With a possessive, protective arm around my waist, he walked me out to his car while I shot off texts to Kody, Archer, and Bree.
Bree's reply came almost immediately, informing me that she already knew. Someone had started filming the second our argument had gotten heated. So much for the no-phones rule on SGU campus. I didn't even know why they were still pretending when at least half the student body was flouting the rule.
"I take it you already know what he said to me, then?" I asked Steele when we were both inside his car.
He gave me a furious look. "It was livestreamed, so yeah. I heard what he said, and I saw that punch you threw. Not bad, Hellcat." He reached out and took my injured hand in his, smoothing his thumb across my tender knuckles. "I'm still going to kill him for what he said to you, though."
Steele raised my aching hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles before he reversed out of his parking space.
"That's if Kody or Arch don't get to him first," I muttered, checking my phone. Sure enough, there were replies from both of them.
Archer D'Ath: He'd better fucking hide.
Kodiak Jones: How fucking dumb is this asshole? He must know we're gonna beat the snot outta him for that.
I sighed and sent a reply to both of them in a group chat. I figured we were all involved romantically, so we were probably okay to share a chat thread.
Madison Kate: His brother is a cop on Wraith payroll. Maybe it's a trap.
There was a long pause, but I could see they'd both read my message.
"What's the decision?" Steele asked, unable to join the chat while he was driving. "Are we executing that little prick or what?"
I rolled my eyes at the melodrama of it all.
Madison Kate: Insulting me isn't a killable offense today, boys. Save the aggression for the octagon, yeah?
Kody just replied with a glaring emoji. Archer didn't reply at all.
Heaving a sigh, I tossed my phone back into my bag and gave Steele a wide smile. "Forget all that. What are we doing with our afternoon alone?"
His brows hitched, and he peered at me from the corner of his eye. "Well for starters, we're icing your hand. Cass must be slacking in his old age if he couldn't teach you to throw a punch without the padding of gloves."
I snorted a laugh. "He's thirty-three not fucking eighty."
Steele just shrugged like I'd confirmed his point. "And then... I might have an idea. It's hard to get you alone these days, you know? I think I might have had better luck when you still had your own apartment."
"I know... but you have me for at least an hour and a half now. Longer if Arch and Kody go straight to the gym when they get home." I gave him a suggestive look, and he clicked his tongue stud against his teeth.
Shooting me a quick look, he nodded. "I can work with that."
My phone started vibrating and chiming in my bag, and I fished it out, thinking it was the guys. It wasn't.
I sighed heavily. "Scott."
"Is he dense?" Steele asked, genuinely confused.
"Apparently." I rejected the call and changed my phone to silent. It didn't stop Scott trying to call again four more times before Steele pulled into our driveway.
"Come on, let's sort your hand out," Steele said, opening my door for me like a gentleman. "Then I was thinking we could go swimming?"
I gave him a curious look as we headed through to the kitchen to get an ice pack. "Swimming? I mean, it's not exactly a warm day." It wasn't freezing anymore, but it sure as hell wasn't bikini weather.
Steele just grinned, heading to the freezer to find the medical ice packs. "It's an indoor heated pool, beautiful. So, do you want to?" He found what he was looking for and came back over to place it on my knuckles.
Swimming with Steele? As if I'd say no. "Hell yeah, just give me five minutes to change."
He grinned. "I'll meet you in there. I just need to make sure the guys haven't committed murder in broad daylight, alright?"
It was a valid concern. I left him in the kitchen and hurried out with the ice pack clutched to my knuckles, almost running straight into Steinwick.
"Crap, sorry," I apologized, stepping aside at the last second so we didn't collide. "My head was a million miles away."
"Not a worry at all, miss," he replied with a wrinkled smile. He reached out and stopped me before I could dart around him, though. "My apologies for the intrusion, miss, but what happened to your hand?"
"Oh," I started, then paused as I searched for a plausible reason. For some reason I didn't want to tell this well-mannered, proper old man that I'd punched a boy for calling me a slut. "Just had a disagreement with a hard object," I mumbled, flushing with embarrassment.
Steinwick frowned at me a moment, his bushy, white eyebrows drawn low. Then he sighed and moved out of my way. "If it still hurts in the morning, I suggest you have James take a look. He's recently completed his EMT training, so I'm sure he would be happy to help."
It took me longer than it should have to remember who James even was. The groundskeeper. Archer was way too accurate in saying that I paid little to no attention to the people surrounding me. No wonder I was proving such an easy target to stalk.
"Thanks Steinwick," I replied with a smile, then hurried on up to my room to change into the sexiest swimsuit I owned. Steele and I were way overdue a one-on-one catch-up, and I didn't want to waste even a minute longer than necessary.
Only one problem. I had no idea where the pool was located within Archer's mansion.
37
My logical guess was that the pool might be somewhere near the gym, and I was right. Just past the gym doors was a set of double doors that I'd never ventured through. I guess I'd just assumed they went to a storage room or maybe another entrance to the garage or something. Either way, I'd never bothered to open them, so I’d never realized there was an indoor pool around four times the size of my bedroom in there.
"How have I never known this was here?" I exclaimed, spotting Steele sitting on the edge of the pool, already in a pair of black swimming shorts and nothing else. Good God, he was a snack.
"You've been a bit preoccupied since getting back from Cambodia," he commented with an amused smile. His gray eyes tracked my movements as I padded around the pool with bare feet and dropped my towel and robe on a sun lounger.
I sat down on the lip of the pool beside him, shivering as the cool tiles touched my ass. "That's true. I'm glad I know now, though." I dipped my feet in the water and groaned at how warm it was. "Oh my god, that's so much better than I expected."
Steele grinned. "You thought it was going to be one of those lukewarm, tepid kind of pools? Gross."
I shuddered. "So gross. Warm or cold. Not in between."
He pushed off the edge, sliding down into the warm water and spinning around to face me, his hand extended. "Coming in?"
His eyes were full of mischief, and his grin was all sex. How could I even consider refusing an offer like that?
I followed him in, my skin shivering all over as the warm water encased me and Steele's arms wrapped around my waist. It was exactly what I needed, but I'd have to do catch-up work on psychology later.