Page 74 of Summer Affair
They needed to talk. He needed to tell her the news about his knee, and he wasn’t sure how she was going to take it. Like the women in his past? Or like a woman who’d seen what a future with an NFL player looked like?
Either way would crush him.
Through the window, the gleam from the pool made a small light show down below. Not wanting to sit there with a woody and deciding to test his physical therapist’s theory, he pulled on some trunks and headed out to the patio.
He stood at the deep end and dove in, the cold water bringing him immediately alert. Shooting off the wall, he focused on the end of the pool and pushing himself harder than normal. Sadly, it did nothing to distract him from his problem.
Jillian.
The cool water slid around his body as he shot through it like a missile, gaining speed with each lap until his muscles began to burn and his heart rate picked up. That’s when his focus sharpened, with the regulation of his breathing and the burn fueling his every move. He was nearing fifty laps when he saw a figure at the deep end of the pool.
He stopped, lifted his head from the water, and grinned.
Jillian sat at the edge of the diving board, her feet dangling in. Her blonde hair was around her shoulders, the moonlight casting a warm glow over her. But what made him do a double-take was all that creamy, smooth, silky skin—and there was a lot of skin.
Not that she was naked—she still had on a pair of jeans, but she’d lost her sweater, and in its place was that teal bikini and ashit’s about to get realexpression.
The woman was a bombshell, with plenty of flesh where flesh should be, and the right amount of curves that had him manning up pronto. Because,holy hell, the way she was watching him, like he was the next item on her bucket list, lit up the pleasure points in his brain like a match to jet fuel.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.
She shook her head, a few waves spilling over her shoulder. “Waiting for everyone else to go to sleep.”
Clay swam to the diving board and pulled himself high enough on the edge to cause the board to dip. “And?”
“Eddie and Sammy are having a sleepover in a sheet fort. Both passed out and snoring.”
“So you’re …?”
“Ready to check off another resolution.” She stood and hooked her thumbs into the belt loops of her jeans and,hello, a simple slide down those gorgeous legs later and Clay was staring at the sexiest pair of barely-there, peek-a-boo bikini bottoms on the planet.
Then there was that same hungry look she’d done her best to hide ever since their impromptu kiss on the porch. A look he’d already followed up on. A look that made him want to go for round four. Which was both good and bad.
Good because he wanted her. Bad because he wanted her more than just for tonight and his heart was starting to make a bigger deal out of the situation than his dick, and Clay felt his pulse race.
“I wanted to wear these earlier, then decided I’d save them for tonight.” She gave a little wiggle—and they were gone, gone, gone. Which he should have guessed was her subtle way of telling him she was joining him for a swim, because, without warning, she arched her arms and dove right off the board, over his head, and vanished beneath the surface.
Clay sucked in a breath waiting for her to surface, then held it longer because, when she did, she was amazing. Her hair sticking to her skin, lips moist and glistening, her face lit with giddy mischief. And there was something about the way the water reflected in her big brown eyes, that made him want to dive in headfirst with her, and never come up.
“Have I mentioned teal is my favorite color?”
“Nope.” She went under again and it was like their bodies could pick each other out among the three hundred gallons of water, because when she resurfaced, she was right next to him and her hands weren’t empty. Nope, she held a ball of wet teal fabric, which she tossed onto the concrete patio. “I thought it was commando.”
“I do love me some commando.”
“Good to know.” She took a big breath and dove back under.
He felt a tug at his waist, then her talented little hands went to work. When she broke the top of the water, his trunks—and his heart—were at the bottom of the deep end.
“I’m beginning to see the appeal.” Her arms slid around his neck, and her legs drifted around his middle. They moved with the current as he kept them afloat, every ripple of water bringing them closer together, bringing her soft body flush with his.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this,” he said. “But you’re a little over-dressed for the party.”
She reached behind her neck and tugged the halter strap and—just like he knew it would—the whole thing floated away, leaving her gloriously naked—and in his arms.
Unable to wait, he took her mouth with his, uncaring that it caused them to go under. She seemed to be on board, taking his mouth over and over as they sank to the bottom of the pool. Sharing breath, their hands greedy for contact, it was the single most sensual experience of his life.
Neither budged, their mouths fused together like a single being until his chest began to burn from lack of oxygen. But even then they didn’t swim for the surface. She breathed into his mouth, giving him a big enough breath for one last insanely hot kiss.
