Page 14 of All The Way Under

CHAPTER SEVEN

saylor

If this was any other circumstance, this would look like the beginning of a porno.

Brody lifts his shirt and tank top over his head, tosses them, and his abs— damn near ten of them —flex and glisten as he stoops down.

“Pass me the mallet,” he says, holding out his hand. I stare at it for a few seconds, unable to look at anything else without feeling scandalized.

Brody is not like the men in my circles. He doesn’t look like them, talk like them, or act like them. I can’t help it. I look once more at his torso, and he chuckles.

“Do you know what a mallet is, or did they not teach you that in school?”

I shake my head and hand him the mallet. It would be weird if I didn’t bring up my insane behavior.

“My dad has a garage filled with tools and can fix practically anything in the world, so I know what all the tools are. I just have a question. Do you live in a gym? How do you look like that?” Another head shake to clear my mind.

“I don’t know if I’ve seen that many abs on one person.

Don’t flatter yourself. It’s like looking at a weird zoo animal or something, not like a physical attraction. ”

He laughs again. It sounds like velvet coated with honey, the expensive kind, but maybe that’s because I haven’t been in the real world in a while. I’m jaded. His biceps bulge with each whack of the tool. Definitely don’t see that kind of show in the real world.

We’re repairing a bamboo bridge that crosses over to a stunning waterfall.

Hence the porno thoughts when they mix with Brody.

Not that I’ve seen many, but the ones I watched with Archie always begin in a lavish destination with the couple trying to accomplish something other than sex.

It’s always an unsuccessful quest, so they just do it instead.

“Do they not have gyms where you’re from?” he asks, holding out his hand for another nail. I drop one in his palm, careful not to touch his skin.

“They do, but not the same kind you go to.” I pause. “Do all car mechanics look like this under the prison jumpsuits?”

He stops hammering and holds out his hand again. I oblige.

“I don’t know. Are all software engineers this deprived of a true male body?” He says it coyly, wearing a half grin.

Jesus, this is borderline flirting, and I started it. Nery and Ravelo are on the bank of the lagoon below us. They glance up every once in a while, but for all intents and purposes, it’s just Brody and me.

I watch him tie pieces of bamboo together with skinny rope and pull them tight. More muscles move and twitch. After he binds it, he lets his gaze flick up to meet mine.

Chemistry. Pure and simple.

Probably because he’s mean and nasty and out of my league.

Men like this don’t look at brainy women like me.

If he met my family, he’d run far, far away.

But why am I even thinking about this? There is no purpose or endgame to my thoughts.

Except when he wipes the sweat off his brow and slams the mallet hard, my stomach tips and spins.

“I wasn’t deprived of the male body. I was deprived of ones that look like yours,” I say, answering honestly.

He raises one brow.

“The weird zoo animal kind of male body? Gives off those bad vibes?” Brody says, hammering in the last nail.

Standing to his full height, I make a point to look away after I notice his jeans hang low on his waist.

“Makes me scared to think what you’ve been accustomed to before now.”

“Yeah, I guess I did put it that way,” I finally reply.

The men in my circle are long and lean. They have a little belly pooch from drinking too many Negronis. It perches perfectly on top of their wildly expensive belts. There’s nothing else to say that wouldn’t make my ogling less awkward.

“I designed this repair, your manpower finished this work, now are we allowed to go swim in that waterfall? Is that too forward for our first day of freedom?”

“It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission,” he says, kicking off his boots and heading down the embankment, sliding on his heels in the sand.

The men stand and rush over as soon as there’s movement.

Brody takes off his pants and dives into the water before they can reach him.

Nery stands at the edge of the water watching, his dart not even raised.

It only takes a couple of beats before I realize this is an opportunity I may not get again soon, and I take off my socks and shoes while they watch Brody and enter the water on the opposite side.

The temperature of the water is frigid, causing my entire body to go rigid for a few seconds as I adjust. I don’t know what could possibly live in this water, but for the moment, I don’t care.

Let the rare tropical fish eat me alive if they want.

I feel clean, washed free from the sweat that’s caked my body since I got here.

I take my time under the water, scrubbing at my hair and body.

I wait until my lungs burn before sliding above the water.

