Page 47 of Curveball
I’ve spent the past hour playing with Dylan and Nat in the pool, enjoying the sun’s warm rays while competing in a game of HORSE with the basketball hoop attached to the pool edge, and then a whiffle ball throwing competition, and doing our best to annoy Palmer into joining us. But she’s happily lounging on a foam pool float with a canned adult beverage in the built-in cup holder.
Her full breasts bob in the waves we’re creating. I need a distraction.
“Adele, you doing okay?” I call over to the woman sitting in the shade of the patio with her foot propped on an ottoman, her e-reader in her hand, a tall glass of iced tea on a nearby table.
She waves her reader my way to show me the book cover. “All set over here. I don’t need anything except for this sexy book boyfriend to come to life and sweep me away.”
I chuff out a laugh becauseAdele and her romance novels. They’re her obsession.
“Ooh, I loved that one!” Palmer yells out to her. “Gutting. Have you gotten to chapter twenty-three yet?”
Adele wriggles her eyebrows and pokes at the reader. “Not yet. I’m on my way now, though.”
Palmer takes a sip from her can. “My work here is done.”
Somebody’s phone chimes with a notification and Dylan stops splashing around and pushes himself onto the deck. When he’s standing at the edge of the pool in his sodden board shorts, he shakes like a dog, and then reaches for a towel before going over to check his phone.
Nat is next to desert me, claiming she needs out of the sun before she gets burned. Her long hair’s fallen out of its topknot with her swimming, and she raises her arms to tie it up as she ascends the steps from the water to the pool deck. She’s gonna fucking kill me, strutting around like that. My gaze darts towhere Dylan is typing feverishly on his phone and not paying attention to my daughter, at all.As it should be.
But know what this means? Yep, it’s me and Palmer now, all alone in the pool. I sidestroke to her in the deep end and latch on to the edge of her thick float.
“Next time my daughter wants to buy a bikini, remind her that Iwillcut up her credit card.”
Palmer and I both crane our necks to watch my daughter stretch out on a lounger. Which, I should point out to her, isnotin the shade.
“You don’t think she looks cute in it?” Palmer asks.
I scowl. “She was cute when she was five and wore pigtails.”
“Well, I think she looks good.”
I reach up and tug one of the string ties hanging from the back of her neck and lying loose across her shoulder. “I thinkyoulook good. Let me feast on the sight of you.”
She immediately crosses both arms across the exposed skin of her stomach.
“It’s been years since I wore a two piece. Your daughter nagged me into it.”
“I’ll have to thank her. But you know I can never let you take her shopping again, now that I know what a pushover you are.” I shake my head in mock reproach. “And you called me a marshmallow.” I sink under the surface of the water just low enough that my mouth is submerged, suck in a mouthful, and blow a stream across the length of her body. Her abdomen immediately concaves.
“Aahh! That’s cold!” She flails about, swiping off the moisture, kicking me away, and nearly losing her sunglasses.
“It’s refreshing. And if you don’t want to get wet, why get in the pool?”
“I’m trying to get a suntan, not drowned.”
“Honey, I’d need my arms around a whole lot more of you if I were to drown you.” I kick my feet and move back to her side, then lower my voice. “But having my arms around you doesn’t sound like a bad way to go.”
She peers at me through the shades covering her eyes. “That tongue of yours is going to get you in real trouble one day.”
“Palmer, this tongue of mine is going to getyouin real trouble one day soon, and you’re going to love every minute of it.”
“For God’s sake, Max. Here? With an audience? You are cruel.” She presses her thighs together and squirms.
I press down where my thighs join, too, deflating my semi. Then flip onto my back and glide, one hand stretched out to tether me to her float as I circle around her, squinting from the bright sun in my eyes. I release my grip on the foam mat and let my fingers slide up the damp skin of her calf and then thigh, and then the curve of her hip. Another flutter kick and my fingertips are in range to inch under the top edge of her suit bottoms, and I shift to read her expression. She hasn’t kicked me away yet, but how much further do I dare, especially since we’re not really alone? Her eyes are trained on me, and her breathing is shallow. I give her a teasing smile and skirt a finger over the skin just above the elastic band. Again, she sucks in her stomach.
“You’re really wicked, aren’t you, bad boy,” she says in a breathy voice.
I let my fingertips skim up further as I float at her side, coming close to a scrap of fabric containing her overflowing breast.
