Chapter Twenty-Eight
David sprawled across a lounge chair beside the pool with Mati draped over his chest and Reese stretched out between his legs.
Fucking hell, these two would kill him eventually. He was sure of it. But until that happened, he was perfectly content to lie there.
He wasn’t prepared for the door to fly open. Or the screaming.
“My eyes! My eyes! Fucking hell, how will I ever unsee that!?”
Hodges clapped a hand over his face, the other flailing in the air, almost tossing his iPad into the pool.
Reese snorted against David’s belly. “Jesus, Hodges, could you be more dramatic?”
Mati shook with giggles.
David grinned at the glass ceiling and the stars beyond. When had he last been so relaxed? Sohappy?
Hodges turned his back to them and glared at his tablet. Ten seconds later he sighed gustily. “Are you dressed yet?”
David looked down at the two gloriously naked bodies that hadn’t moved an inch, on top of his similarly naked body.
“No,” Mati said with zero regret.
Hodges harrumphed. “Well, I’m not in here, subjecting myself to these horrors, because it’s fun, okay? Unless one of you was running around in the snow in your birthday suit, something, orsomeone, just triggered the motion sensors outside this building.”
David was out of the chair in a flash, setting Mati on her feet and clamping a hand around Reese’s arm to steady him when he was nearly tossed to the floor. He scanned the pool deck for his clothes, trying to remember where the fuck he’d left them.
A big, fluffy white robe struck him in the side of the head and he turned to see Reese and Mati pulling on similar robes next to a big wicker box full of towels. He yanked it on and darted across the deck to scoop up their clothes.
“Come on,” he said, brusquely, searching what little he could see outside the fogged and frosty windows before turning to Hodges. “Did you run out here as soon as the lights went on?”
“Yes.”
“That was pretty fucking stupid.”
“Like you wouldn’t have done the same.”
True. But it was his job to run into danger.
David glanced back at the lounger longingly. A wave of shame broke over him—not because he’d let down his guard, but because all he wanted was to go back ten minutes and feel that perfectly happy and sated again.
Reese put a hand on his chest. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
Mati stepped closer. Obviously, that hadn’t been convincing.
David pointed at Hodges’ iPad. “See anything?”
Hodges hit a few buttons and the backyard lit up like it had its own sun.
“Holy smokes,” Mati muttered, squinting out the window.
“I added more lights and cameras while you were away.”
Reese put his hand up to shield his eyes. “You don’t say.”
They crowded in to see the iPad screen, Mati tucked against David’s chest and Reese peering over his shoulder. David knew they were doing it on purpose. Pressing close. Surrounding him. What he didn’t know waswhy. How they’d known he needed it.
