Page 9 of Daring Wicked Love (Wicked Dade #2)

I was no better than the rest of the ogling women in the swimming pool, trying to sneak a peek at the semi-naked and dripping wet Frederic.

Who could blame us?

Frederic was mouthwatering in a suit, but standing on the ledge of the pool, oil black hair slicked back with water, long strong legs, and chest muscles that were made from freaking marble — he was a vengeful god amongst mortal men.

“Jump! Jump!” Penelope shouted from my side, the two of us wading in the water. “Make a super-duper big splash!”

The ease with which the harshness dissolved from Frederic’s features was astonishing to watch. One second, he was the man from my apartment block, rude and unforgiving, and within the blink of an eye, he was smiling.

A real, genuine smile.

The urge to paint crept up on me as I wanted nothing more than to capture that moment on a canvas. The way his lips curved crookedly, the softness easing into the corner of his eyes, and how the usual coldness in his blue gaze melted away, revealing something beautifully broken.

Although it was directed only for his daughter, heat rushed to my cheeks, and the little sleeping butterflies in my stomach awoke violently from their slumber.

I kept telling myself that my short-lived crush for Frederic was long gone, but watching him jump into the water without hesitation caused the former schoolgirl flutters to resurface.

Penelope squealed in delight as water splashed me directly in the face the second Frederic made contact with the pool.

Chlorine assaulted my nostrils and eyes.

That was one way to certainly cool me right back down.

He remained underwater, his hands reaching out to playfully pinch at Penelope’s legs.

“He’s trying to get me!” Penelope giggled as she doggy-paddled away.

Frederic broke through the water. I tried not to stare as he ran a hand down his face, wiping away the droplets catching on his eyelashes.

Fuck me, even his eyelashes were perfect.

Maybe the stars had to make him so downright handsome to compensate for his shitty personality, because if he looked like that and was a decent human being, it wouldn’t have been fair on the rest of the male gender.

“Swim away, Orla, or he will get you too!” Penelope shouted. “We have to keep swimming so he can’t catch us.”

“Don’t worry, Pen, I’ll protect you from him.”

The corner of Frederic’s mouth twitched. “Is that so?”

I nodded fiercely. “If you want her, you’ll have to go through me first.”

“You seriously think you will be able to stop me?”

“Underestimating your opponent is the first step to failure.”

“You’re hardly an opponent , more like a petite, overly talkative obstacle.”

Was that a joke? Was Frederic Dade actually capable of having a sense of humor?

“Rude.” I dared to flick some water at him. “Trust me, I’m stronger and faster than I look. And be warned, I like to play dirty.”

My teeth sank into my bottom lip when his mouth curled into a devilish smirk.

Talk about verbal vomit. The second the words left my mouth, I wanted a whirlpool to magically appear and swallow me whole.

His nostrils flared as his gaze dropped to my lips before slowly trailing back up. “You like to play dirty, huh?”

My cheeks flamed. “I simply meant that I’m super competitive, always have been, and will do whatever it takes to win…”

Pool water drowned out the rest of my sentence, along with my vision, as he splashed me yet again directly in the face.

I didn’t have time to think or wipe the chlorine stinging my eyes before hands were on my waist. My whole body seized, unable to process what was happening or make sense of the thundering heartbeat deafening me as strong hands lifted me from the water.

Goosebumps flushed my arms, my whole nervous system bursting to life.

Penelope called my name as I blinked the water away and looked down at Frederic. A smirk touched his lips as his daughter attempted to save me, splashing him over and over, yet he remained focused solely on me.

His fingers curled on my hips, his thumb dangerously close to where my swimsuit ended and my bare skin began.

I swallowed against the butterflies erupting from my stomach and attempting to escape.

Penelope lunged at her dad with little luck. “I’ll save you, Orla. Let her go!”

Frederic chuckled, the tip of his thumb edging closer and brushing along the dangerous line of my swimsuit. “Any last words?”

Why did such an insignificant touch on my upper thigh feel like I’d been struck by a bolt of lightning?

Maybe it was down to the fact I hadn’t been intimate with someone since good old missionary-position Jerry. Another reason I was more than happy to part ways with him at the end of our relationship was that there’s only so much boring sex a woman can handle.

I tried to wiggle from his grip. “You may have the high ground right now, but just you wait.”

“What happened to being stronger and faster than you look?”

“Mark my words, I will have my revenge, Frederic.”

“Looking forward to it, petit lutin .” His eyes darkened. “Oh, and just so you know, you’re not the only one who likes to play dirty.”

Before my brain had any time to catch up with what he said, I was thrown backward into the depths of the pool that did nothing to wash away the feeling of his touch lingering on my exposed skin.

I purposely had to make an effort not to stare in doe-eyed awe for the rest of the afternoon. Watching Frederic teach Penelope how to swim, his unbreakable patience when it came to his daughter was irresistibly heartwarming.

Clearly, aliens had visited Earth and taken the real Frederic with them to study, because the man who insisted on driving us back to the house was not the same person who hired me.

In the back of the car, far away from Frederic as physically possible, Penelope curled up beside me and fell asleep within the first five minutes. Her damp hair soaking into my floral skirt as I stroked the top of her head and gently detangled some of the strands.

No one spoke the entire ride, with only the gentle hum of the radio filling the silence. For once, I didn’t feel the overwhelming urge to talk, to chase away the unease that buried itself under my skin and deep into my bloodstream when silence took full force.

