Hooking Him (How to Catch an Alpha #3)(31)

“I’m paying for your license and the food, and we’re not going to argue about it.”

“Yo—” I start to tell him that he’s annoying, but before I even get the first word out, he kisses me swiftly, cutting me off.

“Let’s go.” He holds the door open for me to step out ahead of him, but I don’t move.

I cross my arms over my chest and narrow my eyes when his gaze drops to my lips. “Don’t think you can just kiss me anytime you want to keep me quiet.”

“Why not? It works.”

I growl in the back of my throat, and he chuckles as he takes my hand.

“Come on, sweetheart. I’d like to get on the lake before the fish quit biting,” he urges, but I raise a brow and tap my foot. “And I won’t kiss you anymore to keep you quiet.”

“Thank you.” I step out onto the porch, then look for the truck.

“I parked around back.” He leads me around the side of the cabin to a big dirt lot. “Do you want your bag?”

“No, but I need my sunglasses and sunscreen,” I tell him, and he pulls out his keys and hands them to me. I go to the passenger door while he goes to the back, and once I have my sunglasses on, I grab my sunscreen and shove it in my pocket. By the time I get to the back of the truck, he has a cooler, a tackle box, and two fishing poles on the open tailgate.

“Did either of these cost two hundred dollars?” I ask, picking up the poles as he shoves the bag of junk food and water into the cooler I didn’t know he had.

“More.” He takes the handle of the cooler in one hand and the tackle box in the other, then looks at me. “Ready?”

“Yep.”

I walk at his side across the lot and onto a wooden dock. When we reach the end, he stops at a small metal boat that has a single engine attached to the back. “I’m gonna get in first; then I’ll help you in,” he explains.

I watch him easily step down into the boat, still holding both his items, and once he’s set them down, he takes the poles from me and holds out his hand.

“Maybe I should sit down on the edge and scoot in,” I suggest as I look at his hand, then the boat, which is rocking from side to side.

“Or you could trust me.”

“Trust you.” I lick my lips. “Right, I can totally do that.” I grasp his hand and step down onto the seat. The boat sways under my weight, and I scream before latching onto him and wrapping both my arms around his waist. When I register that the boat is no longer moving but his body is shaking, I peel my eyes open and tip my head back. “Are you laughing at me?”

“No,” he lies, grasping my hands from behind his back and bringing them between us. “I’m gonna help you down, and then, once you’re seated, I’ll unhook us from the dock. Do you want a life jacket?”

“No, I can swim,” I say, shuddering at the memory of my recent experience, and he lifts my hands and kisses my white knuckles. I sit and grasp onto the metal under me and use my weight to help keep us balanced as he unties us and steps over my seat to start the engine.

“Come over here.” He holds out his hand, and I bite my lip as I take it, then slowly make my way to where he’s straddling the bench near the engine. I sit between his spread legs with my back to his front, and he wraps one arm around my middle, keeping me tight against him as he pulls back on the throttle, causing the boat to begin speeding through the water. “See? It’s not so scary.”

“It’s actually kind of nice.” I relax into him with a smile on my face as he drives us across the lake toward a small island with a handful of trees sticking out of it.

When we reach the edge, he circles around to the far side of the island and shuts down the engine. “I’m going to set up our poles.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Nothing yet.” He moves away from me, and I look over the edge into the dark water but don’t see any fish close to the surface, and then I tip my head back toward the sky and the sun, which is high above us now. Knowing how quickly I’ll burn if I don’t have on sunblock, I take the tube I brought with me from my pocket, then slip off my hoodie and start applying it. Once I’m done, I focus on what Calvin is doing and become instantly entranced as I watch him work.

No other guy I’ve dated has been what you would call “outdoorsy,” and I wouldn’t have trusted any of them to take care of me if we’d gotten stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire. But I’m starting to see Calvin is nothing like any guy I’ve ever known. He’s not some hipster pretending to be all manly because it’s cool, and that is a serious turn-on.

“You okay?”

I lift my eyes off his hands, which are hooking a fuzzy, bright-colored lure to the line, and meet his gaze. “I really want to kiss you right now.” I hold his stare, then my breath, as he gets up and looms over me.

“I’m good with you kissing me anytime you get that urge.”

“Good to know,” I breathe, leaning up to press my mouth to his as he bends toward me.

The kiss is deep and wet and over far too quickly. When he pulls away, I have the desire to drag him back for more. I start to do just that, but the boat rocks, scaring me.

“I’m definitely good with you wanting to kiss me,” I tell him, and he grins as I gasp in surprise as the boat rocks again. “That said, I think we should wait until we’re on solid ground.”