by Rachel Shane
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said, tugging lightly on the strap of my bikini but not enough to pull it out.
“You don’t have the balls to go through with it.” I jammed my eyes shut.
“Is that a dare? I accept.” And then he tugged hard on my bikini top, yanking it out from under me like a magician pulling off a tablecloth without even rattling the crystal goblets. He ran to the edge of the ocean, the strings of the bikini waving in the wind.
“Hey!” I ripped up the towel and secured it over my now-bare chest as I ran after the bane of my existence. This was the type of thing that should have made me angry, but I felt nothing but excitement.
Harrison stood at the edge of the water, smirk on his face, bikini held high in the air. Just as I got close, he spun around and stormed through the waves, kicking up water in his wake.
“What are you, five?” I mocked, charging after him into the cool water.
He kept running deeper into the ocean until the water covered his chest. My towel threatened to be swept away but I forced it to cover me until the surface skimmed my shoulders. Dark murky water hid my bare chest from view, allowing me to drape the towel over my shoulder for safe keeping. “That wasn’t a dare!” I yelled against the roar of a crashing wave. My body bounced on the same wave but I strung my arm over my chest to avoid the water receding in a revealing manner.
He lifted the bikini top high in the air, out of reach, as he balanced on the shifting ocean sand. “I know. I was proving a point.”
The hot sun beat down on my shoulders in sharp contrast to the shivers shuddering through me from the cold water. “Which is…?”
“I’ll let you know once I’ve proven it.”
I reached for him but he hopped back, sending ripples of water in my direction. My long hair trailed behind me, floating on top of the surface. In the distance, a guy wiped out on a boogie board as a wave crashed over him. “Well, now I have access to my hands.” I held them up as proof. “And that means I can do this.”
I dipped my hands below the water and tugged on the strings of his swim trunks.
His brow arched. “What are you doing?”
“Getting even.” I dove under the water and tugged the suit down his legs. Gripping the bottom hem, I swam away. He lost his balance, his legs floating up from the ground as I liberated his shorts from his body. It was only when I surfaced, that I realized he hadn’t put up much of a fight. Still, I held up his shorts and delivered him my most triumphant smile.
He shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to go skinny dipping. In broad daylight. In front of tons of people.”
I whipped my head around. A wave carried the boogie boarding farther away from us. Colorful towels and people littered the beach. Vacationers waded by the shore in the waist-deep waves, but out here, we were alone. My stomach sank a little bit at the thought of being half naked in front of so many people, in front of this person, even if the water did a grand job of covering everything. I would know, I’d opened my eyes when I pulled his shorts off. And saw nothing.
I twirled his shorts around my wrist. “Now we can do a fair trade.”
“Hmm but it’s not fair yet. You still have bottoms on.” A wicked grin burst on his face before he dove under water, about to pull the same decoy ploy I’d just pulled on him. I screamed and dropped beneath the waves to stop him. Instead, his hands cupped either side of my face and he brought his mouth to mine. Startled, I froze. Water sloshed above us, around us, and here I was, the only thing stationary. My lungs burned, itching for air, and my body strained for me to kick up, out of his grasp. But the stronger part of me didn’t want to let go. I parted my lips. Our tongues met for the briefest of seconds. My stomach squeezed at the realization of what I’d just done, and I kicked him hard in the knee before surfacing.
My lungs pumped in and out raggedly. His head popped up a moment later, grin still cresting his face.
“Did you just kiss me under water?” My words came loud and angry…but mostly a little breathless.
He tilted his head. “That depends. Did you want me to?”
I slapped my hand against the water’s surface in frustration, more angry at myself for not being able to resist him than at him. “Not under the water!”
His eyebrows shot way up. “So above water then?”
