Fifty-eight minutes and ten seconds.
I needed something to focus on other than the burning pain in my muscles and the pure horror that anything could come up and eat me alive any minute. So, I counted every fucking second, muttering the numbers aloud as if, at any moment, I would wake up from the nightmare I was lost in.
“A while,” I tell him. “It felt like forever. But I got us there eventually, dragged us both onto the beach, and then passed out again. I woke up only minutes before you.”
He grows quiet again for a moment.
“You could’ve left me and saved yourself.”
I shrug. “It didn't cross my mind. But I don't know if it's because I'm all that virtuous. I would've rather struggled with you than be alone.”
His hands are unmoving for a beat, then resume.
“I called you weak,” he states. “Why didn’t you correct me?”
“Because I am—”
“You’re not,” he interjects, voice hard and unyielding. “You’re not weak, Sawyer. You’re exceptional. And I’m sorry I ever validated that misconception.”
My mouth moves, but I’m incapable of uttering a sound.
“You did something admirable. Imagine what you could do if you only believed in yourself.”
I have nothing to say, and I don’t think Enzo is interested anyway. Instead, I mull that over while he meticulously cleans my hair.
Kev backed me into a corner, and it feels like I’ve been snapping and growling at anything that has come close since. I’ve been so scared that I’ve forgotten that I’ve been fighting, too. I’ve been fighting to survive, to live, to have freedom. Just like I fought each and every wave that threatened to drag me under.
What would I be capable of if I just stopped running? If I lived my life as Sawyer Bennett. What would it feel like to walk in my own shoes and live without reservation?
But that could never happen. Kev’s influence is too powerful and follows me no matter how far I run. Those are dangerous dreams, and they could get me in serious trouble.
Lost in thought, it snaps me back to reality when Enzo hits a sore spot, and I can’t hold back the hiss.
“Scusa, bella,” he murmurs quietly.
I lick my lips again, my heart doing odd twists and turns from the husky candor of his voice, and how intimate it sounds when he slips into Italian. All of this is intimate, and it’s almost too much to process.
“Bella means beautiful, right?” I ask.
“Si,” he confirms.
Shit, that shouldn’t make me happy. Even with his hatred toward me, he still calls me beautiful.
“And ladra?”
He’s quiet as he continues to massage the soap into my hair.
“You asked me for the truth, and I gave it,” I whisper. “Tell me one of your truths.”
After a pause, he says, “It means thief.”
My heart withers, though it’s only true.
“You ensnare men with your beauty, spin them into your web, and then steal from them. You’re a beautiful thief.”
“I guess I can’t really argue with that,” I mumble, feeling like my insides are crumbling to ash. That’s what happens when you stand too close to the sun.
“Turn your head,” he directs, his fingers reaching forward to grab either side of my jaw and twist my head toward the spray.
It smarts, the water deepening in color until eventually, it runs clear again. Even still, he doesn’t retreat.
“I think I got it from here,” I say, glancing at him over my shoulder. “Thank you for helping.”
“It’s going to continue bleeding a little until it clots,” he tells me, ignoring my request. “Keep your hair parted, and I’ll patch it up the best I can when you’re done.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
Our eyes meet, and the fire-breathing dragon in my stomach grows angrier.
“Okay,” he parrots.
Slowly, as if he wants me to make sure I’m watching every move, he leans back against the wall, crossing his arms again and getting comfortable. Water is splattered all over the front of his shirt, and the floor is soaked. Yet, he doesn’t seem to notice anything outside of me standing beneath the stream staring at him with a puzzled expression.
A bead of water catches his attention, and I’m not sure which it is of the hundreds, but I know it’s trailing between my breasts and down the planes of my stomach. His tongue slides along his bottom lip, slowly and sensually, as if he’s imagining lapping it up.
Without looking away, I blindly reach for the body wash and squeeze that on my hand next. We’ve been using our own rags, but my hand will be so much more interesting.