Page 101 of Commit
I angle us so Starling doesn’t notice him and swim with her out of the cave and back to shore. Once she’s safely on dry land, I lift my arm and curse. “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I lost my watch. It must have fallen off in the cave. I’m going to swim back real quick and take a look. You okay here for a minute?”
“Your Rolex? Holy crap. Yes, go. I’ll be fine.” She shoos me away before adjusting her bra to make sure her breasts are covered. Unfortunately.
I swim back to the waterfall and dive under. I hold my breath, swimming underwater until I need air. Lo and behold, I come up a few feet from the ledge, and who do I find? None other than the Peeping Tom holding my Rolex.
“Why am I not surprised?”
He jumps at my voice and almost loses his footing. “Shit, I wasn’t going to steal it. I saw you dropped it and was going to return it,” he stammers as I swim closer.
“Really?” I say, reaching out for him to give it to me.
“Of course,” he replies, holding it out.
As soon as he’s within reach, I grab the Rolex with one hand, his wrist with the other, and yank him into the water. It happens so fast that he doesn’t even have time to scream.
I place the Rolex on the ledge before grabbing the pervert by his hair and smashing his head into the rocks. He goes limp in my arms, and I hold his head underwater until I’m sure he’s dead, and then let him go. He floats for a few minutes, bumping into the rocks with the force of the waterfall. I slip on the watch and fasten it as he slowly sinks beneath the water.
Happy, I swim back out to Starling. When I get close enough, I hold my wrist up for her to see, and she smiles widely.
“Oh, thank God. Honestly, I thought it was gone for good. You got lucky.”
I wiggle my eyebrows. “I think we both did.”
She laughs, giving me the same curious look as before.
“What?”
“You’re different than I thought. Maybe different is the wrong word. You’re more than what I thought.”
I reach for her hand and press a kiss to her palm. “It’s you, Starling. You make me feel like a king.” I pull her close and toss her over my shoulder, making her squeal with laughter. “Let’s go get some food. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving all of a sudden.”
I carry her all the way back to the car, slapping her ass when she orders me to put her down because she’s too heavy. Once I place her on her feet, she looks at me and rolls her eyes.
“You left our clothes behind, doofus.”
I stare at her in disbelief. “Did you just call me a doofus?” I press her against the car.
She rolls her eyes again. I dip my head and drag my nose across her cheek.
“You looking to get spanked, Birdie?” She gasps as I pull back and grin. “I’ll get our clothes. There should be a couple of towels in the trunk. Grab them and dry off.”
I jog back down to grab our clothes and see someone at the edge of the lake performing chest compressions on someone else.
“That didn’t take long,” I grumble. The bastard couldn’t even sink properly.
“God, what happened?” I ask, picking up our clothes.
“I don’t know, but he’s not breathing.”
“Looks like he hit his head. Shit, I’ll go call 911.” I jog away before he can say anything.
When I get to the car, I take off my wet boxers and put on my shorts and T-shirt. Starling leaves her underwear on and puts her clothes back on over them, making me chuckle.
“You could have taken them off.”