Pop!
. . .
Ellie
My cheeks burned hot enough to catch fire, and I grinned like a fool as Mac cheered me and Cade on.
“This way!” Dr. Lovejoy waved us over to a tub filled with red balloons. She shoved another lace-framed card into my hand before applauding, beaming brightly at us. “Well done, you two. Have fun with this one!”
She raised her voice to cheer for the other couples while Cade and I huddled together to read the instructions.
The Balloon Pop:
To complete this game, one partner will wear a balloon tied around their waist. The other partner must use their body to pop the balloon. No hands or elbows allowed!
Once the balloon pops, make your way to the finish line and complete one final Trust Jump!
The nerves bunching up my shoulders eased. All we had to do was pop one balloon?
That sounded almost too easy.
“Let’s go,” Cade said, already grabbing a balloon out of the tub and reaching around my waist to tie the string.
I tossed the card aside and held my arms out so we wouldn’t break any rules, and Cade didn’t waste any time bumping his front against mine.
… Nothing happened.
The balloon somehow survived being flattened between us.
We both frowned at it.
“Try again,” I said, angling my pelvis up a little to see if that helped at all.
It did not—Cade thrust his hips again, but the balloon squeezed out and swung harmlessly around my hips.
He cursed under his breath, then positioned the balloon and grabbed my hips before really driving against me.
… But the balloon didn’t pop.
Cade tried again. And again. Each thrust grew more powerful, making a blush race straight up my face.
I tried pushing back to sandwich the balloon between our bodies, but it just protested with a rubbery squeak while still not popping.
“What the hell?” Cade grumbled after another round of failed thrusts. His brows drew together. “This thing is defective.”
I cleared my throat and fanned my heated cheeks, really hoping his mom and grandfather weren’t watching us right now.
“Maybe we should try a different position?” I suggested.
“I need more leverage,” Cade muttered, pulling me over to the nearest table. He spun me around, bent me over the table, and pinned me down with a hand to the back of my neck and another on my hip before I could blink.
“Brace yourself,” he growled.
“Wait, what?” I jerked my head back in alarm, but his grip held me down.
Brace myself? What did that even mean?
Cade let go of my hip long enough to wrangle the string until the balloon hung over my butt, then the gloves were off. He pumped his hips against my ass—and the balloon—quickly building a rhythm that left me speechless and just hanging on to the table for my life.
It. Didn’t. Freaking. Pop.
The balloon bent and bobbed every which way in its desperation to stay intact, while Dr. Lovejoy was so overcome with laughter watching us that she collapsed to the deck.
I got tossed around like a rag doll, while Cade’s frustration built with each unsuccessful thrust.
And to my mortification, it felt… good. Good enough that I couldn’t resist pushing my ass back against him. With the way Cade held my neck down while pounding against me in an all-too-familiar dance, I forgot all about the balloon game.
When he changed his strategy to grinding against me, my lips parted as I felt his growing excitement against my backside. He seemed wholly focused on our stubborn balloon, so I wasn’t sure he even noticed it.
I sure did, though.
It was impossible not to.
Heat pooled low in my belly as my nails scraped down the tabletop, and an embarrassingly breathy moan escaped before I could stop it.
Cade froze against me. “… Ellie?”
“Don’t stop!” I begged, before mortification quickly set in and I spluttered, “The—The balloon, I mean. Keep trying to pop it!”
I dropped my forehead to the table with a painful thunk.
Kill me now.
There was a long, excruciating pause before Cade moved again. His hand dropped from the back of my neck.
“Push back against me,” he ordered, low and growly. Both his hands shifted to my hips, and I swallowed before pushing back as he set a forceful rhythm that did nothing to pop the indestructible balloon.
And suddenly it made sense why Dr. Lovejoy had included this game in a couples retreat. We were basically dry humping.
In front of everyone.
Finally—during a particularly primal thrust while I was trying my best to disappear into the table—the balloon exploded in a glorious small pop.
Neither Cade nor I moved.
