He laughed at the reference to a Rolex. “Whatever it costs me it was worth it. The expression on your face was priceless.”
“What if I hadn’t known how to swim?”
“You would have learned fast or realized you could stand—it’s only five feet there. And we’d be having mandatory lessons before anyone found out. Christ, that would be embarrassing.”
He might have shivered.
“Lucky for you then that I was pollywog champ in the seven-to-eight-year division at my local swim club.” Indoor swim club—it was Minnesota after all—but she left that out.
“Pollywog?”
“It’s a tadpole.”
“I know what it is. I was just impressed.”
She harrumphed. “You should be.”
He inched closer, eyeing her carefully. “You still mad?”
She gave him a long look, trying not to be distracted by how sexy he looked and failing miserably. “I don’t get mad, I get even.” She gave him a smile of pure evil. “When you least expect it... expect it.”
“Now you’re just turning me on,” he said in a husky voice continuing his walk-wade toward her.
She shook her head and laughed. “You’re weird.”
“And you’re hot. Especially in that white T-shirt.”
She looked down and seeing everything—everything—screeched and jumped out of the pool. She ran over to the lounge chair to get her towel to wrap it around her.
He was laughing as he came up next to her and grabbed another towel to dry off.
“You’re horrible,” she said. “How could you just let me sit there practically naked? What if someone had come up?”
“They would have been jealous as hell,” he said matter-of-factly. “Then I would have had to kill them for looking.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a Neanderthal.”
He pulled her into his arms. “My eyes only, sweetheart.” He leaned down. “And unless you want to put that pool house to use, we should probably head back to the room.”
She didn’t need to ask why. She could feel exactly what he had in mind pounding hard against her stomach.
Maybe the wet T-shirt thing wasn’t bad after all.
• • •
It was a long time before Natalie came up for air. Scott barely got the bedroom door shut before he was sliding those big, strong hands of his under her wet T-shirt and lifting it off.
Her shorts came next.
Then he just stood there and looked at her standing in her see-through lace bra and underwear for a while. She might have been self-conscious, but she could see from the board shorts that he liked what he saw. Liked it a lot.
He reached out with the back of his finger to caress a nipple that was hard not just from the cold.
“You are so fucking hot,” he said in a soft, husky voice. “I’m going to send a thank-you note to whatever company made that underwear.”
She flushed, more with pleasure than with embarrassment. She might dress modestly most of the time, but she did like her sexy underwear.
The bra had gotten a little tight, but if the look on Scott’s face was any indication—or the fact that his gaze was pretty much pinned to her chest—he didn’t seem to mind the spillover factor.
