by McKinley May
My heart races as I relish in her words. I know what Vaughn and I have is special, but to hear that others can see it just reaffirms everything I’ve been feeling.
Ellie seems to notice that I still haven’t changed and she pops a hand over her mouth. “Oops! I’ve been talking your ear off without letting you get dressed. Sorry, I’ll wait for you out in the living room.”
The moment the door clicks behind her, I throw that swimsuit on as fast as I possibly can, ready to get out there and kiss the everloving hell out of my man.
25
When I finally see Rayne appear in front of the pool, I almost drop the beer in my hand. And I don’t mean that as a figure of speech; I legit almost drop the thing. It slips from my grasp, but I manage to catch the glass bottle before it crashes to the stone path below.
Where the fuck are Blake and his Tipsy Grippies when you need them?
My reason for temporary loss of motor control, however, has nothing to do with the level of alcohol in my bloodstream and everything to do with how breathtakingly beautiful my girlfriend is. Tiny black bikini, hair piled high on top of her head, and her tight, perfect body on display…Seriously, it’s taking every ounce of self-control I have to talk down the hard-on that’s threatening to pop up right now.
I watch as she laughs at something Ellie said before twisting her neck around, searching for me. When she catches my eye, I grin and crook a finger, coaxing her this direction.
The second she’s in front of me, I take her hand and have her do a little spin under my arm. I let out a low groan as I get a glimpse of her firm ass.
She raises a brow. “You like?”
I respond by tugging her into me, pressing every inch of my frame against hers. I tilt her chin up and claim her mouth with mine, breathing her in as waves of pleasure pulse through my body.
With her perfect breasts pushed firmly against me and my hands all over her ass, that erection comes on in full force. And when she slips her tongue inside my mouth, I involuntarily jut my hips forward, desperate for contact.
Yeah, she makes me so hot I’m dry humping her at a public party.
So sue me.
She grins down at my swim trunks. “Whoa. I’ll take that as a yes.”
“A hell yes,” I correct her.
Her eyes gleam as she places her palms against my chest, reaching up to plant another kiss on my mouth.
Unfortunately, the moment comes to an abrupt halt when I hear Weston shouting my name.
“Steel! Check this out.”
I sigh as I pull away and glance up to acknowledge the cock-blocker. He’s bouncing on the edge of the diving board and holding up a plastic cup of beer in my direction.
“How much you wanna bet I can jump in without spilling a drop?”
I shrug in a way I hope says I couldn’t care less.
Because, really, I couldn’t.
My disinterest doesn’t deter him, though, and he thrusts his head forward expectantly until I throw out a number.
“Twenty bucks?”
Rayne sucks in air through her teeth. “You sure you wanna do that, Steel? Remember the last time you bet somebody twenty bucks?” She puts on a taunting half-smile. “Didn’t turn out so well, did it?”
I give her waist a teasing squeeze. “Don’t know what you’re referring to, babe. You must be thinking of somebody else. I never lose bets.”
She rolls her eyes as Cameron struts up beside the diving board, shaking his head.
“The fuck is wrong with you, Casanova?”
Weston raises his shoulders. “Nothing, man. There are only two chicks at this party, and while they’re both smoking hot—” He tips his chin suavely in the direction of Rayne and Ellie, who’s just walked up beside us with Liam.
“Watch it, Paine,” I say gruffly, placing my hands territorially on Rayne’s shoulders.
He smirks and continues. “Dude, I was just saying they’re both gorgeous, but they’re taken, and—despite the rumors—I’m not some home-wrecker. I’m just trying to fucking entertain myself at this penis party, and I figured Beer Olympics would do.”
Cameron cracks up while Ellie frowns. “Beer Olympics? Weston, don’t even think about getting beer in this pool again. Last year it took the poor pool guys forever to clean the water after you idiots poured five kegs in it.”
Weston drags a hand through his hair and gives Ellie a boyish pout. “Awh, come on, El. You have to admit that was fucking hilarious. Beer baths are awesome.”
A sly smile slowly spreads across her face as she thinks back to last year’s BBQ. “I guess it was sorta funny looking back. But my hair smelled like beer for weeks.” She brings a finger to her lips in contemplation. “It did make it really dang soft though, so I suppose it was a decent trade off.”
Weston lifts his red cup in the air and examines it. “Even if I do spill this in the pool—which I won’t—it’s not gonna do anything. It’s like someone pissing in the water. It evaporates or some shit.”
I chuckle as Rayne and Ellie scrunch their noses in disgust. “Alright, Paine. Enough talking and let’s see what you got. Twenty bucks in the wager.” I nudge Rayne forward. “She’s going to judge if anything spills out.”
She takes a step forward and suddenly stops, turning sideways so all of us can see her wide, sprightly grin. “Actually, I have a better idea. You guys want to make this a real competition?”
“Hell yeah,” Weston shouts as he backs off the board. Rayne beckons for him and Cam to come closer to us. She turns to Ellie and Liam, both of whom are dangling their feet in the water.
“You guys interested?”
