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I splashed him and jogged toward the deep end before he could retaliate. He caught up with me in two strokes and cut his hand through the water, sending a veritable tsunami at me. I flopped onto my back and kicked water at him as I spluttered and paddled to get away.
Soon we were chasing each other back and forth and laughing harder than I’d laughed in a long time. I pretended to call a truce, and as soon as he was close enough, I let him have it with a big swish of my entire arm, soaking him and making him lunge for me. With a shriek, I kicked off the bottom and headed for the deep end, with him shouting he was going to make me pay.
I turned as I chugged toward the opposite side, ready to tell him he’d never catch me when my foot slipped as the bottom dipped downward. The next thing I knew, I was slipping under. I wasn’t really a lousy swimmer and could have found my footing and pushed my head above water, but his strong arms immediately wrapped around me and pulled me up, dragging me to the edge.
I had never once acted like a damsel in distress to get what I wanted, and though I had wanted Mikhail for years, I still wasn’t about to start. I took what I wanted, even if it got me in trouble. Before he could let me go, I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on, his face close enough to mine to kiss him, our bodies pressed together under the gently swishing water. He stared at me as if mesmerized, his eyes finally dropped to my breasts, pushed close to his chest, and billowed out of the tiny top. He looked back up at me, at my mouth. I closed my eyes, waiting to feel his lips on mine, my whole body yearning for it.
Instead, he lifted me up onto the side of the pool and backed away. “I can’t do this,” he said raggedly.
But he wanted to. I reached out with my feet and drew him back between my legs, crossing my ankles behind his shoulders.
“Yes, you can,” I said.Please, I was inwardly begging.
His hands broke the surface and slid along my calves and up my thighs to rest on my hips. It was almost as if I could see his fight with himself. But why? I tightened my legs, pulling him closer. Close enough, he could take my bikini bottoms off with his teeth. He planted his hands on the smooth cement on either side of me and pulled himself effortlessly out of the deep water. Drops rained down on me as his body pressed against mine, forcing me to lean back. I shook with anticipation and need.
“No, I can’t.” He shoved away from me, back into the water. He swam to the other side and climbed out, stamping away down the path without looking at me again.
I wanted to yell at him that he was a coward, the worst insult I could fling at him. But I knew he was only being noble. In his mind, he had a job to do. Keep me safe. And in his mind, that meant for himself as well, even if it was the only thing I wanted. Damn him for that, and damn myself for loving it about him.
I sat there until my heartbeat calmed to normal speed and my legs stopped trembling before slowly returning to my room. I refused to cry over him. Not anymore, not again.
Once in my beautiful princess suite, a few tears did fall, but I told myself it was from frustration since all my hard work was going to waste because of the overprotective men in my life.
Not because Mikhail Roslov wouldn’t kiss me.
Chapter 10 - Mikhail
I crashed into my bedroom and slammed the door behind me, furious that I couldn’t get everything I wanted to do to Evelina out of my head. That bikini she was wearing should have been illegal, barely covering any of her silky smooth flesh.
And why did we have to start having so much fun? Frolicking in the pool with her had made me forget the last few terrible weeks and the turf war my organization had barely won.
I should have left her there on her own. The place was a fortress, so deep in the Everglades, even the most dedicated poachers never came close to it. It was surrounded by water, with three different bridges to cross, all under twenty-four-hour surveillance, before the twelve-foot high wall that ran around the entire house. I had armed guards here at all times. They could have kept her safe on the infinitesimal chance that anyone managed to breach the perimeter.
But I couldn’t do it. Not if there was a chance smaller than a microbe that she might come to harm. Seeing her slip under water for a split second made my heart climb out of my chest. She was never in any danger of drowning, but I’d acted before I could think, hauling her above the surface. If the Novikoffs found her, I’d never forgive myself, and not just because of Kristina’s heartbreak over losing her best friend or Oleg being devastated for losing his daughter.
I would have been devastated. She was like a—
No, not a daughter, God no. Not after how I felt when she wrapped her legs around me. Not with the way I couldn’t keep my eyes off her ripe body in that swimsuit.
I paced my room, far too worked up to sleep. If I lay down and closed my eyes, visions of Evelina would only dance provocatively through my head. They were doing it right now, making me hard all over again. I was beginning to rue the moment I saw that sexy redhead in the coffee shop, planning what we’d be getting up to after I introduced myself and worked my charm on her. If only she hadn’t turned around and revealed herself to be someone I could never have. And if only she wasn’t so brave and stubborn and foolish to have gotten herself marked for death by a rival family.
So what was Evelina to me?
She was a favor to a friend, nothing more. And if I couldn’t leave her here on her own due to my loyalty to Oleg, I needed a distraction from her. Better yet, I needed to give her a distraction to keep her from driving me up a wall.
Really, what was that at the pool? I’d been so close to losing control. No one made me feel so out of my depth until now. Was she teasing me as a punishment for interfering with her freedom? She certainly didn’t have real feelings for me, did she? Or want me in the way I wanted her? It was absurd. I was literally old enough to be her—
God, I needed to stop thinking like that.
Kristina’s mother and I had married when we were both very young. Kids, really. I’d only just turned twenty when Kristina was born, so I was quite a bit younger than Oleg. But I could still be Evelina’s father!
But I wasn’t, and she was making it very clear she didn’t view me that way. I was as heated as when I’d been trapped between her creamy thighs, the vee of her bikini all but begging to be pushed aside so I could plunge my tongue inside her. If this was all a game to her, I needed to tap out, be the grown-up. Stop playing altogether. Because it had to be nothing more to her. The idea that she might be seriously interested in me was too unbelievable.
Pissed off that she was toying with me and the fact I was back to thinking about what I wanted to do with her all over again, I stormed into the bathroom and stepped under an icy shower. I turned the pressure up to pound down on my back, taking the frigid needles of pain as penance for losing control at all and hoping it would take my mind off of Evelina.
It didn’t.
I really needed to come up with something to keep her occupied and get her mind off of torturing me before I made a mistake I’d regret.
