Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Learning to swim as an adult was one of her goals, but she hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet. Before she’d met Peter, she was hustling day and night just to make a living. And after meeting him, she’d been too busy decorating his various properties and then shortly after, planning their wedding, to make time for swimming lessons.
Still, the bathing pool looked extremely tempting. Maybe if she just hung on to the side of the pool she could get in, Celia told herself. It seemed like every muscle in her body was aching from the long day she’d just been through—a long soak in the huge hot tub would be so refreshing.
As she slipped out of the red wrap dress and black flats she’d been wearing since five that morning, she couldn’t help remembering Fierce’s deep, growling voice as he pointed it out to her.
“That’s where we’d all be bathing together during our Bathing Week—if we were having a normal Claiming Period,” he’d said.
“Er, Bathing Week?” Celia had asked. She remembered Kat saying something about different weeks in the Claiming Period too.
But he’d only shaken his head.
“Never mind. Just be careful—like I said, it gets deep in the middle.”
Then he’d showed her the stack of fluffy white “drying sheets” and left her to herself.
Celia decided to try the pool. She could hang on to the edge and just float, she told herself. After all, how deep could it be? It was just an oversized hot tub—right?
After wrapping her long hair into a bun at the top of her head, she carefully, descended the steps into the steaming water. She began to feel better almost at once as the warm water lapped at her limbs and soothed away her aches. It was so relaxing.
So relaxing, in fact, that she felt herself beginning to doze off.
“No—wake up,” she told herself sternly. “Hold on to the side—you can’t fall asleep in here!”
But the next moment, she felt her eyelids drifting closed again. She really was exhausted!
“That’s it—I’ve got to get out of here. This isn’t safe,” Celia muttered. She began making her way back to the steps, holding on carefully to the slippery side of the bathing pool.
She was almost to the steps when she lost her handhold. One moment she was clinging carefully to the edge, and the next she was slipping away and heading towards the center of the pool.
Celia put her feet down at once, thinking that if she could stand on the bottom she would stop and be able to walk back to the steps. But to her horror, she found that she could barely reach the bottom with her tiptoes. Even worse, there seemed to be a current in the pool that was sweeping her towards the center, where her feet couldn’t touch at all.
“Help!” Celia gasped and began to splash around as she tried to keep her head above the steaming water. “Help!”
Just as her head went under the water, the door burst open. Before she knew it, she was being dragged out of the pool, choking and sputtering, by four long arms.
“Are you all right, my lady?” Hold was looking at her anxiously.
“Told you to be fucking careful in that damn pool!” Fierce growled.
Celia coughed and choked and wiped the water out of her eyes. Her hair, which she’d meant to keep dry, had come down from its bun and was dripping down her back. Also, she realized belatedly, she was stark naked.
“Dios!” she exclaimed, trying to cover herself with her hands.
“Here.” Suddenly Fierce was wrapping one of the big, fluffy drying sheets around her. “Not like we haven’t seen you before in our dreams,” he muttered as he secured the sheet with a knot.
“What?” Celia asked, swiping the dripping hair out of her eyes. But before she could get too upset, Hold was handing her a smaller drying sheet.
“Here you are—this one is for your hair,” he said and helped Celia wrap it around her head where it seemed to suck the moisture away from her sopping locks almost immediately.
“Thank you.” She fixed the towel into a turban on top of her head and looked up at both of them. Hold looked concerned and Fierce was scowling.
“I told you to be careful!” he growled again. “What were you thinking, lelka?”
“I just wanted a dip in the pool, okay? I was thinking that I was tired and all my muscles were aching!” she snapped.
“If we were having a proper Claiming Period, my brother and I could help you with that,” Fierce said, still looking pissed off. “But since we’re not, from now on you’re not allowed in the bathing pool by yourself!”
Celia put a hand to her hip and poked a finger in his broad chest.
“Hey, you big hijo de puta! Where do you think you get off, telling me what I can and can’t do?”