“Everything here is secure. If you have any other issues, contact the office, but there shouldn’t be any,” Jackson tells her, but the woman’s attention is now on me.
“You look familiar.”
“Me?” I squeak.
“Did you say your name was Bell? Is that short for something?”
“We need to get going,” Jackson cuts in, saving me from any other questions, thankfully. He doesn’t say another word until we’re back in his SUV pulling out of the gates. “Was that your name signed at the bottom of that art piece?” I only nod. “Are you ready for some private pool time?” he asks, not pushing me for more. I feel myself relax.
“Isn’t it a bit cold for a pool?”
“It’s heated. I promise I won’t let you freeze.” No, I don’t think he will.
CHAPTER11
JACKSON
“Going to jump in this time?”I scrape my hands along my skull, pushing my wet bangs and the water out of my face.
“I like it here,” Bell calls to me. She splashes her feet in the water. We’ve been together for a week, and her tension appears to be fading. Her boxes aren’t all unpacked, and there are secrets she’s keeping, but she no longer wakes up in a sweat that there’s another body in her bed. It’s progress.
I swim over to her spot next to the pool and heave myself onto the teak deck. She hands me a towel and tries to keep her eyes above my shoulders. Her resolve wavers when I move the towel from my hair to my chest. I’m not a gym rat and haven’t really given a shit about how my body looks. The ridges on my abdomen are the result of hard labor and not a hundred crunches a day, but I’m glad that I have this big, fit body because it lights a fire in her eyes.
“You can touch me if you want,” I suggest.
She stills and then lets out a soft laugh. “I was going to say I wasn’t staring, but the lie would be too obvious. You’re hot. I guess you know that.”
“Don’t care what I am, as long as I’m pleasing to you.” I lift one leg up on the teak deck and drape my arm around it. “One day you’ll be comfortable sharing things with me.” I already have guessed a few things, and I have my suspicions about others. The way she stared at that painting at Faith’s house tipped me off. I put that together with the paint splatters on almost all her clothes and figured out she’s Annabella Cane. I looked her up online, but there wasn’t much information. The art news called her a private person who rarely showed up for her own gallery showings.
Her art took off after works of hers were sold by a big New York gallery at Art Basel in Miami. Art Basel’s apparently the biggest art fair in the world. That’s what the internet told me. The same gallery that represents her posted that she was working on preparing for her second solo show. It doesn’t seem like she’s getting a lot of work done these days. Probably not easy to be creative when you’re looking over your shoulder all the time.
“I appreciate you not pushing,” she answers. I guess that means she’s not sharing anytime soon.
“I’m in it for the long term, Dollface. Doesn’t matter to me if you tell me today or five years from now. I’ll still be around.”
“Only five years?” she teases.
I burst out laughing. My favorite Bell is the loud, sarcastic one. “I’d say five hundred, but I’m not sure I want to live that long. What would we even be like if we could live to five hundred?”
“If modern medicine can keep us alive for that long, I’m hoping that they can create whole new bodies.”
I give her a long, lascivious perusal. “I like the one you’re sporting now.”
“I won’t look like this when I’m five hundred. I’m a grape now, but by then, I wouldn’t even be a raisin. I’d be the piece of plastic that was used to seal the raisin box shut as it is the only thing that survives after the rest is burned away by four hundred years of sun.”
“Our five hundredth anniversary sounds like it will be lit—literally.”
This earns me a small chuckle. She slowly rocks on her hands, coming increasingly closer with every move. The water laps against the tile. Outside of the glass walls of the enclosed pool, snow is starting to fall.
“I wish I could be more open with you,” she admits. “But I’m not supposed to.”
Meaning someone is engineering this getaway. She might be in witness protection. “It’s okay. You’ll tell me when you feel like it. Why don’t we go inside and light a fire? It’s starting to snow.” I tilt my head toward the windows.
Her eyes light up. “It is.” She hops to her feet and rushes over to the glass. “I can’t believe it. I don’t have any Christmas decorations. My house looks so unfestive that it hardly feels like the holidays are here.”
“You need a pumpkin latte and some mistletoe.” I drape a towel over her shoulders and peer over her shoulder. The closeness of her body to mine makes my cock ache. Desire builds on my tongue like a physical thing that I can taste and feel. I tighten my hands and pull her back until her ass is rubbing against my thighs and my cock is pressed into her spine.
She inhales but doesn’t move. I slide my right hand down her arm and then across her pelvis to rest above her sex. “Don’t move, Dollface. Keep watching the snow. It’s pretty, isn’t it?” I curl my fingers over her swimsuit bottom. The fabric is wet. From the pool? From her? I’m not sure. I rub slowly in light circles. Her breathing hitches and becomes uneven. She leans backward against my chest.