Page 24 of The Sweetest Cruelty: Hudson (A Sawyer Brothers Story #1)

From across the poolside, I allowed my gaze to trail over her without shame. Molly was turned with her side towards me, listening to the teacher. I saw an opportunity and took it, casting my eyes over her perky tits.

We’d been interrupted in the guy’s locker room, just as I was about to find out what I already knew.

And what was that, you may ask, that Molly was attracted to me?

Absolutely. I knew she was a perfect handful from how her breasts sat in her bra.

I was an ass man but you didn’t grumble at a pair of tits.

Fuck, I had been so hard for her then, desperate to push my hand into her panties to see how wet she was, and I knew she would have let me.

I found it interesting how her arms were wrapped around her body.

Surely, she wasn’t cold. The poolside was heated and, if anything, was way too warm.

Some students believed it was set that way on purpose, so when you entered the water, you were dealt with a proper wake-up call; a shock to the system to boost your muscles.

The temperature in the pool was always freezing , to the point that it forced your balls to shrink up inside your body.

Not nice. But that was swim class all over, it was a pain in the ass but a necessity.

We weren’t on a swim team; the boys and I swam lengths purely to build on body strength. It was good for football.

The water splashed, tugging my attention from the collection of students, all now pretending to listen to their shitty lesson as Phoenix dived into the pool, closely followed by Reed and Micah. I didn’t join them right then, as my thoughts were no longer on lane swimming.

MOLLY

Even if I hadn’t felt his presence, the reaction of those around me would have told me he was there. Hudson Gage caught everyone’s attention as soon as he entered the room. I could feel him watching me but I refused to make eye contact. He had already made his feelings about me clear enough.

‘It isn’t what you’ve done, sunshine, it’s who you are.’

At least I got it now. I was the daughter of the man he considered his enemy. But that didn’t mean I had to accept that. There was a savage, untamed, restless energy to him that I hadn’t noticed that first day in the library. How on earth could my first impression have been so off?

Because he didn’t know who you were! My internal monologue repeated like a broken record.

The teacher continued to drone on about safety in the water, which was ironic.

As soon as I changed into my swimsuit, I was looking for the right moment to speak with Mr Sheldon about my situation, but the man didn’t come up for air.

I certainly didn’t intend to raise my hand and tell everyone that I was a loser who couldn’t swim at sixteen years old.

How embarrassing that would be? I probably should have mentioned it before I’d changed into my swimwear; hindsight being what it was, but I was now officially screwed.

Maybe I could lurk in the shallow bit and speak to him privately during the session?

I toyed with telling Harper, but I hardly knew the girl.

Apart from exchanging smiles at the bowling alley after my first day at school, we’d spoken twice, all school-related stuff.

What if she found it hilarious and blabbed to one of the others?

As everyone started to climb into the pool to warm up, I made my way over to Mr Sheldon.

I'm sorry, Coach Sheldon. I’d found out, off the bat, that you had to be careful with titles when addressing the sports staff.

They appeared to wear the label coach like a badge of honour, and if you called them Mr, Mrs, Ms, or Miss, they took it as a sign of disrespect.

I already had a group of students that had taken an immediate dislike to me, I didn’t want to piss the staff off too.

You’d think I'd have some privileges by being the principal’s daughter, but nope.

Nothing had been straightforward or fair in this country so far.

Luckily, I managed to catch the coach while he was scribbling something illegible on the whiteboard. He had his back toward the unruly students, who were now all jumping into the pool, apart from the two mean girls on the side who were on their phones, Storm and her friend, Tate.

After I had explained my little problem, he stared down his nose at me, clearly unimpressed, but thankfully, he accepted what I had to say.

“That’s fine, we have a couple of other weak swimmers,” he said, waving his marker pen to embellish his point.

“It just takes practice. I’ll arrange for you to have a buddy in the water for the next lesson.

I can’t let you in the pool today without completing a risk assessment.

You should have said something before you changed,” he pointed out unhelpfully.

