by Emma Hart
“You wouldn’t!” I pointed at him, clutching tighter at my boobs.
He simply looked at me as if to say I should try him. Given earlier when he’d picked me up and spun me around, I should have known better than to stop dead in ankle-deep water in protest.
A wave helped propel him forward to me, and he snatched me against his body before I could do anything. My arm was squished between us, but he didn’t stop to let me move it as he walked backward in the water.
He dropped his lips to mine, stopping me from protesting as the water splashed higher and higher up over my thighs and, thanks to one adventurous wave, over my ass. I gasped into his mouth and felt his grin against me.
Right before he picked me up at the waist and tossed me into the water.
I was saved only by the fact the water wasn’t really that deep at all. I still went under to my chin, meaning half of my hair was now soaking. “Asshole!”
He laughed.
Halfway to standing, a wave crashed into me, and I went over again, this time getting fully covered by the water.
Oh. My. God.
I pushed the hair from my face and felt for the flower. It was still clipped in, thank God, but I couldn’t damn well see.
Carefully, mindful of my mascara, I wiped under my eyes and touched my eyelashes. “I’m going to kill you!”
He laughed harder, and I took my chance. I jumped at him and pushed him. He lost his balance on the sand, and a wave full of karma dealt him the same hand I’d just been given.
I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. Karma was a bitch, but man, she was a beautiful one. It was hard to stay on my feet thanks to the rolling of the water and my inability to, well, stop fucking laughing and stand upright.
Adam wiped water from his face and pointed at me. “You—”
“No! It’s fair! You pushed me first!”
“The water pushed you. I threw you.”
“Whatever. I’m not arguing semantics in shark-infested waters.”
He laughed. “I’m sure the nurse sharks would be delighted to eat you.”
I slapped him. “They’re nocturnal. Of course they’re around.”
“And they’re not at all interested in eating a spunky redhead with a great ass.”
“You think I have a great ass?”
“You got over the sharks pretty quickly.” He slid his hands around to my ass, pulling me against him.
“Yeah, well, like you said, they aren’t interested in eating me.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. My bare breasts were pressed against his chest, and my nipples hardened as they rubbed against the light smattering of dark hair on his skin. “Besides, I’m small and relatively scrappy. If anyone hungry comes along, there’s much more meat on you.”
He laughed, dipping his head. “Great. So I’m shark bait.”
“No. You’re dinner, just in case. That is the chivalrous thing to do. Sacrifice yourself to save me.”
“Poppy, you’re the last person on Earth who would need anyone to save them. You’d probably flip it around and end up saving your rescuer.”
“I think that’s a compliment,” I murmured.
“It was.” He laughed, brushing his lips over my cheek.
We both paused. I tilted my face, bringing my lips closer to his. My heart thumped in my chest. There was a lump in my throat that swallowing couldn’t kill—a dryness in my mouth that wouldn’t go away.
I wanted him to kiss me.
No.
I needed him to kiss me.
I needed one more moment to pretend this was real. That it was a real thing that wouldn’t end tomorrow.
I needed one more moment to allow myself to feel the things I felt for him. To feel how he gave me butterflies and made my heart beat faster; how he gave me goosebumps and made me want to wrap myself around him like a clingy koala bear.
I needed to feel him, and I knew this was my last chance.
We were running out of time, and if this was the only moment I had to admit to myself that I had very real feelings for my very fake boyfriend, then I’d take it.
With both hands.
So, I kissed him instead. Lightly. Just a plain ghost of my lips over his. A tease, a little question. Asking him to kiss me back and kiss me harder.
He obliged.
His lips were soft but firm as he took my mouth with his. My fingers curled in the hair at the base of his neck, and he dug his fingers into my ass. I’d never pressed myself against anyone as hard as I did him, and I didn’t hesitate to part my lips when he deepened the kiss.
His tongue stroked mine. Each time he kissed me, desire bolted through my veins. I kissed him harder and held him tighter, pressing my hips against him. His cock was getting harder and harder against me, and I was on the verge of telling him we needed to get back to our room when something touched my foot.
I squealed and jumped, using my arms around Adam’s neck as leverage to wrap my legs around his waist. He staggered back a couple of steps before he grabbed my ass once again.
“What the hell?” he asked, looking at me.
“Something touched my foot!”
“So you screamed?”
“What was I supposed to do? Stand there and let it eat me?”
His lips twitched as his hard cock pressed between my legs.
This wasn’t so smart…
“So you decided to jump and let me be eaten?”
“We already covered this! If there’s something hungry in here, it’s gonna eat you and not me. I’m too pretty to be eaten by a shark.”
He clicked his tongue. “What am I? Chopped liver?”
I touched his cheek. “Oh, no, you’re very pretty, but it’s every man for themselves out here.”
“You know it was probably seaweed that touched you, right? And all you’ve achieved is making my cock so hard I’m tempted to pull your underwear to the side and fuck you right here on the beach?”
No. No, I did not know that.
The seaweed or the fucking on the beach.
His cock…I figured.
“Um,” I said.
“Um. You kiss me like that then wrap your legs around my waist—where I know you can feel my cock—and you say ‘Um.’”
