Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(99)

But right now, it’s just us in the quiet split by the rumble of his chuckle.

“It’s self-cleaning actually,” he replies, kissing my temple. “Low maintenance. Lucky for us.”

The reverse cowgirl has flipped around, and I’m sideways on Kenan’s lap in the cold water.

“Does this water never get warm?” I ask. Now that the initial rush of passion has died, the cold is getting to me, but I don’t want to move. Not until Kenan does. I don’t want him to outlast me.

“Never.” He lifts my hand with its fingertips, puckered even though I haven’t actually been in that long. “You ready to call it? The cold too much for you?”

“Nope,” I reply immediately, clenching my rattling teeth. “Feels great in here. I love it.”

“I agree.” His head drops back and he spreads his arms out over the lip of the tub, as if he’s got all night. “I fall asleep in here sometimes.”

Oh, hell no.

I stand abruptly, disrupting the water’s smooth surface. I’m climbing out when his mocking laughter makes me turn.

“I win,” he says, his white grin a taunt on that damn handsome face.

“Not everything’s a contest, Kenan,” I say, faking exasperation.

“Oh, yes, it is.” A well-muscled arm slinks around my waist and his lips brand my butt, a kiss on each cheek. “And I win. I won you.”

When I glance over my shoulder, he’s still seated in the water, and the look on his face is almost reverent. Did King Solomon look at his lover this way? Did her resistance crumble like mine? Did his beloved feel him wrapping around her heart like a vine? Did they have an inkling that centuries later, two people would take the words they passed between each other, destined to be canonized, to heart? That we would take their passion, their words for one another literally to our hearts?

But who am I to hide behind their bold declarations of love? To not bare my soul, my heart to a man finally worthy of it?

I turn, sitting on the lip of the tub, and take Kenan’s face in my hands. I want to, need to tell him in my own words. In my own way.

“I love you, Lotus.”

It’s an eerie silence that follows his words to me before I could say them to him; the kind that follows a miracle; the kind that chases the supernatural, searching for reason. That’s what this is—the synchronicity of our hearts, a shared beat and thump. The miracle is that we’ve found each other.

“I wanted to say it first,” I tell him, tears pricking behind my eyelids. “You beat me to it.”

“I told you I always win,” he says with a gentle, if slightly cocky, smile. That smile starts in his eyes and spreads over his face, slowly but surely, until it illuminates all the dark passages no one else has ever ventured into. He’s a castle with secret tunnels and abandoned dungeons and heavy locked doors.

And I’m his skeleton key.

I dip to kiss him again, wanting as much of his taste as I can keep.

“You’re staying, right?” he asks, his hands working the muscles of my naked back. “Until I leave for China in a couple days, you’ll stay?”

“Why not?” I shrug. “Got nothing better to do.”

“Why you little . . .” He wraps his arms around my waist and hauls me back into the icy water.

Shit!

The frigid shock forces the air from my lungs.

“Kenan!” I slap the water with my hand so it flies in his face.

He laughs, pulling me in onto his lap and clamping me to his wide chest with one hand and tickling my sides with the other.

“No!” I yelp. “Stop it!”

I can barely breathe. We’re both wheezing with laughter, struggling to catch our breath. When he finally relents, I lie limp against his heaving chest, breathing as hard as he is.

“I love you, Button.”

It’s even sweeter the second time. I can’t hold back my tears. They roll of their own accord over cheeks still aching from laughter. “I love you, too.”

His arms tighten around me and I lean back to kiss him again, but my phone rings, disrupting the moment.

“Leave it,” he mutters against my lips. “Don’t go.”

“First of all, it’s freezing in here.” I leave one last quick kiss on his lips before scrambling over the side to grab the phone from my dress pocket. “And second, it’s Iris’s ringtone.”

“Nice view,” Kenan says from behind me.

“No more reverse cowgirl for you,” I warn, glancing over my shoulder and wiggling my naked ass.

“Oh anything, but that.” His smile drops. “No, for real. Anything but that.”

I smirk and answer the phone. “Hey, Bo. What’s up?”

“Lotus, where are you?” The solemn tone of her voice sobers me right away.

“What’s wrong?” I reach for a towel hanging on a nearby hook. “Is it Michael? Is he okay? Are you—”

“We’re fine,” she rushes to reassure me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . we’re fine.”

There’s a hesitation, a pause before she resumes.

“My mom called,” she says.

“Aunt Priscilla?” A frown knots my eyebrows. “What’d she want?”