Wretched Love

He was wearing jeans and a tank. To a pool party. He’d informed me earlier that he’d change into swim trunks when he got there. Apparently, walking around in swim trunks would “fuck with his street cred.”

“It was their choice to throw this pool warming,” he continued, turning to look at me. “Therefore, they must’ve expected you to be walkin’ round in that fuckin’ swimsuit. And I wouldn’t be a man if I didn’t fuck my woman while she was wearin’ that.” He waved at my bikini.

I bit my lip, my cheeks warming.

“Well, far be it for me to argue with that logic,” I giggled.

He narrowed his eyes. “You keep bein’ cute at the same time you’re bein’ sexy as fuck, I’ll be chaining you to the bed, appetizers be damned.”

My belly plunged all the way to my toes, and the breath whooshed out of my lungs.

I was not immune to Swiss when he said things like that. I had not gotten used to the way he spoke. It still affected me.

“We can do that later,” I murmured, moving out of his grip to pull a floaty linen dress over my head. It was sheer and finished at my ankles. The red swimsuit I was wearing was clearly defined underneath, and I didn’t care. No one else would.

I slipped into some cheap sandals I’d gotten from Target, my toes painted the same red as my bikini. My hair was piled into a messy bun on top of my head, and I wasn’t wearing any makeup. I reasoned it would all get washed off in the pool anyway. My cheeks were rosy, and there were a few freckles dusting my nose from the amount of time my bare face saw the sun lately. SPF slathered on it, of course.

“Fuck,” Swiss muttered.

I turned to see him staring at me, rubbing the back of his head.

“What?” I asked.

“Well, I’m havin’ a dilemma,” he said, eyes running over me. “See, that dress is not at all gonna work on the bike. But you look so fuckin’ hot in it, I am physically unable to ask you to change.”

I couldn’t stop the smile that lifted my cheeks. “Well, it might behoove us to drive anyway because I picked up some last-minute supplies for the appetizers, and I don’t know how well they’ll travel on the bike.”

He tilted his head, regarding me with amusement. “Might it ‘behoove us’, Countess?” he teased.

I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t like riding without you pressed up against me,” he complained.

I smiled at him. “Well, I’m not overly fond of it either,” I dropped a kiss onto his sulking lips. “But I do like this dress, and I got some kick-ass cheeses, so will you make an exception, right? Just this once?” I widened my eyes. “For me?” I even tried to pout.

Swiss shook his head, smiling. “Anything for you, Kate.”

His voice wasn’t as teasing as it had been before.

There was another layer there, blanketing what he just said.

Something that filled me up and scared the crap out of me at the same time.

I didn’t look at the number when the phone rang. I was too distracted by finishing off the appetizers, too busy thinking about Swiss’s promises of what we were going to be doing in the bathroom later.

Ordinarily, I’d be worried about how disrespectful doing that in someone else’s house would be, but apparently, we wouldn’t be the first to do such things. Each of the married men could not keep their hands off their wives, and no one seemed to mind one bit.

Swiss had been giving me looks from the breakfast bar until I’d finally banished him outside because he was distracting me.

He’d grumbled about that then came up to slip his hand into my bikini top, kiss my neck and whisper about the things he planned to do to me before we left.

It had taken me five minutes to get my breathing under control after that.

We had been the first to arrive. Macy was dealing with the kids after asking me about ten times if there was anything she could do then thanking me profusely when I’d assured her I had it.

And beyond thinking about Swiss, I did have it. Their kitchen was beautiful, open plan with plenty of counter space. All of their appliances were top notch, everything I could need was laid out for me, and what wasn’t I could find easily. The kitchen was clean but cluttered. Scattered with photos in mismatched frames. There was a dying basil plant by the stove. Recipe books were stacked unevenly in a corner. Everything was lived in. Warm.

Music played from the speakers they had mounted on the walls. The house smelled of lavender and sage. A balmy breeze brushed through the open sliding doors that led out toward the pool area—where Swiss was with Hansen.