“Um. Yeah.”
He laughed and kissed me again. I hugged him hard as our lips moved together, and he slowly backed us into slightly deeper water. His teeth grazed my lower lip, and his fingers dug right into my ass cheeks again. My clit throbbed as his cock bounced against me, and—
“Fuck!”
We were underwater before I knew what was happening, and I sputtered as I found my footing and stood upright. “What the hell?”
Adam broke the surface, laughing, and wiped his face. “The sand dipped. I fell.”
“Ass. That’s what you get for going deeper in the water!” I huffed out a large breath. The water was chest-high for me now, and not gonna lie, I was not happy about having my nipples out in the ocean.
One creature was all it took and then—bam. No nipples.
I covered them with my arm again, and Adam grabbed my hand.
“Don’t panic, but something just touched my foot,” he muttered.
“Seaweed?” I squeaked.
“Nope. It was a tail.”
I bit my cheek to stop screaming and grabbed it. I jumped onto his back, holding him tightly.
“That’s right. Splash the water,” he eked out. “That’ll scare it off. Also, Red, you’re strangling me.”
“Sorry.” I loosened my grip on his neck. “Is it gone?”
“I don’t know. Stay still.”
“I thought you said nurse sharks don’t want to eat humans!”
“Okay, shit. For someone who grew up in Florida, you don’t know a lot about the water, do you?”
“If you couldn’t tell, it’s not a place I go a lot.” I wriggled on his back, trying to keep my feet out of the water.
“Stop splashing,” he told me, tapping my thigh with his fingers. “We
’ll go slow.”
“If I die because you wanted to swim in our underwear, I’m going to haunt you forever and make your life hell.”
“Duly noted.” Slowly, he began the trek back to the beach. His steps were slow and careful, and this was exactly why my mom always told me to stay out of the water at night. “Nothing like a potential shark to kill a boner.”
“If it didn’t, I’d be worried.” I slid off his back to my feet and instantly winced. “Ow.”
“What’s up?” He looked at me, the concern on his face illuminated by the moon.
“My foot hurts.” I put my weight on my right foot.
“Hold on. I have my phone in my pants pocket. I’ll put my shirt out for you to sit on so I can look.”
He moved before I could register that he was leaving me standing at the very edge of the water.
Wait—no.
“Adam!” I hopped on my right foot onto the sand. “Don’t leave me with the shark.”
“Jesus, Poppy.” He laughed, running to me right before I fell over. “It’s not gonna come up that high. Come on.” He wrapped an arm around me and guided me over—still hopping—to where he’d laid his shirt on the beach.
He helped me down and got my dress, pulling it over my head to cover my boobs. He even did the zip up for me as I pulled my hair around and squeezed water out of it.
“Let me put my pants on.” He did that quickly then pulled out his phone. Using the flashlight to get some light, he gently took my left foot in his hand and tilted it to see. “You’re bleeding.”
“Great. So I was the reason for the shark.”
“Absolutely. It was entirely your fault we were almost eaten.” He half-smiled. “I can’t see anything in it. Does it sting or just hurt?”
“Just hurt.”
“All right. Here.” He rested my foot on his and, using the sleeve of his shirt, touched it to my foot.
“What are you doing?” I pulled away.
“Poppy, it’s just a shirt. I need to stem the bleeding before I take you inside and get a Band-Aid or something, okay? It’s right in the arch of your foot.”
I sighed. “I bet that happened when I went down.”
He nodded. “Probably when you fell the second time. You wouldn’t have felt it because you were too mad at me.”
“So, it’s all your fault instead.”
“If that makes you feel better.” He peered up at me, smiling, then checked my foot. “Okay. If I carry you, we can probably get there before it starts again.”
I groaned. “Driving home tomorrow is going to suck so bad.”
He gave me a sympathetic nod and stood up. Adam turned off the flashlight and tucked his phone back into his pocket, then bent to pick me up. I made sure to grab his shirt and both our shoes before he lifted me. He held me against his body with one arm behind my knees and the other around the top of my back.
“This isn’t how I planned this night to end,” I muttered grumpily as he carried me up the beach.
His laugh was light and low and oh-so-delicious. “You know what, Red? It wasn’t my plan, either, but it makes total sense, don’t you think?”
In a weird kind of way, he was right.
It did make sense.
CHAPTER TWENTY – POPPY
Goodbyes Are For Suckers
I felt sick.
I didn’t want to say goodbye.
I shifted on my feet as Adam opened the trunk of his car. I’d been re-bandaged this morning and taken painkillers to make the drive home as easy as possible, but right now, knowing he was leaving, the pain in my foot didn’t come close to comparing to the pain I felt in my heart.
And it was stupid pain. Not stupidly painful, but straight up stupid pain. I knew this would happen. It was written in the stars from the very beginning. This hadn’t been a first date or a precursor to something longer or more serious.
Yet, I’d allowed myself to cross the line into falling for him. I know—four days. It sounded stupid, but we’d been together almost constantly. You put any two strangers with an attraction together and they were bound to feel things.
