family legend slip out.”
“You’re terrible at avoiding questions.” If she doesn’t quit touching me, I’m going to kiss her again, and we’ll both regret it.
No, check that.
I’ll regret it. I will definitely regret it.
She grins, as if to reinforce the idea that she never regrets anything. “Of everything I’ve ever been accused of, that’s a new one.”
“What would you be if you could be anything?”
“Immortal like my grandmother, but more on the butterfly side than the orc side.”
She’s so—so—so fucking infuriating.
She wants my help, but she won’t tell me why. She smiles, but I don’t believe she’s fully happy. She says she wants to be nice, but she runs one of the biggest real estate empires in the world.
You can’t run an empire and be nice.
“Wow, you have really thick veins in your neck,” she whispers.
She touches my neck again, and fuck.
I’m going to kiss her.
I’m going to kiss chaos. Disorder. Unpredictability.
Because fuck it.
If this is what life’s throwing at me, why the hell shouldn’t I take it?
Twenty
Daisy
One minute, I’m sitting on the edge of the pool, getting ready to kiss this delicious hunk of a man who’s stepped up in a way no man has ever stepped up in my life, and the next, I’m three feet underwater.
I surge to the surface, ready to pounce, but West is already halfway across the pool.
“Oh, so that’s how you want to play?” I call.
He tilts his ear toward me. “I don’t know what your end game is, but you can’t use your feminine wiles against me. I’m a highly trained military operative who can resist torture and interrogation with the best of them.”
He’s freaking hilarious.
And unexpectedly fun this afternoon.
And intent on resisting me, which makes him all that much more irresistible.
“Oh, you can, can you?” I reach under the water and grab the bottom of my tank top to slowly peel it over my head.
Even from halfway across the pool, I can see his eyes dilate.
He’s not immune to me.
Not in the least.
Is flirting with my co-guardian a bad idea?
Probably.
But do I love bad ideas?
Most definitely.
“Do your worst,” he says.
The water’s cool, but my skin’s hot, and my competitive streak is bubbling to the surface. “I’m going to make you want to kiss me,” I tell him.
“No, you’re not.”
I smile and fling my tank somewhere behind me.
A cat yowls, and then a streak of gray tabby shoots from the bushes to the outdoor kitchen at the top of my courtyard.
West wipes the water off his face. “You just hit the cat with your shirt.”
“Without looking.” I wiggle my brows. “You could be kissing that level of talent right now.”
“I’m not kissing you.”
“Not yet.”
“You’re insane.”
“Westley. This is not how you win an argument with me.” I reach behind my neck and untie my bikini top.
He freezes in the water. Hard freezes. “What are you doing?”
“Playing dirty.”
“I have four sisters. I was flashed more times before I was eighteen than most men are in a lifetime. I’m immune.”
“So you’ve never seen breasts you liked? You poor man. You really didn’t get a good look at mine the other day.”
“I’ve seen plenty of breasts I liked. I just don’t need to see—dammit, Daisy.”
I glide into the water toward where he’s hiding in the deep end. “You changed in front of me. This is only fair.”
“You charged into my room naked. We’re even. And I wasn’t trying to seduce you.”
“I wrestle better in the water when I’m naked, and I owe you for dunking me.”
He slices through the water, effortlessly avoiding me. “That was free of charge. No repayment necessary.”
“I’m not one of those billionaires who uses her status to get things for free. I need to pay you back.”
“Nope. I’m a giver. We’re even at a karmic level.”
“Am I really that unattractive?”
“Yes.”
I laugh, because he’s starting to smile, and I know he’s lying.
“But you have a mediocre personality to compensate for your physical shortcomings,” he adds, and that’s it.
He could be the love child of Michael Phelps and Idris Elba—so basically a gorgeous fast swimmer—and I would still absolutely catch this man and dunk him right back.
I lunge for him, and he dives under the water, only to surface a moment later back in the shallow end of my awesome D pool.
“Time out,” I call.
“Pussy,” he calls back with a full shit-eating grin that makes the butterflies and geckos and probably even Steve the alligator, who can’t see him, all faint with swooniness.
I’m torn between swooning and jumping him.
But first, I need to be