“I hope you don’t mind the wet poodle look,” I warned Jolene. I capped my warning with a smile as Josie marched toward Jesse and Jolene.
“You obviously don’t.” Jolene capped hers with just as overdone a smile.
Jesse was holding her ankles and his forehead was wrinkled like he wasn’t sure there’d ever been such a bad idea.
“You’re going down.” I extended my arms, eager to knock Jolene from her high tower atop my man’s shoulders.
“No. You are.” With that, Jolene’s arms thrust forward, and her hands landed square above my swimsuit top. I was falling through the water before I’d even gotten out a scream.
When I resurfaced, Jesse was rushing my way with Jolene still atop him. “Rowen? Are you okay?”
Josie sputtered to the surface beside me. “I’m okay,” I said, spitting out a liter of lake water.
“She’s okay,” Jolene repeated, grinning down at me. “Again?”
“Again.” Climbing on top of Josie again, I felt something new trickle into my veins. Revenge? Resolve? I didn’t know, but it couldn’t hurt. “Hold on tighter, Josie.”
Josie huffed. “Yeah. And don’t take a direct hit like that next time.”
“One, two, three, four. I declare a camel-fight war,” Jolene sing-sung as Josie and I came at them.
“It’s war, all right.” That time, I wouldn’t underestimate how long her go-go-gadget arms were. Or her strength. She might have puny arms, but I’d forgotten how strong ranch life made a person.
“Yes, it is”—Jolene dodged my arms when they came at her—“and you’re the loser.”
That time, I took the hit to my abdomen. My back actually stung from how hard I slapped the water. I’d never felt anger how I felt it when I broke through the surface. I ignored Jesse’s concern and Jolene’s triumphant expression when I climbed on top of Josie for the third time. I wouldn’t be the first to go down again. That was final. I didn’t care if she ripped out my hair or broke my collar bone. I wasn’t losing to Jolene.
“Get that bitch off her high horse, Rowen,” Josie muttered up at me, sliding wet streaks of hair from her face. “Or off your hot boyfriend.”
“Planning on it.”
Jolene had her hands on her hips as Josie and I came at them. “If you could’a, you would’a.”
That time when I came at her, she came at me. My hands locked on her shoulders and hers shoved into my collar bone. I might not have been too far off on that whole collar bone-breaking premonition.
I pushed her with all I had; she shoved at me with all she had. Just when I was sure she was about to topple back, she righted herself. Same went for me. We were at it for a good minute, at an obvious stalemate, when one of her hands moved lower. The next thing I knew, I was topless, and Jolene was swinging my bandeau top over her head.
Jesse’s eyes bulged as mine narrowed.
My instinct was to cover my chest, and that’s what I did for a few moments. Sitting like that, I was an easy target. Forgoing all pride and inhibition, I dropped my arms and sharpened my glower.
Giving my top one last twirl, she flung it behind her. “Oops.” Pasting on an all too familiar smile, Jolene wove her fingers into Jesse’s hair. The hair that I was all kinds of territorial over.
Bad move.
I let out a low growl, urged Josie forward, and went at that smiling, hair-petting bimbo with both arms. I was about a foot away from making contact when Jolene toppled off of Jesse’s back. Her shriek right before she crashed into the water was one of the sweetest sounds I’d ever heard.
When I glanced down at a sheepish cowboy, I found Jesse’s hands still open where they’d just been fixed around Jolene’s ankles. Shrugging, he winked up at me. “No one messes with my girl.”
When Jolene surfaced, I gave her one of my own smiles of victory. So much for not getting her hair wet. Josie bounced up and down in celebration, which was all well and fine except . . . I was still topless.
Of course, that would be the moment Garth emerged from the willow trees, and, of course, me and my bare chest would be the first thing he’d zero in on. “Woohoo! Just in time for the free show! Good timing on my part!” Garth shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.
“Go to hell, Garth!” I yelled back, covering myself a moment before Jesse’s hands were about to do the same.