I blamed it on the years in foster care.

The homes Niamh and I were placed in were always hectic, full of other children creating as much noise as possible.

That was until the night came, when everyone else was asleep and I was left alone with my own thoughts. During those sleepless hours, I replayed every decision, every nasty comment from Niamh, every minuscule detail of my life that led to me being placed into care.

I became what they called a ‘flight risk child’ .

Simply put, I used to escape whatever home we were in during the night.

Whatever it took to get away from the skin-crawling silence.

My plan was always to come straight back when the sun started to appear, but the police usually found me first and escorted me back.

I hated myself during those moments, because no matter how many times I was told it wasn’t my fault by the new adults in my life, I couldn’t help but agree with my sister and blame myself.

It was why I started painting. My foster mam at the time suggested art therapy as a healthy and non-destructive way to express myself without using words that so desperately failed me as a teenager.

When it was just me and a canvas, everything else in the world just stopped.

Frederic cleared his throat as we pulled up to the house. “Today was… She loved it.”

Blinking away the unforgiving sharpness of my past, I plastered on a smile. “Most definitely.”

“Taking her swimming was a good idea.”

“Was that a compliment?” I grasped my chest in fake shock. “Gee whizz, I don’t believe my ears.”

His shoulders drew back.

“How much did it hurt to say that?”

“It wasn’t a compliment. I was stating a fact.”

“Whatever you say.” I laughed. “You’ll need to prepare yourself. The second the pool outside is no longer radioactive, you’ll never be able to get her out of it.”

In the rear-view mirror, the edges of his eyes softened ever so slightly.

“I’m not joking. After watching her today, she most definitely is a water baby. She is going to be a permanent resident in that pool of yours.”

“I can live with that.”

I unclipped my seatbelt. “Are you going back to work?”

“There’s no point,” he said, stepping out of the car and opening my door. “I’ll be playing catch-up tomorrow, though, so I’ll be leaving earlier than normal.”

“Coolio. I’ll set my alarm to be in the main house for you leaving.”

He bundled a sleeping Penelope into his arms. “You could always sleep here tonight.”

I froze.

“Take one of the spare bedrooms and save yourself a couple hours of sleep.”

My lips pursed into an ‘ O ’, because of course that was what he meant. He wasn’t openly inviting me to sleep with him while holding his unconscious daughter.

Why did my mind even think that was what he meant?

And why, more importantly, did I swallow the faint taste of disappointment?

Frederic’s brow creased. “It’s only a suggestion.”

All the spare bedrooms, except one, were on a completely different floor of the house from his bedroom. I knew that on the nights Frederic wouldn’t be home, or was likely to be out late, I was to sleep in the room next to Penelope’s, and I was okay with that.

But any other time, it felt too close.

I liked having my own space that was completely detached from the house — detached from him.

It helped set clear and distinct lines.

“That’s okay, I’m an early riser anyway,” I semi-lied. During the summer months, waking up before sunrise was easy, but during the darker months of the year, I was like a grizzly bear in hibernation.

He didn’t say anything else as he carried Penelope into the house.

Back in the kitchen, I busied myself to avoid thinking about sharing a bed with Frederic by lifting the pasta bake out of the fridge and starting my new daily fight with the oven.

The thing hated me as much as I hated it.

Who invented such a contraption? N.A.S.A ?

No device needed that many knobs and buttons — it was for cooking food, not flying to the fucking moon.

Smacking several of the buttons, in sheer hope, I managed to get the thing working.

“You made dinner.”

The bluntness of his statement and the sudden intrusion made me jump and nearly drop the dish.

“You know you don’t have to do that,” he continued. “I know I haven’t done it yet, it’s on the never-ending list of things for me to do, but I will hire someone to cook.”

I waved him off and slid the dish into the oven. “Don’t be silly. I don’t mind cooking. I find it therapeutic.”

“I don’t want you thinking I am taking advantage of you and your position.”

Him taking advantage of me while in many, many dirty positions infiltrated my thoughts.

Heat crept into my cheeks — from the oven obviousl y…

“You’re not,” I said. “It’s only a pasta bake I whipped up this morning before Pen woke up. It’s nothing spectacular.”

“That’s not the point…”

I cut him off. “Look, if I didn’t want to do it, I’d tell you. You can always count on me to be honest with you, Fred. Because as much as you like to portray it, you’re not as terrifying as you think you are.”

His eyebrows shot up as a half-laugh escaped before he could stop it.

I pretended to gasp. “I don’t believe my ears. Did you just laugh?”

“No.”

“You did!” I grinned. “And here I thought you were incapable of such a thing.”

He flipped me off with a smirk just as Penelope walked into the kitchen.

“That’s naughty,” she scolded her father.

“Very naughty,” I agreed. “And do you know what happens to naughty boys?”

It was downright impossible to ignore the tension growing as Frederic crossed his arms, the muscles flexing, and his shit-eating smirk turned semi-feral. “Do tell.”

Again with the verbal vomit.

“They don’t get dessert,” Penelope said, breaking my gaze away from Frederic. “Isn’t that right, Orla?”

“Yup.” I popped the ‘p’. “No dessert for naughty… For your daddy tonight.”

Thank the stars Penelope was there because the glint in her father’s eyes as he stared right into my very core, I swore he could actually feel the heat gathering between my legs.

And worst of all? I think I liked it.