Page 40 of If You Dare

A chuckle rumbles from my chest. “Gummies.”

“There. Now I know everything.” She flashes me a smile.

“Oh, little flower. There’s so much more for you to learn.”

The cocky little grin slips off her face before she swallows. “Maybe you should teach me then.”

“Who wants lemonade?” Mom calls, and I jump into the pool to hide my stiff cock beneath the water.

Jesus Christ.The effect Violet has on me. How the hell I’m supposed to keep my hands off her while she spends the entire weekend at my house, I have no idea.

Maybe I won’t.

* * *

Violet

The next morning,Chloe’s parents announce it’s beach day. They’ve already got a cooler packed with sandwiches, sodas, and water.

When we parallel park along the sidewalk, I offer them gas money, but Mrs. Novak gasps and swats the money away. “I willnotbe taking money from any child of mine.”

My heart swells. She’s known me for less than twenty-four hours and I’ve already been adopted.

“She’s not your child, Mom,” Chloe objects. “She has a mother.”

Mrs. Novak waves her off. “A girl can never have too many mothers.”

On the beach, Wes and Mr. Novak set up the chairs and two umbrellas while Chloe and I lay out towels.

The air between me and Wes is charged. After our conversation in the pool yesterday, I’ve been bracing myself every time he’s around, waiting for him to get me alone so he can teach me everything I still need to learn.

Despite lathering herself in a thick layer of sunscreen, Mrs. Novak parks under an umbrella and settles in.

Mr. Novak unzips a bag and beams at me. “Chloe tells me you’re a big reader, Violet. I’ve taken up reading since I retired from the NHL, so I took the liberty of bringing a few to keep you busy.”

He pulls out a stack of paperback mystery novels. Not the romances I usually gravitate toward, but the kind gesture has me grinning and reaching from my towel for the paperback on top of the tower.

I haven’t known the Novaks long, but I already feel like I belong.

“Dad, the point of bringing her to the beach was to get her to do somethingotherthan read,” Chloe tells him.

“She can do it all,” her dad insists.

“Everyone put on sunscreen,” Mrs. Novak calls, waving her bottle of SPF-eighty in the air.

Behind me, a low voice murmurs in my ear, “I’ve got you.”

Wes squeezes a dollop of sunscreen into his palm from his crouched position. As soon as his massive, calloused hands massage the lotion into my shoulders, I have to bite down on my lip to suppress the moan. Chills race down my limbs despite the heat.

I pray my face doesn’t betray the effect Wes has on my body. The last thing I want is for his family to know their son and brother turns me on.

His hands drift down my back, callouses scraping deliciously over my skin. My eyes ache to fall shut.

Chloe grabs my hand, pulling me up off the towel and out of my trance. “I’m hot! Let’s get in the water!”

“You kids have fun,” Mrs. Novak calls, nose already in a mass-market paperback. On the towel beside her, Mr. Novak is sprawled out, sunglasses on and snoring lightly.

Chloe’s feet fly across the sand while I stumble along behind her. The sand turns dark and smooth where the tide has been rolling in, and I stop at the water’s edge.

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