I could still feel him through his swimming trunks, and I cleared my throat twice before daring to speak. “Cade?”
His fingers dug harder into my hips, before abruptly disappearing. “Let’s go. We still need to finish.”
My eyes widened in alarm. “Finish?”
He tugged me up with a laugh. “The race, Ellie. Come on.”
“Right,” I muttered, adjusting my swimsuit bottom and wishing I could crawl under a deck chair to hide. “The race.”
It’d felt like we were in our own little bubble during the game, and suddenly that’d popped, too. The yelling from the other couples and Mac rushed back in. Applause sounded from the sideline.
Harrison and Madison ran up to the balloon tub, hot on our heels.
I was vaguely aware of me and Cade running toward the last station, where a banner right above the edge of the yacht had Trust Jump painted in pink letters. A large red ribbon spanned the open space between two railings.
It led straight off the deck.
My excitement to win skidded to an abrupt, screeching halt.
“Wait.” I dug my heels in, pulling Cade to a stop while I blinked at where the railing should be.
Only sparkling blue water shone back at us.
“This is what Dr. Lovejoy meant by a trust jump? I thought it’d be like a trust fall into each other’s arms. Not diving headfirst into shark-infested waters. ”
“There aren’t any sharks here,” Cade said calmly, glancing behind us. “It’s safe to jump.”
A fresh rush of adrenaline hit me. I couldn’t swim, and he wanted me to jump into the ocean?
Holy moly. A nervous laugh crawled up my throat, and I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Harrison and Madison quickly pop their balloon.
Oh god.
We didn’t have time for me to freak out right now.
Just looking at the drop made my knees knock together, and I clung to Cade’s hand. “Um, I’m gonna need your help. My legs refuse to move.”
It was like my body had some built-in defense mechanism that wouldn’t allow me to do something monumentally stupid.
“I’ve got you.” Cade tugged me closer and lifted me until all I had to do was wrap my legs round his waist and hug his shoulders. “Ready?”
His breath tickled my ear, and my gaze caught on Harrison and Madison running full speed straight toward us.
“Just do it before I throw up!” I cried.
He did it—just jumped straight off the deck with me latched on to him and burying my face in his neck.
I screamed, Cade whooped, and a laugh suspiciously like Mac’s deep one chased us over the ledge.
For a suspended moment, we fell weightlessly through the air before plunging straight into a brick wall of waves and bubbles.
The cold hit first, robbing my lungs of air as we torpedoed deeper in the water. Then the fear came. How deep were we? How far down did it even go?
And what sort of creatures lurked nearby?
I practically strangled Cade in my panic to hold on, which maybe wasn’t the smartest survival choice.
His swimming instincts took over, and he kicked us up to the surface, where his legs treaded water with ease.
All I could do was cling to him like a drowned cat, feeling a lot like Whiskey must’ve felt last night as we gasped for air.
It took a while for me to loosen my grip, but I pulled far enough back from the safety of Cade’s neck to look at him as he kept us afloat.
He grinned back at me—easily the happiest I’d ever seen him—and I couldn’t blame the whole fake engagement thing for what I did next.
It wasn’t to convince our audience. Or to spin another lie.
I grabbed Cade’s face and planted a big kiss on his lips because I wanted to.
Because it felt good.
Because we’d just jumped into the freaking ocean, and I was giddy with relief that I wasn’t drowning right now.
I was breathless and overwhelmed and so happy that my heart threatened to explode into a million tiny pieces.
In the back of my mind, I knew we had an audience on the yacht and this was all supposed to be an act. But when Cade threw his head back to let out a completely-out-of-character victory shout before pulling me into another long wet kiss, it felt like we were the only two people in the entire ocean.
I eagerly kissed him back, until his arms slipped away to help tread water—prompting me to cling tighter. “Don’t let go!”
He chuckled softly, regripping me with one arm while treading with the other. “I wouldn’t dare, Darling.”
His lips found mine again—making it difficult to breathe for entirely different reasons—and I sank into the kiss without giving another thought to staying afloat.