As she moved aside, he was already unhooking his belt and pulling down his jeans.
“No.” She shook her head.
The black boxers he was wearing had to count as swimming trunks of some variety. He yanked his shirt over his head and cannonballed into the lake.
It. Was. Fucking. Cold.
He pushed himself up to the surface, sputtering and cussing at the cold.
“You didn’t say it was f-f-freezing.”
She lifted a shoulder and splashed him. “Meow.”
She moved to splash him again, and he caught her wrist in his hand before she could complete the motion. A zing of something that felt like a live electrical wire moved through him when their skin connected.
Suddenly, the lake wasn’t really that cold anymore.
Neither of them said anything, and she wasn’t laughing anymore. They clearly weren’t thinking of cats or airplanes. They were both there, in a lake,and he was holding her…wrist.
Without thinking further, he treaded through the foot of water separating them until there were only a few inches between them. He slid his hand along the inside of her wrist up to her palm until their hands met and he linked their fingers together.
Her mouth parted.
He was hard in spite of the chill of the lake.
And he didn’t fucking care.
He stroked the fleshy part of her palm with his thumb. “Do you want to meow at me again?”
She shook her head. It was subtle, but there. “I’m good.”
He grinned.
“Glad we settled that.”
Rachel’s free hand skimmed along his side, pulling him closer to her. Any closer and she’d feel… Her eyes went wide.
Yup, she’d felt it. The evidence of his desire was tenting his boxers,and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
Rachel opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. She seemed to be steeling some kind of resolve.
Her leg brushed his as she kicked to tread water, and that seemed to make her decision for her. “Travis, I’d like to—”
“Mom!” Kellan’s voice pierced the quiet of their side of the lake.
Travis swam away from Rachel faster than he’d ever moved in the water. He didn’t look back,because he really needed to get his body under control.
“Hey, baby.” Rachel waved to her son. “Are you coming in?”
“Can I?” Kellan asked.
Rachel nodded, and that’s all it took. Kellan stripped down to his Lightning McQueen skivvies and ran down the length of the dock like a hooligan with the police on his tail.
Brady followed, but he took his time getting out of his clothes, folding them neatly and setting them beside his mother’s.
Dave moseyed along behind the boys, stopping at the end of the dock while they cannonballed into the lakeala their uncle Travis. He, however, did not strip down and jump in.
Instead, he took a look at Travis, then he glanced at Rachel already playing an impromptu game of Marco Polo with her kids, and then he shook his head. “I’ll head up to the house and grab you yahoos some towels.”