“Now why would I do that when I just landed myself in heaven?” Garth had lost his shirt somewhere along the way. Stepping out of his boots, he hung his hat on a branch before sauntering down the dock. “Jess, I’m disappointed. You never told me Rowen had such a fine rack.”
“Black . . .” Jesse warned, heading toward Garth.
“Walker,” Garth mimicked. “I mean, those are a pair of serious fun-bags if I’ve ever seen some.”
Moving so fast he was a blur, Jesse grabbed Garth’s calf and pulled him into the water. Garth toppled into the water, miraculously managing not to utter a curse. Josie and I cheered. When Garth kicked to the surface and Jesse was ready and dunked him, we cheered even louder.
“I’m going to kick your backside!” If hearing Garth substituting “backside” for “ass” wasn’t funny enough, hearing him do it while sputtering out water was even better.
“Not before I dunk yours.”
Jesse and Garth continued with their man war while I dropped into the water. Time to look for a missing swimsuit top.
“Hey, Jolene. Mind telling me where my top is?” I swam toward her.
Jolene pulled the rubber-band from her hair and ran her fingers through it. She hitched her thumb over her shoulder. “Back there.”
“Yeah, I guessed that since you hurled it over your back. Mind going and finding it?”
“Yeah. I do mind. I’m not the one who lost it.” She was furiously working to make her hair less of a soaking wet mess.
“No, you’re the one who tore it off and tossed it into dark water.”
Without so much as a screw you or a good-bye, Jolene headed for the shore.
Jesse and Garth were about to have company duking it out in the water.
Josie swam up beside me. “Come on. I’ll help you find it. She must be hardcore PMS’ing.”
“Or has a hardcore crush on my boyfriend who she’s realizing is hardcore in love with me.”
Josie flicked her fingers in my face, splashing me. “After that bout of bitchiness, I’m beginning to wonder.”
“Why wonder when it’s so obvious?”
Josie and I swam in the general direction of where my top had gone under, and someone kicked up beside us. “Helloooo, ladies.” Jesse had an exuberant expression which meant he must have come out the victor in the dunking war. “Need some help?”
“Yeah. Finding my top,” I said.
Jesse’s eyes twinkled. “I believe I have some experience with that.”
If I was a blusher, I might have just from the look he gave me. “You’re a regular search and rescue pro.”
“I got this, Josie. Why don’t you go save your cousin from Garth? He’s got that look in his eye.”
Josie’s head whipped back. “If he even thinks about getting that look in his eye with Jolene, I might take Rowen up on her idea and inject him with the Ebola virus.”
Jesse quirked a brow at me.
“It was a figure of speech. That’s not how I meant it,” I called after Josie, who was paddling back. Garth had pulled himself out of the water and was helping Jolene out with, indeed, that certain look in his eyes.
“That’s how I took it,” Josie shouted back. From her tone, I guessed Josie hadn’t missed that gleam in Garth’s eyes either.
“Let’s see if we can find your top. As much as I might not want to.” Jesse winked before disappearing into the water.
We’d swam so far away from the dock we were almost to the other side of the swimming hole. A curtain of willow branches draped into the water . . . and that’s when I got an idea. I was already swimming toward the branches when Jesse resurfaced.
“Nothing.”
“I think it’s more this way,” I replied, smiling.
“What? Really? You think it flew that far?” Jesse paddled after me.
“Farther.” When I was a couple of feet in front of the branches, I dove and swam a few strokes before coming back up. The branches extended so far into the water, they created a good-sized pool. They provided such a barrier I could barely make out Jesse on the other side, let alone the three back on the dock. If I couldn’t see them, that meant they couldn’t see us . . . I’d just moved a bit closer to shore when Jesse joined me inside the private world.
“There’s no way it went this far,” he said, moving my way.
“I know.” Jesse gave me a confused look. “Use your imagination.”
“Oh, I am. Big time.” He was grinning like the devil when he stopped in front of me. His arms went around my waist, and he pulled me close. “But you know, my male, hormone-driven imagination might not be syncing with your much more innocent and sweet one.”
