Breaking Perfect (19 page)

“I can loan you one of Mason’s. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind
sharing.”
He would if he knew what I wanted to borrow.
Jesus, maybe he
needed
to submerge himself in a pool of cool water. Before he could answer Liberty
said, “I’ll go get you one and bring it to your room.”

“What are you going to do?” he wondered.

She giggled. “I’m going to join you.”

About ten minutes later he was standing on the opposite side
of the glass in a pair of borrowed shorts waiting for Liberty. The room was
warm and smelled slightly of chlorine. He turned when music flooded the space.
Ain’t
No Sunshine
by Bill Withers began to whine from hidden speakers, but there
was no sign of Libby.

The slide of a door caught his attention and he turned,
noticing a small entrance he somehow missed. Liberty emerged holding a fluffy
white towel and wearing a loose fitting button down cover up made out of some
kind of girlie net material that wasn’t quite lace. Sean swallowed hard.

Her thighs were slender yet delicately muscled. Her chaotic
halo of curls was clipped high on her head and the few anarchic, sexy tendrils
that refused to stay with the others curled down the long column of her neck.

Liberty tossed her towel on one of the cots and smiled at
him. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”

She pulled the cover up over her head and revealed a form-fitting
white suit. It was one piece and simple, but there was a chunk missing from
just below her left breast down to her lower left hip. The soft curve of her
side was exposed, the fabric cut away to show her tiny little belly button. A
vision flashed through his mind of him dipping his tongue into that tiny little
crevice and tickling her as she writhed beneath him.

God damn it!

He turned away. “Are you coming?” Liberty said from behind
him, at the steps of the pool.

He nearly choked at her choice of words.
Practically!

The sound of water sloshing drew his attention. She stepped
deeper into the pool and softly dove out into the shallow end. Sean turned
fully, just in time to catch the curve of her ass peeking up over the surface
and then disappearing under the water. Before she had time to emerge he walked
to the deep end and dropped his large body into the water, allowing himself to
sink right to the bottom.

Unfortunately it wasn’t cold, so the hard on he was suddenly
sporting didn’t shrivel to an unnoticeable state. What the fuck was going on
with him? He kissed Mason that morning and now he was getting a boner over his
wife. Maybe he should take a trip into town later on and see if he could find
someone to take the edge off his suddenly raging libido for a bit.

Sean swam through the smooth water.
 
It glided over his overheated body as he made
his way to the shallow end. His lungs tightened and he pierced the surface,
rubbing the droplets from his face, sucking in air. Liberty was across from
him, back to the wall of the pool, elbows resting in the rim, breasts thrust
forward, hard pink nipples showing through the white of her suit.
Christ!

Not even thinking, he warned, “Better watch the way you look
at me, little girl.”

The comment clearly caught her off guard. She straightened
and quickly disappeared under the water. The song changed from the sultry
rhythm of
Ain’t No Sunshine
to the climbing rattles and pulses of Marvin
Gaye’s
Heard it Through the Grapevine.
Sean lowered his shoulders into
the water and took up a similar position to the one Liberty had held along the
wall of the pool and waited.

Liberty popped up in the center of the deep end and watched
him silently as she treaded water. What game was she playing? She was flirting
with him. Did she realize that? She had removed the barrette from her hair. Her
eyes appeared enormous and childlike with her hair wet slicked back. The slow
building pulse of the music put him in a playful mood and Liberty seemed to
want to play as well.

He smiled slowly. She watched him as he began to cover his
eyes. “I’ll count.” He fully covered his eyes and began to leisurely count to
ten. By five she seemed to catch on and he heard her moving stealthily through
the water. When he reached ten he uncovered his eyes, but kept them closed.
“Marco?”

“Polo.” She was in the deep end.

He dove under the water and swam until his palm made contact
with the far wall. Breaking through the surface he called, “Marco?”

She giggled from some distance away. “Polo.”

He smiled. He wouldn’t lose her again. Using his hands to
guide him he tugged his body along the wall. “Marco?”

