Call It What You Want(50)

“This is an addition to the main building,” Rob says. “It leads to the pool house.” This time when he tugs on my hand, I follow. The second set of doors doesn’t have a lock on it, and we slide through quickly, into a huge room with a cathedral ceiling crossed by wooden beams. The floor is all gray ceramic tile, the walls lined with stone, but my eyes are drawn to the massive hot tub throwing off steam in the center of the room. The jets are running, creating a rushing white noise that echoes off the walls. The only light in the room comes from the lights in the center of the hot tub, throwing blue-and-white aquatic patterns across the stones.

“Holy crap,” I whisper. We’re not poor, but I don’t know one single friend who has something like this attached to their house. My eyes flick to Rob’s. “Is your house like this?”

“I don’t have a pool,” he says. But that’s all he says, which leads me to think that his house isn’t much less extravagant.

A big-screen TV is attached to the wall on the other side of the room, above what looks like a wet bar, complete with a full-size refrigerator, two rows of liquor bottles, and two dozen wineglasses hanging upside down from a rack. A door to the right of the bar is closed and dark.

“Connor won’t let people back here during the party,” he says. The rushing water softens every word. He nods at the closed door. “His dad would lose his shit if anyone got into his office. But his close friends will come back here once everyone starts to leave.”

I step away from him and trail my fingers in the water of the hot tub. This whole room is like a secret paradise.

My hand stops at the corner. Diamond earrings are sitting in a little divot in the plastic. I touch them with a finger. “Someone will be missing those.”

“Connor’s mom is kind of careless.”

“With diamonds?” But then my eyes glance around the room again and realize that Connor’s mom probably can be careless with diamonds.

“With everything.” Rob speaks from right behind me. His hands close on my waist, and he leans down to kiss my neck. In half a second, I’m flushed and wild with attraction, and I’ve completely forgotten what we were talking about.

“Is this okay?” he whispers, his lips a soft brush against my skin. His hand is flat against the front of my abdomen, his body a warm weight behind me.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes.”

But then my brain clicks into place and I turn in his arms. “Wait. What am I saying yes to?”

His eyes widen in surprise, but then he laughs, a little. “You’re a cop’s daughter, that’s for sure.” He brushes a stray hair out of my eyes, his fingers lingering as they stroke along the curve of my ear. “Whatever you want,” he says. Then he makes a sheepish face. “Well. Not whatever you want, because I didn’t come prepared for all that, and the tile floor is cold, not to mention hard—”

I giggle breathlessly and put a hand over his mouth. I’m blushing fiercely. “I don’t think I’m ready for all that.”

He nods behind my hand, his eyes serious. Then he takes my wrist and kisses my fingers gently. “We can go back to the party if you want.”

“I want to stay here. Just …” I’m blushing again. “Slow.” I blush harder. “Slowish.”

“I can do slowish.”

Oh, yes he can.

He’s more sure now, if that’s possible, his hands stroking the length of my back under my shirt. Every time his mouth falls on mine, I feel ravenous. I could spend the rest of my life like this, kissing Rob Lachlan in the dark, with the sound of rushing water behind us.

When he breaks free again to kiss his way down my neck and across the bare line of my shoulder, I whisper, “Did you bring Callie here, too?”

“Callie who?”

God, I could fall in love with him. I fist both hands in his shirt and pull it free from his jeans, and then my hands are on the curved muscled slope of his back.

I’m rewarded with a gasp. “Jesus, Maegan.” His chest is against mine. I can feel his breath. His heart, tripping along as quickly as my own.

Without a thought, I jerk my shirt over my head and move to fling it away from me.

Rob snatches it out of the air before it can go flying. “Maybe don’t throw that into the hot tub.”

I burst out laughing. I’m suddenly self-conscious and giddy. I close my arms together over my chest, then press my hands to my mouth. “Sorry. I’m the one who said slowish.”

He doesn’t bother unbuttoning his shirt, he simply pulls it over his head. “Don’t worry. I can catch up.”

Then he pulls me against him, and this time, his mouth is everywhere. I’ve gone this far with a boy before, but never like this. Never with this electricity in the air, this heady rush of adrenaline and attraction that has me wanting to take the rest of my clothes off. My hands stroke across his shoulders, the corded muscles of his arms.

His hands close on my waist, and before I’m ready for it, he’s lifting me to sit on the edge of the hot tub. I squeal with laughter, but he holds me still, then kisses fire across my stomach.

I’m so drunk on him that I don’t notice the click of a door—or maybe there is no sound. I hear a footstep, and then a man’s voice.

“Well now. Is that Rob Lachlan?”