“We’ll be the judges,” Ellie says.
Diego pops up next to us, eyes round as he tries to catch a whiff of what’s going on. The guy is like a bee to pollen when it comes to crowds of people and party games. After noticing his curious stare, Rayne asks if he wants to join in.
He peers over her shoulder at the clear pool water. “Does it involve that?”
She nods and he takes a giant step backwards.
“Nah, chica. Me and agua don’t mix. As my bio prof would say, I’m ‘hydrophilic’.”
Cameron grunts as he approaches us. “Hydrophobic, dude. Come on, bro. I know you’re a sophomore, but that’s high school level shit. No wonder you’re barely passing intro biology.”
“Fuck bio, man,” Weston says as he walks up.
“Ayy, Cam. Philic, phobic, I don’t know the difference. English is my second language, man. Cut me some slack, por favor.” He turns to Rayne. “Is this gonna be embarrassing for these guys?”
“Maybe.”
He grins and pulls out his phone, setting it to video mode. “Sweet.”
He walks off to get some of our teammates, and now I’m really interested to see what Rayne has planned for us.
Once all the participants are in earshot, she begins. “Alright, everyone gets one full cup of beer and three jumps into the pool. You’re free to do whatever type of trick in the air you want, and Liam and Ellie will judge each jump on a scale of one to ten based on how difficult and well-executed it is.”
“I call dibs on the mean judge, love,” Liam says as he and Ellie exchange a high-five.
Rayne’s eyes are brimming with excitement as she rattles out the rules, and damn if I don’t love this competitive side of her.
She catches my stare, and the corners of her mouth turn up as she continues. “However, you don’t want to make your tricks too difficult because whoever has the most beer in their cup at the end of the competition gets four extra points added to their total score. The next highest gets three points, the next two points. The person with the least amount gets nothing.”
“Oh, and there’s one more rule,” she adds with a devilish glint in her eye. “If you spill your entire cup of beer, you’re automatically disqualified.”
Weston nods his head slowly. “I like it.”
“Me too.” Cameron grins.
Rayne raises her
eyes to mine, waiting to see if I’m a fan like the others.
“It sounds great, babe.”
A roguish smirk appears on her face.
“Let’s do it then.”
Ten minutes later—once we’ve each poured ourselves an overflowing cup of beer and Ellie’s scrounged up two notebooks to mark the scores on—we’re ready to go. Coach and Erika took off a few minutes ago, our attempts to talk them into participating proving futile. The rest of the team is gathered around the pool, Diego front and center with his phone raised high as he prepares to record us possibly humiliate ourselves.
Scratch that.
Definitely humiliate ourselves.
Weston’s up first and he attempts a safe pencil jump, holding his beer as high as he can. About half of the liquid splatters out when he hits the water, and the three of us waiting in line cheer.
When he breaks the surface, he glances in his cup and shock colors his face. “What the fuck? Where’d it go?”
Our esteemed judges hold up their notebooks—a 4 from Liam and a way-too-generous 5.5 from Ellie.
Weston splashes Liam as the crowd boos. “You British bitch!”
“Sorry, mate,” Liam says as he lifts his arms to block the water. “That wasn’t pretty.”
Cameron follows Weston’s shitty performance with a cannonball that ends up drenching half the team. He gets two sixes from the judges and two middle fingers from Weston.
I turn to Rayne. “Should I go next? Or do you not wanna have to follow my perfect performance?”
She arches a brow and takes a small sip of her beer. Lifting her mouth from the rim, she wipes the foam from her upper lip with her index finger and pops it in her mouth, sucking on it in a way that has me ready to ditch this fucking party and take her right up to my room. She takes a smooth, backwards step up onto the board and smiles. “Let me show you how it’s done.”
Holy fuck.
This confident, seductress side of her is doing one hell of a job distracting me. I throw my head to the dark sky for a moment to get my mind straight. When I look back down, she’s in the air, her legs spread wide in a middle splits position and then back to normal just as she hits the water. Only a small portion of the beer sloshes out when she goes under.
Whistles and cheers rise from the team as she gets a pair of 9’s.
She climbs out of the pool, her body soaked as she pulls her hair tie out, slowly shaking her wet waves around her like a freakin’ Baywatch babe. She shoots me a wink—very aware of what she’s doing to me—as I step onto the board.
I quickly focus on the task at hand, attempting to ignore her strategic seductive tactics. I do a 360 degree spin in the air as I jump in, finishing with an 8.5 and a 9.
And when I climb out of the pool, I wait until Rayne catches my eye before putting on the same show she just performed for me. One hand threaded in wet hair, raking out the excess water, other palm running down my chest, down my torso, down the thin trail of hair until I’m “adjusting” my junk over my swim trunks. Her eyes grow larger as I run my tongue over my bottom lip and wink. A bright pink color tinges those cute cheeks, and she immediately snaps her head forward to break eye contact.
When I get behind her in line, I lightly grip her shoulders. I lean down, bringing my lips to her earlobe as I suck gently, her back arching at the contact.
