Page 46 of Tempt Me

Pharaoh made a weak sound. It was impossible to laugh while holding me as tight as he was. The giant man on the dock began stripping off his shirt. Quickly after that, he jumped into the dark water.

We were still probably about six or seven feet away from the dock. The tide pushed us farther back every hour we were left clinging to the damn rope.

A disturbance in the water jolted my senses.

I felt myself being grabbed by the guy, lifted above the water, and handed to another pair of hands at the docks.

I tried to keep my eyes open to see him grab Pharaoh, but the cold chill in the air made my body even more numb.

How was that possible?

“They have hypothermia, Lith. I need to get them to the fucking hospital. Now.”

The woman making the demands had me in her grip, strong for a woman with multi-colored hair in big, dreaded braids. She had a strong voice, and it was oddly soothing. Her warmth was barely touching mine, but I could feel the hint of it as she held onto me.

I listened as I let my eyes close. The last words I heard besides the giant talking about how cold the water was: “He’s okay.”

Seventeen

Mask: Concealment to hide ones identity.

But how long can I truly stay hidden?

Voices echoed around the room before I opened my eyes. The warped sounds kept going in and out like a bad radio connection.

“Roe…Roe…” The garbled sounds became more and more clear. “You alive, you dumbass?”

Now, that voice I knew. It was my sister. She patted the heavy blankets on top of me. The warmth began seeping into my skin, and it hurt down to my bones, but slowly, my body felt less like a zombie.

My Little Voyeur certainly knew how to crash a party, but even her presence in that gorgeous dress couldn’t stop my water phobia from interrupting my focus. Hesitation hit me the minute I went on that damn boat. My fear of deep water was as intense as it was when I was a kid.

It all started when Taliah and I had been playing in a creek, and I thought getting the better crawdads from further up would be a great idea.

My sister was the smart one. She didn’t follow me, and I got my foot stuck in a fucking boggy patch of swamp seaweed, and down under the water, I went, like a ghoul from the lake had come to eat my ass.

I shook off the memories. The embarrassment that I couldn’t swim or even float was humiliating.

“No. I’m not alive,” I croaked in Tal’s direction.

Fuck, my voice was as scratchy as shit. Tal whacked me in the shoulder and adjusted some IV hooked into my other arm.

“Where’s….” My eyes shot toward the door.

Goliath’s big, burly body created a shadow by the entrance of the room. The light from the hallway blocked his massive build. He was getting softer around the belly since being with Ezello, which made me laugh.

Once upon a time, I used to be thicker, too.

When Ariah was pregnant with Xenia, she ate weird shit all the time, and I ended up eating it, too. Her baby book shit called it sympathy weight. I called it ‘being lazy’ and ‘needing to get my ass back to the gym.’

There was a gym at the prison, but it was held in the criminals’ wing of the unit, and there was nothing on the hospital’s side. I had bribed a few guards to use it regularly over the years and eventually got to the build I was now.

Goliath was never skinny, but seeing him now with bigger arms and a thick torso, I imagined his physique still deflated any numb nuts wanting to mess with his authority at the new hospital.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the drowned cat. What’s up, bro?”

I ignored him, sitting up and wincing at the way my body felt like tiny pinpricks were stabbing me.

“If you’re looking for your knight in red, she’s sleeping off saving your ass.”