“Polo,” she sung back, closer, but on the move. The song
changed again and Barry White began to sing
Never Gonna Give You Up.
The
faster beat had his heart pounding or so he told himself. He became a predator,
closing in on her, cornering her. Just when he thought he had her she dove
under the water with the grace of a mermaid and escaped him.

Sean recalled learning about mermaids in a mythology class at
Duke. They were said to be sirens of the sea, capable of enchanting sailors to
walk right off their decks and also provoke shipwrecks. Their song and beauty
could enthrall even the most devoted man and seduce him straight to his death.
He imagined Mason as Poseidon, the great king of the sea, and Liberty as
Amphitrite, his lovely queen. That left him as Odysseus, the one lured to a
great demise by the siren. He was not going down.

His competitive nature crept in and it became imperative that
he catch her. He needed a new strategy. He dove under the water and swam from
one end to the other. When he immerged he only listened. Without calling Marco
he dove back under and went to where he heard her excited breathing. As close
as he could tell, he swam to her and stood. “Marco?” he growled.

She was silent and then, her breath warm on his back, she whispered,
“Polo.”

Sean turned with the speed of a wild animal and grabbed hold.
She yelped and laughed as he pulled her slick little body against his front.
She was so tiny. Her legs floated out from under her as he held her in his
grasp. His cock swelled as her pert bottom pressed against his lower body.

Laughter faded and she stilled, not in a panicked way, but in
the way a woman melts into a man’s care when she submits. Subdued under his
strong hold in a display of beautiful, natural surrender, the speed in which he
was able to gentle her only added to his arousal.

The water settled and their breathing filled the air. The
rumble of Barry White’s voice faded away as the song drowned to an end. His
palm lay flat against her soft abdomen as his other arm banded around her
midriff. He wanted to reach up to her breasts. He wanted to grind himself into
her.

Her small fingers gripped the bulk of his forearm, tiny pink
nails pressing into his skin, and he could feel each breath as it filled her
lungs. “I gotch’you,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“What now?” she whispered.

What now? Excellent question. Sean breathed in her scent
mixed with a touch of chlorine. What was he doing? Mason was his friend, his ex-lover.
His common sense seemed to be muffled, because that certainly wasn’t the part
of him that spoke. “What do you want?”

His fingertips moved slightly and the edge of her suit
surrounding her soft, exposed belly greeted his touch. His fingertips pressed
under the wet material clinging to her skin and the prick of her nipples
pressed into his arm. His cock swelled further in response.

“Sean?” She spoke his name more as a pleading breath than a
warning.

“Mm-hm?”

“We can’t.”

“I know.”

Her arms fell away and she seemed to yield a bit more in his
grasp. He held her buoyant, inconsequential weight. His hand moved slowly
upward and he cupped the curve of her breast. His wrist twisted and his thumb
found the small point, lightly brushing over it once. She probably was
outraged. She should have been, but rather than push him away, she moaned and
another rush of blood flooded his cock.

Sean reached for her other nipple and touched it in the same
way, but this time adding a tight pinch. Her bottom pressed into his cock as
her chest eased forward to fill his hand. He leaned down and pressed his mouth
to the curve of her shoulder, brushing his lips over her soft, damp skin and
wiping away the clean droplets that clung there.

“No,” she whispered with little conviction.

“No,” he repeated in agreement. The large humid room seemed
hollow, their breath an echo altogether too loud. He shut his eyes and inhaled
her scent then released her. She stood, but didn’t move away. Goose bumps
scattered over her narrow shoulders. He stepped back. “Go, Liberty.”

She turned and looked at him, confusion showing in her big
blue eyes. Her lower lip quivered. He was a bastard.

“Go. Now,” he barked and she quickly turned and waded to the
steps.

He glared as she climbed out of the pool and gathered her
towel around her shivering body. Just as she seemed ready to turn and face him
again he guzzled a breath of air and dove under the surface like a coward. He
held his breath as long as he could and when he emerged she was gone.
 

