Page 2 of Keep You Safe
“What in tarnation are you doing?”
And then I nearly drowned, flailing out of my float at the sound of Foreman Foxy’s western twang ringing out across the pond.
“You’ve never seen someone swim before?” I surfaced, feet landing not in the deep end but a shallower section that made it very clear as soon as I stood that I wasn’t wearing a swimsuit. I quickly ducked back under the water. “Maverick said it was okay to come up here.”
“Of course he did,” Grayson muttered from the bank of the pond. He stood next to my pile of clothes, holding a small towel. “Nice to see you making yourself at home here.”
His tone said otherwise, but I was less concerned with the snark and more with the towel in his hand and his half-unbuttoned shirt. No swimsuit in sight for him either.Yippy skippy, my lucky day!A thrill raced up my spine.
“Were you going to swim?” I called out, making an inviting gesture with my hand. “You should join me. You look hot.”
Of course, to my thinking, Grayson Campbell pretty much always looked hot, all those muscles and tats and his scary-serious expression. But today, he also looked literally hot—sweat clinging to his face and neck, damp spots on his shirt.
“That’s all right. You have your fun.” Grayson backed away from the pond, pausing to add, “Careful of that pale skin of yours though. You don’t want to burn.”
He’d noticed my skin. I resisted the urge to preen.
“Sunscreen. Everywhere.” I made a show of swimming farther out and turning away. “See? I’m not looking. You can get in the water and protect your modesty, cowboy.”
“I’m not…” Grayson trailed off with a frustrated noise.
“Unless you’re chicken?” I whirled back around in the water. I had enough siblings to know the power of a well-placed dare. “Is that it? Can’t skinny dip with the openly queer dude?”
“Okay, okay.” Predictably, Grayson gave in and unbuttoned his shirt the rest of the way. I took a nice, long look at his muscled and hairy chest before spinning back around.
“I can’t stay long.” The sound of Grayson’s zipper echoed through the area, and it took all my restraint not to sneak a peek. “I was working on some downed fence line and decided to take a break and cool off.”Splash.Grayson must have entered the pond because his voice sounded closer. “And for what it’s worth, I’ve known Maverick was gay for years. Never made a bit of difference to me.”
“Good.” I nodded sharply as I turned back around to face him. Everything interesting was obscured by the water, yet the man continued to leave me breathless. “Maverick said you grew up here on the ranch?”
“Nah. I was seventeen, almost eighteen, when my old man got the job.” Grayson shrugged like seventeen was fully grownwhen I knew firsthand how woefully unprepared for adulthood I’d been at that age and how many stupid decisions I’d made. Grayson, though, managed to make himself sound downright ancient. “Had my diploma already, so I got hired on as a hand.”
“And you stayed all these years,” I marveled with the awe of someone who’d never stayed in one place more than eighteen months since leaving home at eighteen—a string of hospitality jobs and teeny apartments all over Southern California.
“Mostly.” Another of Grayson’s noncommittal shrugs. “Thought I might rodeo. Thought wrong.”
I’d watched him enough over this week to notice his slight limp. Even with that lingering war wound, the idea of Grayson strutting around a rodeo arena was even hotter than this scorcher of a day.
“Bet you were something on a bull.”
“Bronc busting, both saddle and bareback,” Grayson corrected my very limited knowledge of what actually happened at a rodeo besides hot and sweaty guys getting bucked off dangerous beasts. “That and some roping events.”
“Oh, you tie things up?” I didn’t bother trying to hide my flirty tone. The image of Grayson with a length of rope was too delicious to pass up.
“Out of practice,” Grayson mumbled, which told me absolutely nothing worth knowing. “I’m twenty years removed from rodeo life.”
“You make yourself sound older than those rocks.” I very deliberately sent a ripple of water his way. Not a splash precisely, but an opening salvo into my planned attack.
“Older than you,” he snorted. “What are you? All of twenty-four?”
“Thirty-two,” I muttered, skin heating. I sent another ripple of water to escape my discomfort. “I just look younger.”
“Old enough to know better than to go starting a water war,” Grayson warned, clearly having caught on to what I was up to. No reason for me to be subtle any longer, so I splashed him in earnest. Grayson didn’t bother splashing me back. Instead, he ducked under the water to swim away.
“Fine, be that—” I didn’t get to finish my retort as he pulled me under for a vicious dunk that left me sputtering. I splashed angrily in what I hoped was his direction as I blinked the pond water out of my eyes. “No fair.”
“You started it,” he said smugly, treading water in front of me, deliciously close to giving me a glimpse of his goods. Driven by an impulse I didn’t fully understand, I reached under the water and snagged his foot, dunking him right back. I had brothers. I knew how to give as good as I got, but this wasn’t that. Something about Grayson made me want to rail against him,pushin a way I didn’t with others. I was known for being nice, a people pleaser to the core, everyone’s favorite friend, and a respected concierge who could sweet-talk his way into any tickets or reservations a guest desired. But Grayson made me snappy, almost bratty, a side I hadn’t been aware of having two minutes prior.
That was about as much thinking as I got before Grayson grabbed me around the waist to dunk me again, but this time, I resisted, flailing elbows and knees and twisting in his grip until we were face-to-face, chest-to-chest, and I was painfully, intimately aware of our nakedness.
