He shook his head. “Not tonight. I just wanna relax. Maybe some other time.”
“And what makes you think there will be another time?” she asked with sass. But she couldn’t deny it; now that the wine was gone, they were magnetically drawn closer together.
The athlete began to draw small circles on the top of her knee with the tip of his finger.
“I’ve got a feeling,” he said, without a shred of doubt.
She sighed. “Dane …”
“Yeah?”
She wanted to tell him to stop. A glass or two ago, she would’ve had no problem telling him to cut it out. But now … now it felt good. Some part of her wished his hand would dare to reach higher.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just—I wish there was something I could do.”
“There is.”
By now, she knew him well enough to recognize the spark in his eye when he was up to no good.
“And what’s that?” she asked skeptically.
While he swam like a shark, he burst out of the water with all the grace of a walrus flopping onto an iceberg. And he jumped out right on top of her, too, bowling her over backwards and pinning her onto the cobblestone floor. She was trapped beneath him, and he was drippingallover her clothes.
“Dane!” she yelled, pounding her fists against his slick, rock-hard chest. “You promised you wouldn’t get me all wet!”
“No, I promised I wouldn’t throw you in.”
He lowered his face to hers, trying to steal a kiss. Wanting to stay dry, she resisted—wiggling and writhing and playfully shrieking “No! Don’t!” beneath his dripping, muscle-bound body. But her clothes drank the water from his body like parched earth in the rain. The fight left her body—it was pointless to resist.
“Welp. Now I’m soaked,” she sighed.
She met his eyes. Those eyes—God, they were so dark and expressive, his beating lashes so long.
“So kiss me already,” he whispered.
When he leaned in a second time, she didn’t fight him.
He pressed his mouth gently to hers. He kissed her softly, slowly, wanting to explore her tenderly. She savored the slightest tang of salt that lingered on his wet lips—yet with each kiss, it began to diminish. She kissed him hungrier, wilder, desperately trying to find that trace of salt again … until she found it again on his tongue.
She pushed him away. “My clothes aresoppingnow,thanks to you.”
“So why don’t you take ’em off?”
“Uh-huh,” she said as she wiggled out from beneath him. “That was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”
His smile said it all.
Chapter 22
Dane
“Hey, where are you going?” Dane asked as Austen slowly backed away from him.
She held a finger to her lips. “Shh.” She disappeared into his house.
He was sure she was leaving him for a second time. His swollen manhood began to limber. Dane slipped back into the warm water, but he kept his eye trained on that door, waiting, losing hope as the minutes passed.
But when Austen finally reappeared in the doorway, Dane broke into a big smile. She held up a fresh bottle of wine like a trophy.
