Page 196 of A Vicious Love

Her mouth moved faintly.

My hand tightened at the back of her neck before I could stop it.

I forced my voice lower. Softer, though the word felt foreign in my mouth. “You do not apologize for falling. I scared you.”

I slid my hand from her neck to the side of her face, thumb brushing water from her cheek. I looked at her mouth for half a second too long and nearly lost the thread of sanity.

No.

Not now.

She had just almost drowned because my existence made her panic. Try being human for once, Crow.

I shifted carefully, easing her weight lower against my thighs so she wasn’t holding herself up. Her knees tightened automatically around me, and the sensation tore a rough breath from my chest.

Bad.

Very bad.

My body had not gotten the memo that this was a crisis. I ignored it with the kind of discipline that should have qualified me for a religious award.

“Easy,” I said. “Let me hold you.”

“I’m wet.”

“So am I.”

“Your clothes⁠—”

“Sienna.”

She stopped.

I bent until my forehead almost touched hers. “I do not care about the clothes.”

She looked down then, awareness slowly coming back into her expression. Her hand moved to the torn bikini top beneath my jacket.

“I ripped it getting you up.”

Colour rushed into her cheeks despite the shock.

I pulled the jacket tighter around her shoulders, shielding her from the open air. “Nobody can see.”

Her fingers clutched the lapels.

“I didn’t mean⁠—”

“Stop not apologizing.”

Her mouth closed

I needed one minute where her fear did not say sorry in a pretty voice and slice me open with it.

She breathed in again, this one shaky but deeper.

I watched her chest move beneath the jacket because breathing had become the only thing in the world worth tracking.

“You’re okay,” I said, as much to myself as to her. “You hit the water clean. No head strike that I saw. You were under too long, but you coughed it out. I’m still having a doctor check you.”