I just hoped I hadn’t fallen too far and that I’d be over this in a week. That was all I was holding onto as Adam slammed the trunk and walked over to me.
He reached out, his fingers trailing across my skin as he pushed hair from my face and tucked it around my ear. “I had a really great time this weekend.”
“Me, too,” I said softly. “It was fun. You know. Apart from my foot getting cut open and Aunt Blythe stripping at breakfast.”
She was still drunk… Or so she said.
“That did brighten the morning up,” he said with a smirk. “I’m sorry I have to leave so early. I’d stay later if I could.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. I won’t be here much longer. I have to work the lunch shift tomorrow and I don’t want to get in late.”
“Did Avery already lave?”
“Yeah. She has to work tonight, so she left right after breakfast.”
He nodded slowly. We stood for a moment, just looking at each other until I laughed and dipped my chin.
“What’s so funny?” He hooked two fingers beneath my chin, so our eyes met.
“This is ridiculous.” My hair came loose so I pushed it back again. “I mean—we’ll see each other again. We don’t live a million miles apart.”
“I know your favorite bar. And where you work,” he added.
“Exactly. This is dumb.”
“Come here.” He pulled me into his body, wrapping his arms around me tightly. I squeezed my eyes shut at the pang in my heart when he kissed the top of my head.
Jesus, I needed to pull myself together. We had feelings for each other, but we’d cleared it up last night. I wasn’t the girl who could deal with him being away as much as he would be. Relationships were hard for him because of hockey, and that was fine.
Adam pulled back and kissed me, one hand around the back of my neck. I felt it right down to the tips of my toes—and when he pulled away, I pressed my face into his chest.
I didn’t want him to see how deep that kiss had tugged at me.
I squeezed him tight then pulled back. “Thank you for saving my ass this weekend.”
“I’ll save your ass anytime, Red.” He smiled, then kissed me once more before he let me go.
I backed up, bumping into Rosie’s car next to his. My foot stung, so I put weight on my toes instead of my whole foot and watched as he got into his car. He rolled the window down, and the rumble of the engine as it started made me want to climb on the roof so he couldn’t go anywhere.
He winked, shooting me one of his sexy half-smiles before he backed up.
The last I saw of him was him raising his hand out of the window in a wave.
I held mine up lamely, swallowing back a thick lump in my throat.
It wasn’t supposed to hurt this much.
Rosie came up next to me and wrapped an arm around me. “Come on, Hopalong. Let’s sit.” She guided me over to the stairs and we sat down, staring out at the parking lot.
Well, I stared at it. At the road out of it, to be honest.
She was looking at me with the kind of understanding only a sister could feel—like she felt the very same ache, I did knowing that he was gone.
“Tell me if I’m wrong, but that plan backfired, huh?”
That was one way to put it.
I shrugged and looked down at my painted toes. “Doesn’t matter, does it? It was for one weekend only. I knew that. So did he.”
“That’s not the point, Pops,” she said gently, squeezing me into her side. “Does that really mean it has to be over?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“He might be here to be your fake boyfriend, but you don’t need to be a genius to see that you both developed very real feelings by the end of the weekend. Christ, Avery took one look at you and needed a hot shower.”
I bit back a laugh and buried my face in my ha
nds. “God, Ro. This was supposed to be easy. He wasn’t supposed to make me laugh or anything like that. He was just supposed to be…there.”
“Well, him being just “there” bombed the second you brought a hockey player into a hockey-mad family.”
“All right, fine, I get it. Next time, I’ll check that my fake date isn’t famous in any way.”
She shook her head slowly. “Admit it. You like him. A lot.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” I said softly, looking at her. “If I say it out loud, then I can’t deny it anymore, can I?”
She smiled, but it was full of sadness.
Instead of arguing with me like I thought she would, she pulled me into her, and I rested my head on her shoulder.
I knew two things for sure.
I needed to get back to my real life, but there was one glaring problem with that.
My life would never be the same after Adam Winters.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – POPPY
Flowers and Fuck This
Last night, I’d stumbled through the door—quite literally, thanks to my foot—and beelined for the freezer. Avery had texted me that she’d bought ice cream and wine and that it was all mine.
That was true friendship.
I’d allowed myself to whine at Netflix and get lost in a documentary while I ate my weight in ice cream, then went to bed. All right, so I fell asleep on the sofa with the empty carton in my hand and Avery had dragged me to bed, but don’t judge me.
I was sad.
Now, I was feeling human again. A hot shower, a half-assed run, and a shift at work had pulled me out of the magic of my sister’s wedding and into my real life. Even if work had put me behind the bar because I had no business running food when I could barely walk, according to my manager.
I wasn’t going to argue with her. I liked serving drunk people drinks to get them even more drunk. If I could write a book, I’d have some real stories to tell.
Diary of a Cocktail Waitress. I’d nail it. With some elaboration, of course. I was no glamor puss serving cocktails in fancy restaurants, after all.
I closed the apartment door behind me and tossed my purse on the sofa. “Aves, I’m home!”
“Hey!” She poked her head out of her bedroom door. “How are you feeling today?”
