Page 152 of Crushing Clover

I stood and stretched, then headed for the back door.

“Where are you going?” He sounded tired rather than irritable.

“The pool. Sorry for bothering you.”

“The pool sounds fantastic.” He got up and stretched, too, and I took his moment of distraction to peek at the band of muscle his T-shirt revealed when he’d lifted his arms.

“I’ll go get my suit.”

“No, you won’t. Get naked.” He snapped his fingers at me, and I grimaced.

“That choice is going to cost a fortune in sunscreen.”

“We won’t be out that long.” He stripped out of his clothes as I stripped out of mine, and I did my best not to ogle him. I regularly ogled Rush and Lucky, but Saint got cranky about it.

I put my clothes on the back of the couch with his, and he surprised me by swatting my ass as he passed by to open the French doors.

Weirdly playful for Mr. Grumpypants, but okay.

The sky was overcast, making the backyard feel like it was an extension of the house. I still wasn’t used to being naked outside, but the fence was high enough that only someone with a ladder or a drone would see us.

“Your paperwork come out okay?”

He shrugged. “I’m trying to prioritize. When we’ve finished paying off Cygnet, we plan to start upgrading, as we save enough to afford it. I can’t even explain how exciting this is. With that extra money, we’ll have so many options.”

“What—no fancy car for you?”

He jumped into the pool, coming back up with his hair slicked back, and his chest glistening. Fuck, he was gorgeous.

“I’ve never cared about shit like that. I had fancy cars from the time I hit sixteen until I moved out of Warren’s house.” He was looking up at me, and his dark eyes held an unexpected warmth. “Cygnet is far more important than any toy.”

I turned my back and climbed down the ladder, only to discover he’d moved closer and was hanging onto the ladder’s handrails. As I slid into the water, I also slid down his body.

His dick wasn’t hard, but he didn’t release me, only rested his chest against my back and his forehead against the top of my head, as though I were a turtle and he were my shell. Was this a hug? It felt hug adjacent.

“The restaurant means everything to you.”

“It’s my life’s work.”

That seemed dangerous. “Maybe you should be careful not to get too attached. I’ve heard that eighty percent of restaurants go under in the first five years.”

“I’m aware.”

“What would you do if that happened, god forbid?”

He got quiet. “I honestly don’t know. Cygnet has been our every waking moment for so long, I don’t know if I could live without it.”

The intimacy of having him curled around me this way made me want to shake him off. I couldn’t afford to let myself have feelings for this man if he didn’t plan to keep me.

“Was it more important than Arabella?”

“Arabella?” he asked, as though he’d never heard the name before. “Why are you so obsessed with her?” He slid lower in the water, running his lips along the back of my neck. He planted a kiss there. “She wanted different things for her life, and she got them. It’s ancient history at this point.”

He pushed off, leaving me cold and alone, but I’d been the one to bring it up.

I watched him swim laps for a few minutes, then joined him. My own movements lacked his finesse, but one of us had never taken fancy swimming lessons. As I was getting more confident in my movements, something caught my ankle and yanked me backward. I got water up my nose and came up coughing.

“Saint!”

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