“Looks like you've got yourself some competition,” I whisper into the nape of her neck, lips grazing her sensitive skin.
Her body tenses and I hear her suck in a sharp breath.
Yeah, that’s right.
Two can play at this game.
When we finally get to the last round, we peer into each other’s plastic cups. The amount of beer we have left directly correlates with the scores we’ve received so far: Rayne and I with a lot, and Cam and Weston running low.
Weston steps up on the board as Liam calls out to him.
“You have no chance, Paine. Your scores are utter shit. The only people in the running are the newlyweds. Sorry, Cam.”
Weston shakes his head adamantly. “Don’t count me out yet, man.” He takes a running leap off the diving board and stretches out in mid-air, coming down in a belly flop so fucking loud it physically hurts me.
His red cup goes flying off into the distance as everyone freakin’ loses it.
“I’m sending this shit to everyone I know, bro!” Diego calls out hoarsely from the ground, hand clutching his stomach as he doubles over laughing.
Cameron turns to us and raises his drink. “Kick his ass, Sportscaster Girl.” He chugs the rest of the beer before doing a backflip into the water.
“Just you and me now, babe.” I give her a slap on the ass.
She does some graceful, ballerina-like twirl in the air, and somehow not even a drop spills from her cup. The guys go wild, and I know she’s got me beat when she gets perfect 10’s.
But, hey, I’m not a fucking quitter like the other two, so I still attempt a giant cannonball jump that results in most of my beer splashing out.
Once I’m out of the water, we show our cups to the judges. Ellie stands up from the edge of the pool, stumbling and narrowly avoiding falling in. I think she might’ve downed a few beers on the job.
She claps her hands together to get everyone’s attention. “Thank you for joining us for the Beer Olympics. We had some fabulous competition this year, and as judges we tried to be as objective as possible. No favoritism here. Nope, no sir.”
Liam groans. “Get on with it, Peaches. It’s obvious who won.”
“Congratulations Miss Rayne Everett!” She looks around the ground for something that could suffice as a trophy and settles on one of her empty beer bottles. “Here is your 1st Place Beer Olympics Trophy!”
Everyone cheers as Rayne kisses the bottle and holds it up in the air jokingly.
“And let’s not forget our runner-up, Mr. Steel Blue!” Ellie announces, gesturing to me with both hands.
Runner-up.
Rayne catches my eye at the title she knows I absolutely loathe, but I flash her a good-natured grin because this time I’m not so bothered by it.
In fact, I’m actually cool with it.
I jog over and hoist her up on my shoulders, ready to parade the champion around the yard since she just kicked everybody’s ass and made it look easy as hell. Yeah, I’ll happily claim second place this time.
Because if I’m going to be runner-up to anybody, I want it to be her.
26
A few hours later, it’s quiet.
And not just “quiet” for living next door to a frat house on a Saturday night, but actually quiet. I can hear crickets chirping, the rustling of leaves as wind blows through the trees, the steady flow of the stream in the back of the property—all that good nature shit that’s usually drowned out by heavy bass and drunken shenanigans.
Tonight’s “Drinkin’ Down Dublin”—a Windhaven annual tradition where every bar on Dublin Drive hosts a different fraternity bar tab and students spend the entire night getting absolutely hammered. It’s crowded as hell, a total shitshow, and always a good time. Last year, I woke up in our hot tub wearing a Warrior football helmet on my head and scuba fins on my feet with no recollection of how I got there. Weston blacked out and spent $600 on a freaking dog bed for his non-existent dog, and Diego passed out on the roof of Ellie’s sorority house—completely naked.
Like I said, total fucking shitshow.
This year, Rayne and I decided to stay behind while most of the team packed into cabs to head downtown, and I’m actually glad we didn’t go.
Because hanging with my girl, just the two of us out here in the calm, midnight air?
A million times better than any college party.
We’re cuddled up in a hammock just to the left of the main house, a cool breeze swaying us back and forth in a soothing rhythm. She’s got one leg wrapped around me, a palm on my chest and her head tucked into my shoulder as I absentmindedly play with her hair.
I ca
n feel her breathing getting softer, deeper, and I think she may be asleep when suddenly she speaks.
“Vaughn?” Her voice is gravelly and so damn sexy. I nuzzle my nose into her silky tresses as I respond.
“Mhmm?”
“Can I ask you something?” There’s an edge to her voice that makes me think this may be serious, so I lift my head.
“Anything, babe.”
“How do you feel about black cats?”
Okayyyy, definitely not serious.
I let out a loud snort. “Uh, what?”
She tips her forehead up so I can see her eyes. “You know, broken mirrors and walking under ladders?”
I cock a brow. “Are you trying to ask if I’m superstitious?”
“Yeah.” She nods enthusiastically. “Sorry, total brain-fart. I couldn’t think of the word.”
I shrug my shoulders. “Nah, not particularly. Are you?”
She shakes her head.
I laugh at the random question. “Why do you ask?”
“I was reading this article about pre-game rituals, and—”
“Whoa, whoa,” I stop her. “Pre-game rituals are different.”