My brow was still threaded after his use of the words, weak swimmers. Weak? I wasn’t weak; I couldn’t swim, full stop.

“Grab your towel and watch from the side. You can join Storm and Tate,” he instructed, pointing at bitch and bitchier.

My stomach plummeted. I had hoped to steer clear of the mean girls’ orbit, but it appeared that wasn’t happening. I wondered why they weren’t swimming; I doubted it was the same reason as mine.

Collecting my towel, I eyed the door to the changing rooms with a longing look. Why couldn’t I just get changed and then join the others instead of freezing my arse off standing on the side? It was probably his version of a punishment for not giving him the heads up earlier.

As I moved across the poolside, close to where the girls were sitting on a bench, whispering to each other, I saw Hudson and his brothers again, in the other pool with the diving boards.

They lifted out of the area like the high school royalty they were.

Hudson’s muscles flexed as he powered through the water.

Watching a man swimming shouldn’t be considered sexy, but his version of the crawl technique gave me butterflies.

He swam like he did everything else, like he owned it.

A prickle of awareness crept across my skin.

Hudson wore his badass persona like a second skin and looked so good half-naked .

All the brothers had tattoos in various places, but I could see the matching wolf tattoo I had heard about on their right shoulders.

The wolf was all black and fierce-looking, I could tell even from a distance.

The entire head of the beast covered the top of their arms, with the tail section curling round to finish just under their necks.

One scary-looking paw fell over the top of their chests.

Laura and Lily said there was a rumour that the tattoo artist had used the same gun without changing the needles.

A way to unite the foster brothers by blood.

Gross. I imagined that was rubbish. It would have been too unhygienic, surely?

Hudson looked so aggressive in the water.

There was now no vulnerability to make him look human, unlike the version I’d met that day in the library.

After the incident in the locker room, I’d asked for more information about Hudson and his background, but had only been fed bits.

It felt like people were too scared to talk about him.

I didn’t want news to travel back to Hudson that I had been asking about him, so I was extra careful.

God, I felt pathetic. I couldn’t get the guy out of my head, which wasn’t like me.

Hudson Gage, Phoenix Carter, Reed Prescott, and Micah Mehari, aka the Sawyer Brothers . At least I had their full names now. I had already had a run-in with Phoenix and Micah when they backed Hudson up in the lunchroom, but had yet to meet Reed. If he was anything like the rest, I wasn’t in a rush.

And that’s all I did during my first swimming lesson at my new school.

I stood on the side, wrapped in a towel, shivering as everyone else swam, occasionally changing strokes as the coach blew his whistle and barked orders.

The girls behind me continued to chat and ignore me.

I attempted to engage a couple of times but was shot down.

And I was freezing , my entire body looked like a chicken fillet with the skin on.

I even released my hair from its messy bun, so it fell across my shoulders to provide a bit more warmth.

If I had a backbone, I’d interrupt the teacher and ask if I could go and get changed.

Eventually, the bell went, and everyone started to climb out of the pool, including Hudson and his posse.

And. I. Zoned. Out.

As Hudson dragged himself out of the water and onto the poolside, my tummy flip-flopped, and I moved a few steps forward, glancing away to peer down, wondering how deep it was. Laughter broke out from the diving pool, and I lifted my chin, wondering what was so funny .

The boys appeared to be taking the piss out of each other and play fighting. The biggest one, Phoenix, was bellowing with laughter, so hard that he started choking, one of his brothers pounding him on the back.

They were all well-built and gorgeous, but Hudson was like a bronzed God, his muscles bunched, the veins on his forearms bulging.

One arm was tattooed, but it wasn’t a full sleeve like two of the other brothers had.

I couldn’t pull my gaze away. And I scanned those defined abs and that perfect vee which led down into his swim trunks, to the place where he was packing it.

Even his thighs were well-muscled. I noticed the faint bruising on his ribs and shoulders, no doubt from football.

OMG, I was a voyeur and a complete pervert in America. I’d never had dirty thoughts about boys when I was in England. Then again, none of the English boys looked like Hudson.