Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

In hindsight, the problem is that it’s so easy.

Easy lures me in.

Easy casts a reel, and I’m hooked.

I have no immunity. No way to resist. Everything else up to this point has been an effort. Effort and pain. My two keywords in life. And it’s not that I’m complaining. Not exactly.

It’s more that it’s what I’m used to.

It’s the kind of strange status quo that you don’t consciously pay attention to anymore because it’s just how things are. You’re used to it, so it’s become normal.

And then something easy comes along.

You accidentally cross paths with it.

It settles somewhere in the periphery and then moves closer.

You don’t suspect a thing. You don’t even really pay attention at first.

But then there’s laughter and talking and teasing, and most of all, there’s fun ! And God, when was the last time you really had fun?

It’s been ages. Forever.

And it’s not that your life so far has been some destitute hellscape. You do like your life. It’s a good life. It’s got the usual ups and downs, and some of the low points have been really low, but all in all, it’s a good life.

But now it’s just a smidge brighter.

It’s not glaringly obvious. It’s not something you consciously acknowledge or attribute to something, but there is some vague awareness every morning now that it’s going to be a really good day.

There’s no stress. No expectations. No need to hide any part of yourself because it’s all just for fun.

You don’t question it.

You don’t suspect anything.

You don’t overthink or overanalyze.

Why would you?

Rules are set.

Expectations are voiced.

And it’s all.

Just.

So.

Easy.

“You know you don’t work here, right?” I ask when, as is becoming a habit by now, I get to the pool and find Sutton hanging out on the front steps again.

“It’s a good thing, too,” he says with a serious nod. “Even the thought of regular employment gives me hives.”

I cross my arms over my chest and suppress a smile. “How have you survived this far?”

“With copious help from people I pay to do stuff for me,” he says flippantly, then he gets up.

It should really be more annoying when he says things like that. Talk about being an entitled ass.

“And yet you’re here,” I say. “Preparing to do manual labor. Again.”

“I’m mostly here to look at your ass when you bend over. Work is just an unfortunate byproduct. A price I have to pay for the privilege, if you will.”

“So with the right incentive, you’ll ignore the hives?”

“Seems so.” He nods toward the door. “Come on. Let’s get this over with. I’ve got a blow job with your name on it locked and loaded.”

I blink at him for a moment, then scramble to get the keys out of my pocket and into the lock. When I look over my shoulder, his eyes are on my ass, as promised. He looks up, waggles his brows, and sends an unapologetic grin my way, and my insides feel like I’m looking down from somewhere up high—a dash of apprehension with a whole lot of excitement.

I motion for him to get inside. “Tick tock. Time’s a-wastin’, Holland.” He laughs and salutes me when I snap my fingers in front of his face.

We go through the locker rooms swiftly, and once we get to the pool, I’m full of determination to get that out of the way as soon as possible, too. Apparently I’ve got a blow job to look forward to, and that does wonders for my productivity. Sutton doesn’t seem to be in a hurry once we reach the pool though.

Instead, he glances at the water thoughtfully, then at me.

“Want to go for a swim?” he asks.

“Umm… No? Hello? Blow jobs?”

He sends me a long, considering look. Then his hands move to the hem of his shirt, and he pulls it over his head.

“How about now?” he says.

I swallow, throat thick, mind on dick.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to,” I say.

“Who’s going to tell?”

“It’s more about doing the right thing.”

“But it’ll be so much more fun if we do the exact opposite of what’s right.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Is that your motto?”

“The unofficial one. In all fairness, it’s much better than the crap we have on our family crest.”

“Family cr—” I start to say before I stop myself. “You know what? Sure. Why not. Family crest. Of course you come from a family that has one.”

He sends me a mock-grim nod. “If it helps, it’s godawful. Ugly as sin. Whichever forefather had that thing commissioned had absolutely no taste.”

“Is that one of the greatest hardships you’ve ever had to endure?”

“It’s definitely up there. There was also the time they ran out of Beluga caviar at last year’s Abney Foundation Christmas Ball. Society event of the season, my ass. Anyway, that one still haunts me, so it has to be one of those two. The tragedies that shaped me.”

I’m not even going to touch that one.

“What’s the motto on the crest?” I ask.

“ Spectemur agendo .”

“What does it mean?”

