“So I can do this.”
He kisses me like it’s been building up for ages—one hand curling around my jaw, tilting my face to his exactly how he wants it. His lips are warm against the lingering chill of thewater, and he doesn’t rush; he just holds me there, steady, until the world outside fades away.
My hands find him automatically, sliding up his shoulders, fingers curling into the back of his neck as I pull him closer. My legs come up around his waist without thinking, locking him in as his grip tightens in response, one hand braced against the rock beside my head, the other pressing into my hip.
I pull back, gasping for breath, warmth flooding through my body. “Jesus, Cruz.”
He trails his lips down the line of my throat, pausing to nip at my collarbone, and I shiver, the cool air mixing with the warmth of his mouth.
“I—I’m confused,” I admit, licking my lips, still tasting the saltwater and something else—something wild that I can’t name yet.
“We can’t have that.” His voice is low, almost playful as he draws my face toward his again, leaning in until his mouth just barely grazes the corner of mine—soft, unhurried, like a question he already knows the answer to.
“I wasn’t sure,” I breathe out, flicking my tongue against his bottom lip, daring him to take the next step. “About where you were at. With me.” If you wanted it—wantedme.
I don’t say that last part, keeping it tucked behind my teeth.
He chuckles, low, the sound moving through his chest and into mine where we’re pressed together. He drops his mouth to that spot just below my ear, and I feel the warmth of his breath before his lips even land. “And now?”
Water slides from his hair down the line of his jaw. I watch a drop trace the curve of his throat and disappear.
I tilt my neck to the side. “Still confused.”
His teeth close gently on my earlobe and I feel it everywhere—down my spine, behind my knees. My legs tighten around his waist without deciding to. “Still?”
“A little clearer,” I manage.
He drags his mouth along my jaw, open and slow, each kiss deliberate, unhurried, like he has nowhere else to be. When he catches my bottom lip between his teeth the gasp leaves me before I can stop it—sharp and involuntary—and then his tongue moves over it, soft, and the contrast nearly undoes me.
“Getting there,” I breathe.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, and the expression on his face—patient, certain, a little wicked—does more damage than his hands have. He brushes my hair back slowly, fingertips trailing from my temple down my cheek, across my lips, down the column of my throat, following the edge of my bikini like he’s memorizing the border of something. His mouth follows. The salt on his lips. The warmth of his tongue just beneath the fabric.
I sink my fingers into his hair and pull.
His mouth finds mine again and something shifts in him—the teasing drops away and what’s underneath is heavier, more focused, the kind of attention that makes it hard to remember what I was uncertain about in the first place. My back presses into the rock. The water moves around us in slow pulses, cold against my legs, warm where our bodies meet.
A wave shoves us closer. Then a hand closes around my wrist—not Cruz’s—andpulls.
“Hey,” Cruz snaps, his hand slipping from my waist as Rafe drags me out of the narrow cove and back into open water.
The cold hits me all at once—the sun-warmed surface giving way to something deeper underneath, and then Rafe’s grip, dry heat against my wrist despite the water, pulling me forward through the chop.
“Are you serious?” Cruz calls after us.
Rafe doesn’t answer. Just swims, his body cutting through the water with an ease that makes me feel the effort of my own movement by comparison—the drag of my legs, the resistance ofthe current, the way I have to grab onto his shoulder just to keep up.
“How are you going to win if you can’t hold onto her?”
“I didn’t know we were playing a game,” I say, breathless.
He turns in the water, slow, and suddenly I’m facing him, his arm hooking around my back, pulling me flush against him. The cold of the ocean and the warmth of his chest. The salt on his skin where my cheek nearly grazes his jaw.
“Come on, baby.” His voice is lighter than I’ve ever heard it—easy, unguarded, like something he forgot to keep back. “You know what you are by now.”
I blink at him. “That is absolutely not something I expected to hear from you. Cruz? Maybe. Gage? Definitely. You? Not even close.”
“So I surprised you, that’s what I’m hearing,” he says around a laugh. Not a smirk. Not a half-breath. A real laugh, his chest moving against mine with it, his grip tightening reflexively at my back.
