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Now was the time she usually caved and asked for a rescue. This time she didn’t. She got up, shifted her left hip toward the handle and rode the fucking wake.

“She fucking did it,” I muttered to myself.

Sincere’s celebration was more vocal. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted her praises until a big smile took over Goldyn’s face.

She fucking did it.

And she rode for a full minute before throwing up three fingers to signal she was done.

Goldyn had wakeboarded for a full minute. Pride crowded my chest as I pulled in her line then tugged her out of the water by the shoulders of her life vest.

When I got her out of her bindings, she jumped into Sincere’s open arms, soaking up his praise. “You’re fucking amazing, love.”

When they kissed, I busied myself with getting the board on the back of the boat so Lorenzo could steer us back to the dock. I kept my eyes off Goldyn until Ifelther in my bubble.

“You did great, G,” I mumbled without looking up.

“No,you’rea great teacher. Thank you, Rome.”

“Any time.” I finally looked at her and smiled.

She let her eyes dance over my face, from my eyes to my lips and back to my eyes before she bit her lip and went back to sit on Sin’s lap.

I obsessed over that look the entire ride home, dissecting every detail until it was branded in my memory as if I caught it on film.

And then after that, when we got home and everybody went their separate ways to get cleaned up before the takeout weordered arrived, I got in the shower and stroked one out to the memory of her smile and the light in her eyes.

I was never coming back from this woman. She owned me in ways that didn’t make sense for someone I’d never even kissed, never even hugged. She’d burrowed herself so deep into my existence I couldn’t remember what it was like tonotwant her.

Her name left my lips on a sigh, barely audible over the spray of water as cum shot out against my fingers and dripped to the shower floor.

“What’sup with you and Rome?” Lorenzo walked up behind me, pressed kisses along my neck and then pulled me against him in a hug while I washed the pitted cherries I’d gotten from Ms. Ruby earlier today.

“Me and Rome?” I echoed, distracted by the feel of his warm lips against the shell of my ear.

“Mhmm. What’s up with y’all?” He asked the question with a well-timed tilt of his hips that pressed his dick against my ass and made me forget what I was supposed to be doing.

Water rushed down the drain while I held a bunch of cherries suspended in midair, lost in the instant pull Lorenzo had on me. Snapping out of it, I turned off the faucet, turned in his arms and stared up at him. “What makes you ask that?”

“Because I got eyes. I see the way he is with you and he’s never like that with anybody.”

“I don’t know, maybe I finally wore him down,” I teased, holding a cherry up to his lips.

He opened his mouth and let me place the fruit on his tongue, his eyes snagging on mine. “You don’t know or you don’twantto know?”

My face scrunched and I tried to look away, but Enzo held my chin, coaxing my eyes back to his. Why was he so good at seeingthrough me? He noticed everything and called me on it, even things I didn’t realize I was doing.

“Does it matter?” I asked, finally swallowing around the uncertainty in my throat. The truth was that Rome and I had fallen into a nice…rhythm. I didn’t want to jinx it by calling it something else because it had taken so long for us to get there. But today, when he walked into the library and sat down with me, I felt hope.

“Of course it matters.” Enzo inclined his head, a silent request for another cherry.

I gave in, slipping another one past his lips and sighed. “I haven’t cheated on you and Sin, if that’s what you’re worried about. I would never do that. You told me to end it with you before I started seeing someone else and I?—”

Enzo smirked down at me.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” he lied, running the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. “You’re just cute when you’re flustered.”