her, keeping an eye on the surf. Then someone flies past me and splashes into the water.
Kirill. He’s moving with a speed and purpose I’ve never seen from anyone before. He slices through the water and then knifes into a wave in a flawless dive.
“Stay here,” I tell Lily. “Do not move, do you understand?”
Her face is pale and flat, but she nods.
I rip off my cover-up and run into the water after Kirill. The waves pull back as I near the water, revealing one of Brady’s dinosaur swim shoes stuck in the sucking sand. Before I can grab it, the water crashes back against the beach, hiding it from view.
I turn back to the wide ocean and cup my hands over my mouth. “Brady!”
A head bobs way out in the water, but it’s Kirill. I have no idea how he’s able to swim so fast even as waves are pushing back on him. I’m also not sure why he’s so far out. Brady won’t be out there. He wouldn’t be able to swim that far.
I turn in a circle, slicing my hands through the water to feel for a bony elbow or a silky head of hair. But it feels like I’m dredging the whole entire ocean for one little boy. Brady is so small. He barely comes up to my waist. And the ocean is so big. How are we ever going to find him?
“Brady!” I yell again. But my voice is shot to hell. It’s nothing compared to the roar of the waves.
I look for Kirill again, but he hasn’t resurfaced in a while. The panic I’m feeling for Brady splits, multiplies, melts in on itself, and repeats the process all over again.
