Summer Heat (Cruel Summer #1)(25)

I tilted my head as an evil grin spread across my face. “I’m in, as long as Marlo puts his big boy — was it boxers or briefs? — back on and joins us.”

He stared me down, then swam toward the dock and tilted his head back, whoever it was poured a heavy shot down Marlo’s throat.

Marlo wiped the tequila from his neck. “I’m waiting.”

Shit.

I swam over with Jen and followed suit.

And just as the first part of the Tequila fell into my mouth, making me wince, Marlo whispered in my right ear. “Neither.”

I choked a bit and wiped my mouth as the gross tequila traveled into my gut like lead. “What do you mean?”

“Neither.” He said it louder this time. “I don’t like boxers or briefs.”

“Can’t tame his python,” Brax, obviously drunk, shouted sending all the guys into fits of laughter.

All but Marlo.

Who was looking at me like he was ready to say, she should know.

He didn’t though.

I breathed a sigh of relief as Jen grabbed my hand and shouted, “Marco!”

The guys all scattered.

I closed my eyes and moved through the water toward all the voices of “Polo!”

Every time I thought I got close to someone, he swam off. The liquor was hitting me a bit harder than I would have liked, which was making it hard to focus on swimming.

Finally, I heard laughter and a faint Marco.

I reached out and grabbed.

Ankle.

Good enough.

“Hah!” I opened my eyes. “And looks like the girls are already ahead!”

“YES!” Jen splashed the water with her hands.

Brax gave me a very buzzed smile. “I’m a slow swimmer, what can I say?”

“Bullshit!” Marlo yelled from far away. “You wanted her to touch you.”

“I admit nothing!” Brax fired back and then moved toward the dock and started yelling Marco.

I dove under water and swam hard in the other direction in an effort to get away from most of the group, but when I got above water, I bumped into another hard body.

Marlo’s hard body.

I’d somehow managed to get to the other side of the dock.

“Marco!” Brax shouted.

“Polo!” everyone answered.

Everyone but us.

I sucked in a breath as Marlo leaned down and whispered, “Are you cheating?”

“Are you?” I fired back.

His lips turned into a smile, blinding me with the attractiveness of his face, of the way the moon kissed his skin and made him look almost inhumanly beautiful. Straight white teeth, I focused on the teeth.

The eyes were too much.

The hair.

The broad shoulders.

The way I was basically pinned against the dock with Marlo’s body as my only way of escape.

“Marco!” Brax shouted.

“Po—”

Marlo clapped a hand over my mouth and then slowly his gaze lowered to the top of the water where I was aware he could almost make out my naked breasts.

I gulped.

“Marco!”

He leaned in his head, tilting near my neck, and then he pressed his mouth to my shoulder like he was inhaling me, memorizing me. And then he pulled back and shook his head. “Fucking hate tequila.”

And that was it.

He swam off yelling. “Polo!”

While I treaded water and wondered why my teeth were chattering.

And why I wanted to ask my enemy to come back and finish whatever he had been about to start.

I was asking for trouble.

And heartache all in one.

But his eyes.

Those eyes, they haunted me.

They made me hate and want both at the same time. I just hoped the right one would win out in the end, because I discovered something about myself in that lake.

With Marlo staring me down.

I had no self-control when it came to him.

Maybe I never did.

Because even all those years ago.

I’d always wanted him to want me.

To tell me he saw me for me.

I did everything in my power to try to make something real, something tangible, and then I made the biggest mistake of my life by saying yes.

Because once you experience that sort of desire.

Everything else pales in comparison.

Ruining your future.

Ruining it all.

I slowly rejoined the crowd and kept my distance from Marlo the rest of the night, and when I closed my eyes in my cabin, I grabbed the cat calendar and tucked it under my arm and imagined it was him.





THE MINUTE WE’D decided to do Dirty Dancing, I’d put in an order for all the things we’d need and expedited it to the camp. We luckily had the script and some of the main music, but we lacked the behind-the-scenes instructions, including props which made me a bit nervous considering how much time we had to make everything. The set team was going to be a pain in my ass this summer, I could feel it already.

Luckily, the shipment came two days later.

Two days after skinny-dipping.

Two nights after dreaming of her lips in my sleep.

I was bordering on having a sleeping disorder because of the way she smelled, and it pissed me the hell off — why? Why couldn’t I just let it go? Why did I have to constantly look for her in a room?