This time, he didn’t hesitate. He closed the distance between us with an animalistic gaze that likely matched my own. His hands found either side of my face, tilting my head back and sinking his lips against mine. They were soft and wet and everything I’d been wanting but avoiding. My bikini top dangled in his hands beside my face. I could grab it, swim away, leave him naked and exposed for once. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck. This was totally Erin’s fault for her initial suggestion the night of the concert. And Harrison’s for his question on the plane. And mine, for wanting this to happen for days now.
The kiss intensified. Every sweep of his tongue in my mouth erupted passion through me. Heat pulsed in my core, and I pressed myself closer to him, my stomach sliding along every ripple of abs.
His teeth snagged my lower lip, sucking gently. The kiss grew fierce, a battle, but this time we were both fighting on the same side. He was a fucking good kisser with the way he maneuvered so swiftly from my mouth to my jaw, skating his lips along the skin there before leaving a warm imprint behind my ear that sent goosebumps popping on my arms. He trailed his fingers over my shoulder, dropping tingles along every inch of skin. His hand dipped below the waves and continued its trail, crossing over my breast and circling my nipple in a way that expelled a tiny yelp. Harrison’s fingers grazed my navel and continued to travel south until he skated along the rim of my bikini bottoms. He looped his thumb inside the band and started to tug.
I pulled back. “Did you seriously just kiss me as a fake out to pull my bottoms off?”
“No, I kissed you because I wanted to.” He leaned in, lips grazing my ear. “And I’m not planning to take them all the way off.” He hitched my leg up, securing my ankle behind his back. I wobbled for a moment before finding my balance. “Just enough to finish what we’d started.”
My toes curled in anticipation. He brushed his fingers along my inner thigh and over the front of my bathing suit bottoms, not going underneath but giving me the gist of his intentions. A nervous flutter warmed my belly at his touch. He pulled back to study me with a questioning gaze.
I bit my lip, glancing around. “There are people here.” Beneath the waves, my own fingers trailed along his thigh, circling the base of his erection.
“Then you better not scream too loud.” He kissed me fiercely as his fingers pulled aside the leg hole of my bottoms.
“This time,” I said against his lips while my hand gripped his hard length. His breathing went shallow. “Don’t you dare stop.”
We kissed again, desperately. He slipped two fingers inside me, and my eyes fluttered closed at the intense pressure. And a little salt water burning that subsided fast. Silky ribbons of pleasure swirled in my belly while his fingers moved in and out in a slow, methodical dance that made it difficult to remember to keep kissing him. I matched his rhythm with strokes from his base to tip, over and over. This was another battle: which of us would get the other off fastest. I alternated my tempo until I found the one that robbed a heavy breath from his lips. He found my sweet spot too when he pushed farther inside me and curled his fingers, pressing against the nerve ending hiding there. I let out a gasp, and his arm holding up my leg tightened.
Sensation rushed to the apex of his touch. Every pulse of his fingers inside me shot a bolt of pleasure through my whole body. My breath came in quick gasps, and the tempo of his fingers forced me to break the kiss in order to let tiny moans escape. But I didn’t stop stroking him. His lungs pumped hot air and strangled sounds rose and died at the back of his throat as he sucked them back down.
A wave crashed over us, breaking on top of our heads and threatening to tow us away in a current. We d
idn’t let go, just kept kissing, as the pressure and pleasure built inside me. I tightened my grip around his waist, needing to hold onto him when I exploded. Needing him to explode with me. Soft moans flew from my lips because I could no longer keep them at bay. He matched them, point for point. His lips searched for mine again but instead of kissing, I shuddered all over. “Oh God…” I said, forgetting where I was, who I was with. The only thing that mattered was the sensation building to a crescendo.
“Agreed,” he whispered in a breathy gasp as he twisted his hand to press his thumb outside while his fingers still worked inside me, pulsing and crooking. Pleasure slammed into me from two angles.
I followed suit, dropping my arm from around his waist and digging my fingers between our jumble of hands, into the stretch of skin right behind his balls while my other hand continued to stroke.
“Holy shit,” he breathed. “That feels amazing.”