“I doubt that,” I whispered right before covering his mouth with mine. Tracing the seam of his lips with my tongue, I waited for him to respond. I didn’t wait long.
One hand went lower and the other went higher, and when they both found what they were looking for and gave a gentle squeeze, I swore I was about to drop my head back and cry out. Last night’s abstinence was making the afternoon’s make-up session especially intense.
When Jesse’s mouth lowered to my neck, I wove my fingers into his wet hair. “I bet you’re all right with my swimsuit top going missing now, right?”
“I really can’t imagine being more all right with anything else right now,” he said against my neck, giving another gentle squeeze to prove his point.
That time, a moan escaped my mouth. When Jesse’s grip tightened over my backside, successfully fitting my southerly region tighter against his, I came so close to orgasming, I could have been labeled the female two-pump-chump equivalent. “Jesse, oh my god, yes.”
I felt his tell-tale smile move into place, and then his hand left my breast. Practically dying from the anticipation of where it would move to next, I hadn’t expected the alternative: it had been busy removing his swim trunks. When his fingers slid my swimsuit bottoms aside and I felt something that, yet again, put me one second away from orgasming, I flinched my hips back.
How my brain was able to remember anything right then, I didn’t know, but it was all curse and no blessing. “Jesse,” I hissed.
“Yeah?” The skin between his eyebrows lined as deep as I’d ever seen it go. Understandably so. When it came to that piece of our relationship, I’d never been one to hit the brakes. Or I hadn’t been until last night.
“Forgetting a certain bet you made with a certain someone?”
Jesse grimaced. “I was about point two seconds away from forgetting my first name.”
That would make two of us.
“Come on, Rowen. He won’t know. I won’t tell, you won’t tell, and even if he did find out, who cares? It’s just some stupid bet.”
“Some stupid bet you agreed to with a guy I can’t let win at anything. It’s in my genetic code or something.”
He sighed. “Just forget I ever mentioned it. There’s no bet. I don’t even know a guy who would be so idiotic to enter into such a bet.” Jesse’s arms tightened around me, pulling me back into position. “I need to be close to you, Rowen.”
“It feels more like you really need to be close to me,” I said, gliding my hand down him. His eyes might have rolled back in his head. I jolted when Jesse’s finger slid just inside my bottoms, circling a certain spot.
“And it feels like you need to be really, really close to me.”
I didn’t have a single doubt if I flat-out told Jesse I wasn’t in the mood to have sex, he would have backed off immediately. He would have switched from high-drive to being happy making out or just lounging beside me. He’d never forced, guilted, or manipulated me into having sex, and I knew he never would. His tortured look and reaction was a result of him wanting to have sex with me. Wanting and waiting.
The thing was, I really wanted to have sex with him. He’d been correct when he said really, really. It wasn’t just about satisfying an overwhelming desire either, though that was present. It was about feeling his love. It was about feeling the physical expression of love that was for no one’s eyes but ours. It was about me worshipping him and him worshipping me, and the two of us finding a release together that we couldn’t experience apart. At least not in the same way.
It was about being in the moment, and living that moment to its fullest. It was about feeling infinite in those few moments we rarely got to share together due to location and obligation. It was about loving each other in such a way we could have been drowning in it.
“Hold that thought.” I lifted my finger as my desperate mind searched for a solution to the whole “bet” mess.
Jesse gave me a look as I swam the opposite direction of where he obviously wanted me to be going. “Looks like I’ll be holding something.”
I tried to stifle my laugh, but I guess I wasn’t really up to the task of stifling. “Just a minute. I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’ll just be here. Wet. Naked.” Jesse moved into shallower water so I had a nice view of that wet nakedness. “Ready.” Turning to face me, he gave me another view of the “ready” part.
I glanced away and swallowed the flames crawling up my throat. “Well, it looks like you’ll have plenty to entertain yourself with while I’m gone.”
“I’d rather have you entertain myself,” he called before I dropped below the surface.