His face contorts into a thoroughly unimpressed grimace tinged with something that resembles disgust. “Let us be judged by our actions.”

I don’t want to look outright dumb, so I spend a few seconds trying to figure out what might be wrong with that statement. It seems innocuous enough. Or maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe there’s some history behind it, and I’m unaware of its impact.

“And that’s… bad?”

“It’s hypocritical to the highest degree, is what it is,” he says, grimness tinging each word.

I study him in silence while he glares at the water until curiosity gets the better of me.

“Are your parents still a-around?” I stumble on the last word because straight-up asking if they’re dead seems insensitive, so “around” is the best word I can think of to replace “alive.”

“You mean are they dead?” Sutton asks, point-blank, ruining my attempt at being considerate.

I shrug in response.

“No, they’re alive,” he says.

Here is where my inexperience with letting new people into my life comes out full force. I don’t know what I should or shouldn’t ask, even if I’m dying to have the answers. Even if I’m suddenly very aware of how little I actually know about Sutton Holland.

I finally settle on “Are you guys close?”

“Christ, no.” He says it with feeling . So much feeling that it makes me raise my brows at him from sheer surprise at the vicious edge in his voice.

He gathers himself swiftly though, and the “No” he says next is more subdued.

Silence falls between us. I should probably just let it go.

“Do they live in New York?”

Sutton sighs.

“Yes,” he says, but there are no further details given.

“What do they do?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m rapidly losing my erection here.”

I wait him out until he sighs again.

“The Holland family dabbles in many different ventures, but our flagship is a shipping company, excuse the pun. The family also has a large real estate portfolio and shares in a number of different companies.”

“But you’re not working for the family business?” I ask. “Isn’t that how it usually goes for people like you?”

Some of the humor seems to come back at that.

“People like me?”

“Well-off people. The ones from incredibly wealthy families with trust funds big enough to buy a small country.”

“You think I should put in an offer for Vatican City?” The corners of his mouth curl up.

“The Vatican would probably burn to the ground the moment you signed the deed.”

He laughs. “I’m not going to lie, it’s a possibility,” he says.

“Why would you even want Vatican City? It doesn’t feel like your kind of place.”

“I can fix him,” he says solemnly.

“I thought we as a society had already collectively agreed that’s not something that works,” I point out.

“We as a society always insist on repeating our mistakes, too. And to answer your question, no, I do not work for the family business.”

Don’t poke. Don’t poke. Don’t poke.

“Why not? Isn’t there some CEO position and a cushy corner office somewhere that’s been waiting for you since you were born?”

He looks down at his crotch and shakes his head morosely. “And it’s gone.”

“Sorry,” I mutter. “Not about your dick. I mean about the intrusive questions.”

He waves me off. “I’ll survive.” He eyes me for a moment. “You know those huge corporations that destroy everything in their path without a second thought, whether it be a small business, a park, the whole environment, or the souls of little children? And all of those are equally pointless in their eyes?”

I nod.

“Well, that’s the Holland family for you.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Makes sense you wouldn’t be a part of it, then.”

He sends me a pitying look. “I’d fit right in with the rest,” he says. “I have all the prerequisites to thrive in that world.”

I don’t believe him. Not even a little bit.

“Why don’t you then?”

“Destruction takes a?—”

“A lot of effort,” I finish for him with a roll of my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Well, thank God you’re lazy, I guess.”

His lips pull into a smirk, but he doesn’t have anything else to say to that, it seems. Instead, he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his sweats and starts pulling them down, eyes locked with mine in challenge. His underwear comes down with the pants, and then he’s naked, unapologetic and confident as ever.

He dives in headfirst, and I watch through the water as he glides forward along the bottom of the pool.

I hesitate and fidget, playing with the hem of my shirt.

Sutton’s head pops up after a minute or so, and he sends me a scorching look.

“Come on,” he calls. “You know you want to.”

I let out a deep sigh and pull the shirt over my head. The air is warm and humid, but with the way Sutton is looking at me, goose bumps of anticipation appear all over my skin.

“You’re a bad influence,” I grumble as I ball the shirt up and throw it on the bench on top of Sutton’s clothes.

“The worst,” he agrees, cheerful as ever, showing not a single sign of remorse.

I hesitate with the pants, which is annoying. My upper body is already out, and he’s seen me naked multiple times by now.