He rubbed his thumb in small circles, a contrast to the hard press of his fingers inside me. “Agreed,” I somehow managed to say. I was on the edge of a cliff and with one more thrust of his fingers, I fell. Waves of pleasure throbbed through me, pulsing like an earthquake. He let out a gasp as I shuddered against him and lost all control. The waves that rocked me mimicked my shivering. A loud scream flew from my lips, which he swallowed with a moan of his own.
Our lips found each other again, kissing a little more gently until I collapsed against him. It was the first time I had let myself go completely with a guy instead of faking it just to speed up the process. His fingers pulled out from inside me and he wrapped his arms around me.
“So,” he said, breaking the kiss. I waited for the obvious completion, something snarky like so THAT happened. Or maybe so that was fun. But instead he lifted a brow. “What happened to our bathing suits?”
I froze. I craned my neck as he laughed. Somehow in the hook-up, both of us neglected to keep hold of the suits. I hadn’t even remembered our suits existed. His shorts floated a few feet away and he snatched them, but my bikini top was nowhere to be found. Neither was my towel.
“Damn it,” I said. “I liked this suit.”
“Hold on. I’ll get you another towel.” He pecked a brief kiss on my nose. “Oh, and, point proven.”
I PACED MY HOTEL room, towel draped around me. My hair now smelled like samples of lemon basil shampoo and not ocean. My makeup container challenged me in an intimidating way on the counter. The conservative button down and pencil skirt hanging on the door now seemed all wrong.
I sank onto the clean white bedspread and dialed Erin.
“Hey lady,” she said after the first ring.
“I hooked up with Harrison,” I blurted, then cringed. I’d meant to work up to that info, prep her a bit first. But it had been on the tip of my tongue, along with my desire for more.
“Ha!” she said instead of the oh my God I’d been expecting. I heard rustling and then the opening of a door. “You all owe me twenty bucks,” she yelled into what was likely the hallway.
“Already?” another voice came through the receiver, faint, as if they were speaking from a few feet away.
“Told ya!” A door slammed and Erin’s heavy breathing carried while I assumed she trudged back to her bed.
“Did—did you guys bet on whether or not I’d hook up with him?” My breath waited in my throat.
“No, we all knew you’d hook up with him. The question was when. I was the only one who bet you two wouldn’t be able to wait until tonight. Holly had after the game today. Corey and Mackenzie both thought you’d hold out for several more weeks. And Fallon had next weekend.”
“Holly too?” I flopped back onto the bed. “I hate you guys.” It felt weird to say that. I’d been reserving that feeling toward Harrison for so long and now…I still hated him. But I also liked the way he’d made me feel.
“Details now please,” Erin demanded.
I gave her just the facts—where (ocean), when (an hour ago), how (he initiated it…or maybe I did with my dare challenge, I wasn’t sure), and what (hand jobs, nothing more)—like any TV Host would demand. She fired questions about his skill level and I groaned as I revealed the truth: high.
I twirled my finger in the bedspread. “Ugh, it’s going to be so awkward at the game today.”
“Not if you pull him into the locker room and go down on him on a wooden bench. I’m sure that will break all tension.”
I gasped and fanned my hand in front of my face. “Oh my God! What is with you and oral sex?”
“Me not being a prude,” she said, implying I was. And she would think that. When I got to Throckmorton, I’d re-branded myself as an angel to sell the image I never got to wear before.
Except I’d just hooked up wildly with my enemy on the beach.
I sucked in a breath. “Seriously. Advice. I need it.”
“Act aloof,” Erin finally said. “Like it was no big deal. Then it won’t be awkward.”
“That doesn’t sound too hard.”
“And remember, if all else fails, just grab his junk.”
Heat jumped to my face. “Oh my God. You’re officially my worst friend ever. I’m hanging up on you.”
“I can’t possibly be your worst friend, not when I know you well enough to guess you were going to jump his bones the second your plane touched down.”
A smile tugged at the corners of my lips. “Fine, then what am I going to do next?”
