Page 39 of The Saint

When she fell, I was quick to turn the boat around and pull up next to her. She swam close, threw her skis up over her head, then took my hand and let me pull her on board.

“Have fun?” I asked, grabbing a towel from the seat and passing it to her.

She wiped the water from her face, then held the towel to her chest. Self-conscious as always, even with that wide smile on her lips. “It was great!”

I tugged the towel from her grip, that smile fracturing and becoming fake. But this girl, she could never hide from me. I’d memorized every inch of her body, held the vision of her in my mind’s eye.

Drew her naked form as I remembered it from our teenage years, the image ingrained in my heart.

Wrapping the towel around her shoulders, I pulled her close, burying my face in her salt water-scented hair.

“I’m glad,” I told her as her hands fisted against my bare chest. And I tucked her closer, fitting her body against mine.

The girl, she looked up at me. And I lowered my face, letting her rise up on her toes to press a kiss to my lips.

Things had changed between us. This wasn’t the same relationship we had when we were kids. I could hold her hands, hold her close, kiss her lips and let her kiss me back. But every time I even considered anything more, no matter how badly my body might want it, my heart rattled the bars of its cage, demanding I lock it back up and keep it safe.

So when Jael’s lips parted, though my body begged for me to kiss her back, to slide my tongue against hers, my heart and mind pulled away.

“You want to go again?” I hated the way her face fell. As if me protecting my heart was a rejection she couldn’t understand.

She put on a front, this façade she didn’t know I could see straight through, and shook her head. “I’m getting hungry.”

“Me too. Let me get the cooler.” I lowered the anchor, then snagged the cooler I’d packed from where I secured it in the under-seat cabinet when we boarded hours ago. My gaze landed upon my bag, and I hesitated before pulling it out.

Jael was stretched out on the bench at the back of the boat, her hard, muscled body a fucking wet dream. Sun glinted off the water droplets still clinging to her skin, and I was tempted to lick them off her as if they were candy. Everything in me reacted in a way it shouldn’t, not if I was taking this slow. Every piece of me wanted to pull back the towel she’d draped across her torso, peel off her swimsuit and dive in.

I forced my gaze away from her, forced my body to move her way. I snagged the towel away from her anyway, grinning down at her and getting my fill before laying the towel on the floor beneath the bench.

“Rude,” she told me as I turned to sit so she couldn’t see the betrayal my body was putting on full display.

Pulling containers from the cooler, I shrugged. “You don’t need to cover up.”

“Says the man who looks like he was carved from stone,” she mumbled under her breath. “What do you do, workout all day?”

A breath left me on a huff. “Hardly. I haven’t had a good workout since March.”

She sat up, swinging one leg over my head so she was straddling my shoulders. Her hands fell lightly upon my skin, and the plastic container I was opening nearly fell to the floor.

“Does it still hurt?” she asked, fingers skating across the scar on my chest.

I wanted to tell her yes, everything hurt. But she wasn’t asking about that. I turned my head, and if my eyes had been opened, I could have watched her fingers dancing across my scar.

“Sometimes,” I choked out through a tight throat.

Her hands spread, fingers wide across my skin, and I wondered if anything had ever felt this good.

“I wish I would have been there for you.”

I spun in my spot, looking up at her. “I don’t.” She blinked, but she couldn’t hide the hurt that crept over her face. I took her hand, lacing my fingers between hers. “He would have killed you. Or worse.”

Jael tried to pull her hand away, and I knew what was rolling around in her head.

This girl, she didn’t want to be weak. Didn’t want anyone to think she couldn’t take care of herself.

A sick part of me almost wished she had been there, because things would have been different. Maybe I wouldn’t have been shot. Maybe Natalia wouldn’t have been taken, and Diesel wouldn’t have had to…

I shut down that line of thought.