I lose the pants and get a heated look in return for my efforts.

“Jump in,” he says.

“You’re going to get me in trouble.”

He slaps the surface of the water, showering me with droplets.

“In,” he demands.

So I give up, raise my hands, and dive in. I emerge right next to him and blink water out of my eyes. He still has the same heated look on his face, the kind of naked hunger that makes things between us just a little bit scary.

I could get used to being looked at like that.

I push the thought aside firmly. There’s no need to make things messy inside my own head.

He moves closer, treading water.

My heart skips a beat at the intensity in his gaze.

Messy, messy, messy.

I slap my palm against his shoulder.

“Tag, you’re it,” I say before I dive under the surface. I haven’t swum in forever, but I learned as a kid after the smelling-the-flower-underwater incident. My sister freaked out and made sure to drag me to the local pool where they had swimming classes for the whole summer after that. But it’s been years since I’ve been in the water, on account of me being less than enthusiastic about the prospect of getting naked in front of a whole lot of people.

I figure I’m slower than Sutton for sure, but I also figure I have a head start, so I should be able to put some distance between the two of us.

A second later, fingers wrap around my ankle, and I’m being yanked backward. My limbs flail, and I splutter when I get to the surface. The first thing I see is Sutton’s smug grin. He quirks his brow and dives, and I swim after him.

Chasing him down takes a long time. He is faster, but I’m smarter. It takes a bit of time, but I finally have him cornered in the shallow end of the pool.

The water barely grazes his hips, which is very distracting, but I do my best to ignore it as I approach.

His smile is still in place, eyes moving to the left and to the right, looking for a way out. It’s my turn to send a smug grin his way. I’m a few feet away when I launch myself toward him. He tries to take a left, but I anticipate the move and block him with my body.

The game of tag turns into something that closely resembles a wrestling match. He tries to dunk me, and I try to dunk him in return. We move away from the shallow end and back to the deeper part, right on each other’s heels.

We’re both breathless and wheezing with laughter as we chase each other. The air echoes with shouts and the sound of water splashing around us.

I don’t know how much time has passed, only that I feel lighter than air, and when I look at Sutton, all I see is pure, carefree joy in his face as we laugh and laugh and laugh until my stomach muscles hurt.

He catches me in the middle of the pool and pulls me against him, my body flush against his.

And the laughter slowly peters out.

His chest is rising and falling rapidly against mine.

Our eyes lock.

The carefree joy in his eyes changes. It burns up in the intense heat of his gaze until only lust remains.

Sutton’s fingers sink into the wet strands of hair on the back of my head. His other arm goes around me from behind, pulling me closer until I can feel his heart hammer against mine through his chest.

He slams his mouth down on mine. Our tongues clash at almost the exact moment our lips meet. The kiss is openmouthed and wild, an edge of desperation coloring it. I spread my fingers over Sutton’s wide shoulders before I wrap my arms around his neck. His hand moves lower until it covers one of my ass cheeks, and I wrap my legs around his waist.

And all the while, we keep kissing, mouths fused together, my tongue in his mouth and his in mine.

My dick is rock hard, pressed against his equally hard cock between our stomachs, and things are very quickly getting out of hand, but I can’t seem to stop and pull away to be reasonable about this.

My mind is a riot of emotions, and my chest is tight with need.

He swallows every moan and gasp, and everything becomes almost too much just around the time Sutton tears his mouth away and buries his mouth in my neck. He murmurs things I don’t understand, and I don’t ask what they are.

“We should get out of here,” he says in a strained voice. “Right the fuck now.”

“I have to finish work.” I sound dazed, like I’ve just been woken up and am now trying and failing to come back to reality.

He swears, a long and colorful string of words that makes me grin like a lunatic. Then he sighs, squeezes my ass once more, and makes a face.

“This should be fun,” he says. “Can’t say I’ve ever wielded a pressure cleaner with a hard-on, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

“You can use your hands.” I laugh and sputter when he tries to dunk me again.

“Smartass,” he says once I’ve come up for air.

He smiles. Not smug. Not cocky. Just kind of… affectionate. And somewhere deep inside, so far below that only faint echoes reach the surface, I realize the affectionate smiles might be much worse than the smug, cocky ones.

A hell of a lot more dangerous, too.