“You’re going to take my advice. All of it.”
My phone beeped with another incoming call. I cringed when I saw the display. Matt. But then my pulse amped. Maybe he’d completed my assignment. I hung up on Erin and took a deep breath before I answered, forcing coffee-laced sweetness into my voice. “Hey!”
“Bianca? It’s Matt.”
My peppy hey should have already established I knew who it was. I had no patience for pleasantries—possibly because I already had my fill of something pleasant in the ocean. I skipped right to the facts, so I could end this call and freak out some more. “Were you able to get into the file cabinet?”
“Yeah.” His soft voice shook as if he was calling from inside the very closet, still crouched in front of the file cabinet. “I sneaked up there after the first pledge event. No one even questioned me.”
I twirled my wrist in the air as if to say get on with it. “And?”
He hesitated and my stomach dropped. I wasn’t sure if that meant I wanted him to find something…or to find nothing. “Well, it was weird. File cabinets usually contain papers, right?”
“Right,” I said warily.
“But it was only burner phones. Like, a hundred of them. Still in their packages.”
Unopened burner phones? That wasn’t scandalous. That wasn’t even worthy of locking away in a closet. That was a… “Misdirect.” My throat tightened. “He knows I’m onto him so he switched the contents.” I couldn’t think like Bianca. I had to think like Harrison and stay more than two steps ahead, anticipating every chess move until checkmate. “I need you to search the entire house. Whatever he doesn’t want us to find, it’s hidden there, somewhere.”
A strangled growl ripped from Matt’s throat. “Bianca…I don’t feel right about this.”
“It’s fine. I promise. Nothing bad will happen.”
“Okay, but,” he said, and I winced, waiting for the inevitable. “I want to see you first. Like, a date.”
My stomach flipped. There it was. The ultimatum. “Sure,” I said through gritted teeth.
We made plans to meet for coffee. After we hung up, I slipped into my push up bra, curled my hair in the same beachy waves that had made Harrison’s eyes bug out at the concert, and buttoned up my shirt. Then I undid the top two buttons. Just in case.
“Why are we here so early?” I said to Harrison’s right shoulder in the Tampa football arena as we descended down to the field. I hadn’t yet looked him in the eye, even when I sauntered into the hotel lobby and found him leaning casually against one of the w
alls, wearing the glasses he only reserved when he wanted to look smart. In my peripheral vision, I could see his eyebrows shoot up at my professional outfit. I looked the part, now I had to act the part.
We’d spent the entire taxi ride over in awkward silence, both of us shifting uncomfortably, him stretching his pants over his long legs, me watching the palm trees whiz by outside the window. I’d followed him into the arena like a puppy dog, staying a few feet behind, until I stopped short at the site of the empty stands. The players hadn’t even shown up yet.
Now I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to shield what little decency I had left from the guy I still wasn’t sure I wanted to ravage me again or leave me alone forever.
Reporters milled about near the press box, but Harrison leaned against one of the blue stadium seats beneath the glow of a fluorescent light. Air conditioning hummed through the vents, forcing him to speak up. “Remember the question you asked me on the plane?”
I stopped short on the concrete stairs. Only one question came to mind and it was one he had asked me: when was the last time you got laid? Heat radiated in my belly and up through my cheeks at that thought. I covered with snark. “Was it how you manage to be both annoying and difficult?”
He shot me a look. “About how I get my evidence?” For the first time all night, I met his eyes. “This is how.”
I nodded and swallowed hard, even though I had no idea what he was talking about. I felt so off my game. A background loop of our hook up played over my irises, coating my vision with memories of his kiss.
From the field, we entered the corridors that lead to the locker rooms, empty except for our echoing feet. My mind flashed to the last time we were in a hidden corridor, when he offered a repeat knee performance without stopping. And now he’d succeeded. I caught him glancing at me and sucking in a shuddering breath. Maybe I wasn’t the only one burdened by awkwardness weighing down my shoulders.
