They collapsed in a heap, her on her back, him sprawled on top of her, his chest pinning her pelvis and legs to the ground, one hand in the cool sand, the other on her forearm, his face buried in her t-shirt around the area of her belly button.
Because,of course.
Marginally better, he vaguely supposed, than face planting in her crotch à la Michael Douglas inRomancing The Stone. But that was before the king hit of his body wash filled his senses. Body wash warmed from her exercise to a potency that should come with a warning label, radiating from her skin and infusing her clothes. He almost,almostsuccumbed to the urge to take a long deep inhale, to push up her shirt and discover how it tasted mixed with the fine sheen of sweat he could feel beneath his palm.
It certainly wasn’t helping his breathing, still erratic from the run along the beach.
Thankfully another burst of her laughter, which had cut off at the jarring impact, rang out again, and the motion of her abdominal muscles brought him to his senses. ‘You okay?’ he asked, levering himself off, noticing the ball still clutched to her chest, which she’d impressively managed to hang onto despite the tackle.
Sweeney didn’t answer but she was still half panting, half laughing so there obviously wasn’t much damage done. Fin, on the other hand, intoxicated by the heady scent of her, could have broken his leg and not known it.
Lifting her head off the sand, she shot him an evil grin over the curved rim of the ball. ‘You still,’ she said through her panting breaths, ‘don’t have the ball, Murph.’
Fin blinked, his faculties struggling to recover from the confusing sensory overload of his scent all over her. Where was her cranky demand for him to get off? To let her up? She was trapped under him on the sand, and her first thought wasn’t freedom and a way past the awkwardness of their position, which clearly hadn’t registered yet, but to play the game?
Their eyes met, both the sparkle he could see dancing in hers and her smile confirming it to be so. And even though somewhere in the recesses of Fin’s brain a warning signal blared, the stir of his blood was much louder and he returned her impish grin with a great big one of his own.
She wanted to play? Like taking candy from a baby.
Without giving her any time to think, Fin grabbed for the ball with his closest hand. But she was ready for him, snatching it out of his reach in an overhead hold before he could reef it from her grasp. ‘Too slow,’ she said with a laugh, her belly muscles undulating again.
No shit, his reflexes were as sluggish as the sudden thick throb of blood through his veins. Which was not helped by the way she was looking down her body at him, between her breasts, which were moving to the erratic rhythm of her chest as her breathing struggled to recover from her exercise. The way she was holding the ball as it rested on the sand above her head emphasised the shape of those two luscious mounds.
‘You’re losing your touch,’ she taunted.
Oh dear god. Donotthink about touching her right now. Play the game, get the ball, get the helloffher. ‘Oh yeah?’ he said, matching her tone. ‘We’ll see about that.’
In two swift movements, Fin crawled up her body until they were flush, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, chest to chest. Grinning, he reached above her to pluck the ball from her grasp, except she surprised him at the last second by bucking, twisting her body one way and her arms another, unbalancing him slightly—physically and mentally.
She laughed triumphantly. ‘What else you got?’
Fin couldn’t decide if the ache in his chest was the bittersweet throb of nostalgia, the game reminiscent of the roughhousing they’d done when they’d been kids. Or indigestion from all that twisting around underneath him and the awareness of her hot and lush and the effect it was starting to have on his body.
‘You know I can just pluck that thing from your hand like a seagull stealing a chip?’
‘Oh yeah?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Big talk for someone who hasn’t been able to so far.’
Okay, enough. Time to end this and get their asses home with the one tried and true method he knew.
His eyes met hers, lively with laughter and challenge, and his resolve faltered a little. The warm pant of her breath and the generous rise and fall of her cleavage in his peripheral vision was seriously distracting. And there was her mouth. Up this close it was soft and parted and just the right amount of plump.
Just the right amount of plump? FFS.Get off her, moron!
‘YouknowIknowhow to get you to drop that ball.’
Fin congratulated himself on sounding normal instead of like part of his brain had just fallen out and, as Sweeney’s grin faded, for getting things back on track.
She bugged her eyes. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’
He bugged his eyes also. ‘I would.’
‘You promised me on my fourteenth birthday you wouldn’t do that ever again.’
Fin shrugged. ‘You think you’re the only one who can play dirty?’
Sweeney opened her mouth as if to further argue her point but Fin just needed it over. He dug his fingers into her ribs and tickled.
‘Fin,’she choked out on a strangled laugh as she squirmed and twisted to get away from his questing fingers. ‘Stop,’ she pleaded, her body shaking with laughter.‘Stop!’