Ravelo and Nery are watching us, hands on their hips, like a pair of mothers watching their naughty toddlers. I don’t see their weapons, so I take that as a sign they aren’t going to punish us yet.

Swimming over to the waterfall, I pull myself up onto the ledge behind it and slide off my clothes so I can wash them. The water is too cold for bacteria to grow, of that fact I’m confident. But I still let my eyes dart around to see if there are any obvious creatures as I ring out my clothes.

Brody pops up in the water the next second, causing me to squeal and jump.

“Where did you come from?” I shriek.

The moving water splashing against the still creates a loud, constant whir, so I have to talk loudly.

“I’m trying to clean my clothes,” I explain, sliding into the water to conceal my black bra and panties on display.

His blue eyes look extra blue next to the sapphire water of this lagoon. His long lashes stick together as he focuses on my face. I blink once and then again, shaking off this haze he’s put me in.

“A little privacy?”

He grins, biting his lip.

“Just checking out the zoo animals,” he says, then disappears under the water like some sort of marine creature, swimming away.

Swallowing down the moment, I roll my clothes on the rock, trying to get the dirt out of my shirt and his face out of my mind. Some soap would help, but I’m not complaining. This new freedom feels exhilarating in comparison to the cave I’ve been encased in.

I hear yelling in Portuguese, so I dress quickly and swim under the waterfall, letting the water pressure push me under further as I kick toward the embankment.

When I surface, I see Brody talking to the men.

He’s only wearing a pair of boxer briefs, his jeans hanging over one arm. I guess he washed his clothes too.

I stand when I can touch, my feet visible against the stark white sand.

He’s trying to convince them to let us come here daily. He’s selling our skills for time outside of the cage. He must want this as much as I do.

Remaining quiet seems my best route after all the screaming I did, so I let him work.

Brody seems to have taken courses on negotiations or manipulation, or has some other quantifiable skill I’m not versed in, because it works.

We have to work on the motorbike when we walk back to the base camp, but they’ve gathered all the parts needed to repair it.

Slowly, I exit the water, dripping water from my clothes and hair like a drowned rat.

“Do we have our next project?” I ask, keeping my tone low.

“Yes,” Nery says. “No more running off like that without permission.”

I nod furiously. “I’m sorry,” I say, telling him I couldn’t resist a bath after so many days.

“You can come here daily to clean if you finish the tasks given to you for the day,” Ravelo adds. “There’s a lot to get done around here and not enough talent to do it. We need to use you while you’re here.”

Brody seems pleased, with a smarmy look on his face.

Letting my eyes wander down to his wet boxer briefs is a mistake now that he’s turned toward me. He’s hung. Closing my eyes, I put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from saying something I’ll regret. Turning, I face the other way and exit the water without turning around once.

Hung like a zoo animal, my subconscious whispers.

Unfathomable is the only word that comes to mind when I can’t get the image out of my head on the walk back. He’s fully clothed now, the bottom of his jeans filthy from the dirt path we’re on, and I just want him to take them off so I can confirm what I think I saw.

In the real world, I’d call a friend and gossip about it. In the real world, I’d probably never cross this guy, though. I walk quickly to fall in stride next to him.

“How does this base function without people with skills?” I ask, trying to keep the conversation about work.

Brody looks down at me, smiling, eyes glinting in the sunlight.

“You killed them, Saylor.” He chuckles.

That forces me to eat my words.

“I didn’t realize I was dooming an entire evil civilization by defending myself,” I whisper.

“It might end up being a good thing because it means they need our help, but it’s why they don’t trust you.”

I squint, turning behind me to look at our captors. They’re holding a decent distance between us.

“It’s not like I have weapons, or muscles, or anything that I could defend myself with,” I say.

He licks his lips. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” he says.

I try and fail to keep the wonder out of my eyes, then ask, “What does that mean?”

Brody exhales a tired breath. “It means they fear you.”

“Why wouldn’t they fear you? I saw what you looked like without clothes.”

Damn it. It just slid out so effortlessly, like my subconscious was chomping to make me look like a horny, idiotic woman.

He laughs under his breath. “Because I haven’t given them a reason to fear me, which is lucky for you. It doesn’t matter what you look like sometimes. It matters who you are.”

“And who am I?”