Page 83 of Going Overboard

I take off my towel and turn around so that Brody can unzip my dress. My breath catches as his hands graze my bare back, his touch so warm against my cold skin. He lets the dress fall to the floor around my feet – well, there’s no point being precious about it now, is there?

I start to shiver, just a little.

‘Does this stuff happen to you all the time too?’ I ask him.

Brody laughs.

‘This is the third time I’ve seen you take a spill into the drink,’ he tells me. ‘I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it generally – I’m just surprised you haven’t ended up in the sea. Pleasantly though. I think I’d miss you now.’

As I turn around to face him, Brody notices how cold I am.

‘Come here,’ he says. ‘Let’s warm you up.’

He starts rubbing the side of my arms with his hands, then my shoulders, then down the arms again, then his hands find their way to my waist and he pulls me close.

‘Steal my body heat,’ he insists. ‘I don’t mind.’

‘I bet you don’t,’ I say with a smirk. ‘You know, for a second, before Nikki pushed us into the pool, I thought you were going to kiss me.’

‘That’s interesting,’ he replies. ‘I thought you were going to try to kiss me too.’

‘Try?’ I echo. ‘You don’t think I would have succeeded?’

‘I mean… you didn’t succeed,’ he reminds me, reaching up to push my damp hair from my eyes.

‘Hmm, that’s true, I guess I didn’t,’ I reply. ‘No sense in trying again then, right?’

‘Absolutely not,’ he says firmly. ‘Unless it’s for, like, survival.’

I chew my lip thoughtfully.

‘Hmm, I do in fact want to survive, so…’

‘So I guess it’s on me, to keep you warm, until someone comes to let us back in, right?’ he suggests.

I playfully glance around the empty balcony, then out to sea, the dark sky and the even darker waters revealing that, sadly, there is no one else here who can help.

As he holds me close, he looks at me like there’s something he wants to say, or something he wants to do. I feel the same way, I’m just not sure what to do first.

No, wait, yes, I am.

His hands find my waist again. Mine find the back of his neck. This time when we lean in our lips get to meet. No games, no pretending, no one to push us into the water. It’s actually happening.

Brody scoops me up into his strong arms and sits me down on the wooden table that stands between the two chairs. He crouches down on his knees in front of me, takes one of my feet in his hands, and starts kissing my ankle. Slowly but surely, he makes his way up the inside of my leg, stopping as he approaches my upper thigh.

‘Just making sure I warm up every inch of your body,’ he tells me with faux seriousness.

‘Oh, of course,’ I reply.

‘Because these legs are freezing,’ he says as he hooks them over his shoulders, one after another.

As I look down at him, I can’t help but laugh.

‘Well, aren’t you just a regular hero,’ I tell him.

‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ he replies.

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