Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7)(58)

“A little.” She crossed her arms, making no effort to disguise her admiration for my body. “You should take off your shirt. It’s wet.”

My jaw working, I ignored her last comment as I made for the stairs, climbed them, and wrung out my T-shirt at my stomach. Her eyes dropped to the exposed skin.

“You want to push me in the pool again? Would that help?” I toed off my shoes. I couldn’t chase her in wet shoes.

“It might.” She shrugged, her eyes sparkling like sapphires. “You offering?”

I made a beeline for her.

She must’ve read my intentions because her grin faltered. “Wait a minute.” She lifted her hand, like that would stop me. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“Come here.”

“Why?” She backed up.

“You push me in, I push you in. That’s how things work with us, right?”

“Oh, no. No, I’m good.” She turned and power-walked away, glancing over her shoulder as I advanced. “You can—uh—just give me that one for free.”

I jogged after her, making no attempt to look anywhere but at her backside. “There you go, changing the rules in the middle of the game.” I wanted to squeeze it, bite it.

“Is this a game?” She was full-on running now, like a damn gazelle.

“It is now.”

“Really?” she asked, then squealed, dodging me and turning just as I grabbed for her. “Well, if it’s a game,” she hollered as she ran, “then we should even the odds a little. It’s not fair. The odds favor you.”

“They favor me?” My hip didn’t like the sprinting, so I slowed to a jog again. Man, I’d forgotten how fast she was. “How do they favor me?”

“Well, for starters—”

“Hey, you two! No running around the pool!” Sienna yelled from somewhere, stopping us both in our tracks.

We looked around, searching for her, but found no one. Glancing back to Scarlet, I realized she was still distracted, looking for Jethro’s wife. No time like the present to take advantage. I stalked closer. By the time Scarlet took notice, it was too late. I had her cornered.

Startled, she glanced to her left and then to her right, looking for an escape. Unless she planned to climb up the rock surface at her back, the only way to freedom was through me, and I couldn’t help my wicked grin as her eyes widened with the realization.

Then, they narrowed. “See? Not fair.”

I felt my smile widen, my earlier fears forgotten for the moment. “Just because I’m winning doesn’t mean it’s not fair.”

She crossed her arms. “But you were going to win no matter what. You’re bigger and stronger. You can easily pick me up, carry me to the pool, and toss me in.”

“And you’re smaller and faster,” I said reasonably, inching closer, my arms spread to catch her just in case she decided to make a run for it. “If you’d wanted to get away, you could’ve already.”

She gave me a quelling look, lifting her chin. “Are you implying that I wish to be thrown in the pool?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.” I shrugged, liking this expression on her face a little too much, like I was naughty and she thoroughly disapproved of me. I wondered if this had been what she was like with her misbehaving students when she’d taught high school drama. Good Lord, I suddenly felt sorry for all the hormonal teenagers in her class.

“You could always . . .” I began, close enough now to let my eyes wander, lower to her neck, the zipper at the front of her swim shirt. “Offer something else,” I finished, telling myself I was joking.

It was just a joke.

However, and maybe it was ungentlemanly of me to notice, her nipples puckered suddenly, pushing against the thin fabric of her swim shirt. My gaze lifted to her face and I found none of her earlier disapproval. It had been replaced with a hazy, hot expression.

And that definitely got a reaction out of me.

Scarlet’s lips parted, her eyes moving between mine, searching, her breaths growing shallower the closer I came, and any illusions I’d had about my statement being just a joke dwindled to nothing.

“Scarlet,” I said for no reason other than I wanted to say her name, her real name. I wanted to hear it while she looked at me this way, remind myself that she still existed, even if at some point in the future she existed somewhere beyond my reach.

She swayed forward as her lashes flickered, her hands rising to grab fistfuls of my wet shirt, her attention focused on my mouth. “What—” she said roughly, swallowed, licked her lips. “What did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, stepping completely into her space and against her. God, I was so hard, and I didn’t care if she felt me. No, that’s not true. I wanted her to feel it. In my sudden madness, I wanted her to know.

She shivered, her breath hitching even as she pressed her body more fully against mine, like she’d been waiting for me to move. Like this—not escape, but this—was what she’d wanted all along. Lifting to her tiptoes, her body slid upward, just two wet layers of clothes separating our skin.

I groaned.

What am I doing? Slow down.

My hands found her waist as hers lifted to my shoulders.

You need to take it slow. Step back.