She had decided.
Blake flashed her a grin and dove back under the water, taking a few strokes toward the center of the pool. He had to calm his hard-on before he got too far too fast. They hadn’t done more than kiss in the back seat of a cab and already he ached like he was ready to explode.
When he came up for air, she was still standing there, watching him swim.
“No sharks in here,” he teased, paddling on his side.
“Just one anaconda,” she smirked, and this time he was the one who felt the heat rise to his face.
“I don’t bite,” he protested.
“What if I ask for it?”
That brought him up short. He swam over so that he was treading water below where she stood. “You can ask for anything you want.”
“Because it’s my birthday week?”
Blake shook his head. “All the time. Don’t you know you should always get what you want?”
“Hmm, I do like the sound of that,” she mused.
He clasped the edge of the pool and heaved his torso up out of the water. “So are you getting in or what?”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said, and dipped a toe in to check the temperature.
“I hope that’s not the last time I hear you say those words,” he said, just loud enough to be sure that she heard. And before he could read her expression—excited? Shocked?—he pushed off again and splashed into the water, bobbing up on the opposite side.
But he needn’t have worried about scaring her off. He came up for air, and she held his eye, making sure he saw her take two running steps and leap into the pool, thoroughly outdoing his splash. She swam over to him, her bright laugh ringing through the garden. Take that, she seemed to be saying, and he knew not to underestimate this girl.
It was one thing to put his life on hold for seven months to travel the world, leaving behind demands and deadlines and the barrage of headlines and photos burned into his brain. That was such an obvious move that he almost felt like a cliché for running away.
But it was something else altogether to buy a ticket by yourself for just a week, because you were brave and maybe a little impulsive but certain, at last, of what you needed to give to yourself. Whatever she was looking for, he wanted to provide it tonight.
“The water is amazing,” she exhaled, limbs rippling in the underwater glow as her hair billowed behind her.
“That’s not the only thing,” Blake murmured. Now that they’d plunged into the pool, he couldn’t keep his hands to himself anymore. She let herself be pulled toward him with an audible sigh, surrendering whatever had been holding her back before. They were treading water together but with their bodies pressed closer they moved toward the shallow end, until his feet brushed the bottom and then hers. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling the softness of her skin in the water and the delicate pressure of her hips against his.
She hooked her finger into the band of his shorts and pulled him closer. He could feel her breasts against his torso, his aching erection pressing back hard against the base of her belly where the thin line of her bikini bottom hid everything he wanted to find.
“Hi there,” she whispered.
“Hi.” His lips were almost against her ear and he gently bit her lobe. “Just a little nibble from the anaconda,” he said.
Her lips sought his, and then her tongue. Then, to his surprise, her mouth pulled back slightly and her teeth grazed his lower lip. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough that he felt the pressure rocket all the way down to his cock, now very much standing at attention to find out what else those lips, that tongue, those teeth could do.
“Just a little bite,” she whispered, and he felt his whole body shudder as he clamped down on her in absolute need.
Chapter Four
Julia had never had sex with a stranger. Never had a one-night stand. Ever since the summer after her senior year in high school, when Liz discovered what could happen when boys said I love you, Julia had been so, so careful not to get hurt, physically as well as emotionally. But if she’d ever wondered whether there was some piece missing, now she knew exactly what it was.
Because she’d never felt herself fall apart like this, her whole body unraveling from the feel of his strong arms circling her waist and pulling her close as his lips found hers. It was everything she’d felt in the cab, everything she’d let run through her mind as she lay awake. Everything she’d never before let herself dream.
Her back was up against the side of the pool, her legs spread wide and wrapped around his waist. She ran her fingers down his chest and over his back, burrowing into his thick, curly hair.
She couldn’t stop kissing him. Literally could not. There could be an earthquake, a fire, an explosion—who would notice? The whole world could come crashing down and it wouldn’t be enough for her to pull away. She’d always wondered what other people were talking about when they got that misty look in their eyes, going on about passion and fireworks and how just kissing someone could make them entirely melt.
Now she knew. There seemed to be a direct line from her lips to her thighs, because the deeper Blake kissed her, the more she felt it all the way down.
Her hips pressed hard against his. Ordinarily she would have felt self-conscious about so obviously signaling her desires. But that little voice she always carried around—the one that watched everything while recording a tally of all her rights and wrongs—was oddly silent now.
Or maybe that was the same voice making an unholy chorus of pants and whimpers in Blake’s ear as he ran his hands over her breasts. When he slid his palm under the cup of her bikini, the feeling of skin on skin made her moan. Then he twisted her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Hard. But it felt so good that Julia bucked her hips forward and widened her legs as they wrapped around his waist. The thin strip of bathing suit that ran between her thighs was pressed right against the knob straining out from his shorts and the feel of him rubbing through the fabric between their legs… How could she be this breathless when they were still—technically—clothed?
“God, I’m so hard for you,” he groaned into her ear, pressing his erection against her harder.
She groaned back and nibbled his ear, wondering who this new person was who lost control and loved it.
“I want you,” he panted.
“Show me,” she whispered, and the words thrilled her as much as his touch did. What did it matter that she had never done this before? He didn’t need to know how she’d always been good. One night, far away from herself and her actual life, she could say such things. She could be brazen and bold.
Desire smoldered in Blake’s eyes. “Find out for yourself.”
How was it that she knew what to do? Without stopping to think, she hooked one leg around Blake’s waist as he supported her against the side of the pool. Then she reached down and tugged on the white strings at the front of his bathing suit until the ties were undone. Her mouth found his, feeling the warmth and wetness of his kiss at the same time as she slid her hand down his torso and didn’t stop.
Under the waistband she skimmed her fingers over the tip of his cock, that incredible part of him hard and soft at the same time. He was so excited she could practically feel him jump into her hand. He returned her kiss ferociously.
“Fuck, yes,” he exhaled into her ear. “Just like that.”
As if this wasn’t already the dirtiest experience of Julia’s life, he had to go take it to a whole other level. Danny never said anything during sex. Certainly nothing that might be construed as an improper way to treat a lady.
Now, though, she wanted to find out just how improperly Blake would treat her. She shimmied his swim trunks down enough to release his cock.
“Jesus Christ.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.