Standing in the shallow end, I rest my forearms on the concrete ledge and curl my hands around her delicate ankles. “Where do you see us at the end of this agreement?”
“Oh. I…” Her spine straightens, and she glances away. “It’s too soon to—”
“We’re almost halfway through the year. Tell me what you want, Laynee.”
“I’d rather not,” she whispers.
“Too bad.” I tighten my grip on her legs. “Tell me anyway.”
Her lips sink into a frown, and she makes a grumbling sound in her throat. “I want you to stay.” Her eyes bounce to mine. “But I’ll ruin it. I’ll ruin whatever we create because I always do. I suck at relationships.”
“Bullshit. You’ve maintained a relationship with Reese for ten years.”
“We’re not fucking.”
And they never will, if Reese wants to keep breathing.
“Your friendship with him proves you know how to get close to someone, how to take a leap of trust.” I run my palms up and down her calves, marveling at the illumination of her eyes in the lingering light of the sunset. “Did you know that up until a couple months ago, I had no friendships to speak of.”
“That’s not true.” Her nose scrunches. “What about that Dan guy you gave your apartment to?”
“I kept him at a distance when I lived in New York. It wasn’t until I met you that I started talking to him on the phone all the time. Then there’s my other unlikely friends.”
“Reese.” She smiles.
I smile with her because my friendship with him makes her ridiculously happy. If I’m honest, I actually enjoy hanging out with the posh bastard. So much so I’ve turned our guys’ night out into a weekly thing.
“And my sponsor,” I say.
Much to my surprise, I’ve kept in contact with Dr. Evan Daniels. I call him more than I care to admit and even met him for drinks when he was in Savannah for a conference last month. Of course, she doesn’t know his identity. He knows her, only because he’s seen me photographed with her.
“What’s your point?” she asks.
“After what went down with my best friend and business partner, I cut everyone out of my life. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to let someone in again. You showed me how.”
“I didn’t—”
“You trusted me with your secrets, Laynee. That took guts.” My gaze roams over her lickable body, and I slide her a smile that says I love what I see. “I figured if this tiny wisp of a woman had the balls to expose her fears to me, I could man up and let a few people into my personal life.”
“Man up?” She glances at my torso, my arms, and lingers on my lips. Her nipples tighten beneath the bikini. “If anything, you need to man down. Wouldn’t want you to get testosterone poisoning.”
“That’s not a thing.” My cock twitches in my swim trunks.
“You’re wrong.” Her lips purse, and she leaps to her feet, breaking my hold on her ankles. “It’s a known ailment.” She backs up with a flicker of heat dancing in her eyes. “It usually manifests at puberty and results in behavior that defies common sense.”
I lean into my arms and lift out of the pool, splattering the concrete with a deluge of water from my shorts as I stalk toward her. “What kind of behavior?”
“Well…” Backstepping toward the house, she loses a fight with her smile. “Typical dumb male behavior, like strutting and flexing and…gun cocking.”
I follow her gaze to the stiffy straining my wet shorts and drop my voice a few octaves. “You should probably run.”
With a sharp inhale, she spins and darts into the house. My pulse spikes as I chase her heart-shaped ass through the kitchen and past the hearth room before catching her in the living room. I’m soaking wet, and my feet slip across the tiles, so it’s an ungraceful impact of drenched skin and heavy breaths when I slam into her.
I brace for a tumble, maybe even a half-hearted struggle. What I don’t expect is the punch she sends toward my head. I dodge it, anticipating a follow through like I taught her. Adrenaline floods my veins as her second swing forces my body backwards.
She misses. I grin. She grins back and rears her arm for a third strike. I’m ready.
Her knee connects with my groin. She doesn’t just crunch my erection. She attacks from underneath, striking in an upward motion and splitting the tri-state region with the maximum amount of pain.
“Fuuuuck!” I bend at the waist, sucking air, my muscles momentarily inhibited because she invoked my damn spinal reflex.
Holy fucking shit, that hurts.
“Oh my God.” She hugs my bowed head to her chest and strokes my hair. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
I sweep her feet out from beneath her, brace her fall on the floor, and land atop her. “You should’ve kept running.”