Chapter Eight

Filthy.
Her mother was right. She
was a filthy whore, a temptress. Liberty’s skin still tingled from the nearly
scalding shower she’d taken after leaving the pool. A deep rosy blush seemed
burned into her flesh, yet it did nothing to relieve or excoriate the putrid
grime running through her veins. She was disgusting.

Why had she allowed Sean to touch her? He was Mason’s friend,
a guest in their home. She needed to tell Mason what happened, but feared he
would rage at Sean. She couldn’t allow that to happen. Nothing would’ve
happened if she weren’t such a dirty girl.

The pan heated and she spread her palm wide over the copper
base. Hotter and hotter the metal grew until her eyes began to tear and her arm
began to tremble. A sharp ache shot through her flesh, stabbing her somewhere
inside where her pain receptors lay. Liberty jerked her arm away from the stove
and cradled her abused palm to her chest.

She took a shuddering breath and moved to pour a splash of
olive oil into the searing pan and then dropped three fillets of Tilapia where
her hand had recently been. She mixed the spring salad and moved to slice the
mangos for the salsa. Her fingers worked in fast, rote motions that allowed her
mind to wander, capably ignoring the stinging palm of her burned hand.

She couldn’t tell Mason, she decided. Would Sean? Her husband
was extremely possessive when it came to her and he always made her safety his
highest priority. Liberty knew she wasn’t in any danger from Sean. They had
just gotten carried away. Like before, she wondered if her mind was
exaggerating what had actually happened.

Her mind went back to a different time, a different place.
She lay in the bed of her childhood home, staring as the moon played in the
shadows of the curtains and knickknacks along the sill. She still could recall
her heart jolting in her small chest at the sound of the knob turning. He
always appeared so calm and patient at first. The way he touched her hair and
ran a finger down her cheek was the act of a caring dad, but he wasn’t her dad.

Her gut twisted as she recalled one evening in particular
when Eric had awoken her.

“You okay, cupcake? I
heard you crying.”

She hadn’t been crying. She had been sound asleep and woken
up from a peaceful dream by the feel of her stepfather’s hand rubbing her leg
through her bed covers. At first she trusted him. Liberty could never recall
the exact moment that Eric transcended from good guy to bad guy, but she knew
that by the time of this particular memory she already figured him out.

Her jaw had locked as she cringed under his touch. How well
he played the role of a concerned loving parent, so ready to take on the role
of dad for the fatherless child. He was no father. He was a predator and he was
smarter. One thousand trapped screams rested in her chest night after night as
his visits became more frequent. She wanted to let them all out.

Liberty’s mind jumped to the day she confessed her fears to
her mother, the repulsed look in her mother’s eyes as she judged Liberty and
called her a liar and a whore. Liberty had been grounded to her room for two
weeks that summer, a room, which should have been a child’s sanctuary, but for
her had turned into nothing more than a torture cell. That was when her
childhood crumbled.

It was those two weeks that she learned things no child
should know and she was changed forever. That was when she started to burn
herself. The pain outside sometimes equaled the pain within, sometimes took her
away and helped her pretend.
 
Only the
evidence of real pain seemed to hold the power to balance her out. She needed
to see it, feel it, know it existed, and it had to be strong enough to distract
her from all the other hurt inside.

Later that summer she tried locking her door. When school
started she had come home that first day to find the lock gone. Her stepfather
made sure she understood she would never lock him out again.

A piercing beep rent the air and Liberty jolted back to the
present. She turned and opened the oven where a sheet spread with brightly
colored summer squash rested, roasting in the pan. Without thinking she reached
in to pull the grilled vegetables out of the oven and hissed, jerking back as
her fingers made contact with the hot metal.

“
Shit!
” she hissed, as the pan clattered down. Her
pain was her least worry. She examined the tips of her fingers and prayed the
damage wasn’t too bad. Mason would think she did it on purpose. She grabbed an
oven mitt in her other hand and pulled the squash out of the oven, sitting the
sizzling pan on the countertop then rushed to the sink to treat her burn with
cold water.