I wasn’t a good swimmer. Decent sure, but I wouldn’t have received any medals for form. Speed, however, was a different story. Especially when the faster I swam, the faster I’d be able to get back to what I was practically trembling to get back to.
Another flash of the wet nakedness waiting for me fifty yards back urged me ahead even faster. The threesome Jesse and I had escaped from were spread out on the dock, soaking in some sun. Josie and Jolene were sharing a towel, and Garth was sprawled out on the splintery wood.
“Hey, Black!” I hollered when I was a dozen strokes back.
“Hey what?” he replied, sitting up. He was still in his tight, black jeans. Even his belt buckle was still in place.
“Forget your swimming trunks?”
“No. I don’t wear trunks, shorts, or anything else that might think it’s okay to go above my ankle. I’m a cowboy, god dammit. We don’t wear shorts. Might want to relay that to the swim short wonder over there in the trees. What a disgrace.”
“As much fun as this little spat could be—because, come on, you and I know we could go on and on about this real cowboys don’t wear shorts thing—I’m kind of pressed for time.” Pressure definitely had something to do with me searching out Garth. Swimming up beside him, I crossed my arms over the dock and met his stare. “I need you to do something for me.”
Garth smiled like the Grinch hatching his Christmas Eve plan of terror. “I’d ask what that favor would be, but given you’re still topless and I’m guessing the poser in hiding’s probably lost his shorts, I think I know what’s on your mind. Plus, you’ve got that general look about you that says your head’s going to explode if you don’t get a little vitamin J in you soon.”
I splashed Garth in the face, thankful Josie and Jolene had their earbuds in. At least they were able to block out the filth that came from Garth’s mouth. “Cuss, already. You know you want to. I can tell from that look on your face that says your head’s going to explode if you don’t scream a FUCK YOU! at the world soon.”
Hearing those two words, Garth almost sighed in contentment, followed by a small tremble. Probably from withdrawal. “Now why would I want to do that when I’d say you and Jesse are about one bikini bottom of restraint away from giving me the win?”
“Cuss, Garth.”
&nbs
p; “No.”
“Garth . . .”
“Rowen,” he deadpanned back. “Either go enjoy Jesse or yourself because I am not losing this close to the end. I cuss now, and two weeks of not cussing will be for nothing. I’m not losing because not only would the losing part suck, but then you two would celebrate your win by playing hide the snake. Where’s the fairness in all that?”
“Garth . . .” My nails were digging into my palms so hard I had to be close to drawing blood.
“Rowen,” he mimicked, sticking out his tongue.
“Dammit! Why do you have to be so difficult?”
“Are you looking for an actual explanation? Or was that one of those rhetorical questions?”
Unbelievable. He was smiling, all calm like.
“That was an I-don’t-care-why-you’re-so-difficult-just-show-me-how-I-can-beat-it-out-of-you kind of question.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m fresh out of I-give-a-darn. Why don’t you check back next century?” Garth tilted his head and waved.
“Fuck you.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “My, oh, my. You suck your boyfriend with that filthy mouth?”
That earned him another splash. “Go to hell, Black.”
“Lucky Jesse,” Garth said with a wink.
I was obviously getting nowhere with Garth. Actually, I was obviously getting somewhere—backwards. Not the direction I’d been hoping to go. Taking a handful of slow, not-quite-soothing breaths, I decided to do something high on my list of Never Want to Do: swallow my pride in front of Garth Black. The one thing higher on that list? Delaying sex with Jesse Walker.
“Please?” Yeah, it was as hard as I imagined it would be. Just one word in and it had already singed my throat. “From one misunderstood, glass-half-empty misfit to another . . . please?”
The cocky smile fell right off Garth’s face. It was working. My momentary lapse into sincerity was doing exactly what I hoped it would do: throw Garth for a loop. He studied my face for a few more seconds, trying so hard to glare at me his brow almost broke out in a sweat. Then he let out one long sigh, slid his hat low on his brow, and shook his head. “You women and your pouty faces are going to be the death of me.”