“And dangerous,” he says. Gosh, he smells good.
“Yeah? How do you figure?”
His eyes search mine, still wrinkled at the sides with a smile. But there’s something else a little deeper and…intense. “Because I can’t stay away from you or stop imagining my arms around you.” His eyes drop to my lips, and my heart pounds like a battering ram.
“This doesn’t seem like a very by-the-book way to detain a woman.” I’m desperate to keep my thoughts in order, but my senses swim with Beau.
“I’m off-duty right now. This is a citizen’s arrest. And now that I’ve detained you, I’ll be calling the cops. Because that’s the correct way to do it.”
“By all means,” I say.
He reaches for his phone, and with every bit of strength I can muster, I break my wrists out of his clasp and run, a huge smile on my face. There’s nowhere to go but the dock, and I get there all too soon, with Beau not far behind.
I hesitate for a split second, kick off my sandals, then jump into the dark canal water. I kick to the surface as fast as I can, wipe my eyes, and start swimming, a task made all the harder by the laughter bubbling inside me. I probably sound like a maniac.
A big splash behind me tells me Beau’s not letting the water deter him. Of course he’s not. My laughter dies, and competition mode takes over. I swim with everything I’ve got, which is a lot. I was on swim team in high school.
But we swam in crystal-clear pools in well-lit buildings, not in pitch-black gulf waters after dark. Suddenly, all the scary stories we told as kids about gators and sharks are swarming my hopped-up-on-adrenaline brain. It’s enough to take the edge off my stroke.
Beau grabs my foot, slowing me down long enough to takehold of my wrist, and I’m not even mad. But I won’t let him know that.
“You’re quite the swimmer,” he says breathlessly as he pulls me to face him. Water is dripping in his eyes from his hair, which he’s pushed back.
“I know,” I say, every bit as out of breath. I kick to stay afloat, trying not to think what things might make contact with my feet in these inky waters. “You wouldn’t have caught me if I hadn’t slowed down.”
“Because you wanted to be caught.”
“No. Because I started thinking about what other creatures might be swimming with me.” I instinctively glance at the water over my shoulder, like I might see a sea monster rising up there.
“What kind of creatures?”
“You want me to list them a—” Something tickles my thigh, and I shriek and grab Beau, latching on like a barnacle, legs wrapped around his waist.
“Whoa,” he says, laughing.
It was him.Hetickled me. And now I’m wrapped around him like a spider monkey. “You little…” I unwrap my legs and push off of him, but he pulls me back.
For once, he looks down at me with no humor in his eyes. “Wait. Don’t go.”
I’m thrown off by the plea, treading water as I try to figure out how to reply. I know how to respond when Beau teases and provokes. I have no clue what to do when he asks me to stay and looks at me like he wants me to wrap my legs around him again.
“My feet can’t reach,” I say, treading water to prove my point. I don’t even know if I’m making an excuse to leave or opening the door for him to offer another option.
“I can.” He’s stable and unmoving in the water, like an anchor, his gaze fixed on me, inviting me to hold on to him again.
Maybe it’s my imagination running wild with visions of gators nearby, but I reach for him under the water, and his hand is there waiting. It wraps around mine and pulls me toward him gently, like he’s giving me the opportunity to resist.
I don’t. I can’t. I can’t even breathe properly, much less resist him. I’ve been pushing against Beau so hard since I got back to Sunset Harbor. I tell myself it’s because I hate him—I hate every Palmer—but as I look up at him with nothing but the sound of gentle lapping of water around us, I realize something: I’ve been pushing back because I’ve been drawn toward Beau. And now that I’ve stopped resisting that force, my momentum is taking me right to him.
I grasp his shoulder with my other hand and suck in a breath at the feel of his fingers wrapping around my waist.
“I meant what I said, Gemma,” he says. “I know you want me to stay away from you. But I don’t know how. And I don’t want to.”
I shut my eyes and lower my head, trying to breathe and make sense of everything. It shouldn’t feel this good to hear Beau say these things. But it does. Gosh, it does.
I shake my head, and Beau’s grip on my waist loosens ever so slightly. Without even thinking, I draw nearer him, wanting his firm grip back.
I bring my head up and meet his gaze, feeling more nervous than I have in my entire life. “Iwantto want you to stay away from me.”
