Chapter 19
What the fuck was that?
I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.
My legs were still wrapped tight around his waist. My hand still curled around the back of his neck.
My bikini was clinging in all the wrong places.
And Ansel Barlowe — former heartthrob, movie star, stupidly good at everything (except hiding the fact he’d just rutted into me until he came in his goddamn swim shorts) — was still staring at me like I’d just rearranged his internal organs.
Which… maybe I had?
A laugh caught in my throat, sharp and dangerous. I smothered it behind a cough.
I should have been embarrassed. I should have been mortified. I’d just climbed him like a tree in the middle of a pool party and dry humped the literal star of the film until he fell apart under my hands. In public. With guests twenty feet away.
But the only thing I felt?
Was smug. And wet. And turned on enough I was seriously considering luring him into the cabana bathroom and finishing what we started. Because while he’d gotten his happy little Hollywood ending, I… had not.
Not that I minded.
Watching him come apart like that?
Top five hottest moments of my entire life.
(Top three, if we’re being honest.)
And then — like an idiot — I made that joke.
Imagine what I could do with a bed.
Jesus.
I had never said something so obscene so casually. Never. Not to anyone. Not even to my fucking ex-husband. But with him, it just slipped out like breathing. Like I wanted him to take the hint. Like I wanted him to take me home.
Which… okay. I might have.
No, I didn’t. No more, June. Just friends.
Yuck.
But maybe… not yuck?
God. It had just felt… natural. Teasing him, egging him on, pleasing him. I wanted to do it again.
My thighs clenched around his waist on instinct. I felt his hands tense again on my hips, and his groan was low, wrecked, almost pained.
He was trying to be good. Which was adorable.
And kind of infuriating.
I leaned in, pressed my lips to the shell of his ear, just because I could. “I’ve never made one of my friends come in their pants before,” I whispered.
He made a sound that might have been a laugh. Or a plea for mercy. “I hate you,” he muttered.
I smiled. “Liar.”
God help me, I felt powerful.
Ansel groaned something unintelligible and hid his face against my collarbone, still panting like I’d run him into the ground. I pressed a kiss to his temple — soft, absentminded.
He didn’t pull away.
Eventually, finally, I gave him a little squeeze with my knees and tipped my head toward the shallow steps. “We should probably make an exit before someone notices we’re plotting the destruction of friendship as we know it.”
“Too late,” he muttered, voice raw and broken somewhere in my shoulder. “I think the war crimes are already on record.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. But I still didn’t move.
Because I liked it — the way his arms still held me, even now. The heat between us. The feel of his pulse, his cock, still stuttering, unsteady, where it thudded against my thigh.
I enjoyed knowing I’d done that.
I climbed off him slowly. Carefully. Like I hadn’t just used the man as my personal water slide.
My legs were jelly. My core felt molten. My ego was… screaming. Loudly. Proudly.
I had made Ansel Barlowe come in his swim trunks. With my thighs. He hadn’t said much yet, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at his face again.
Instead, I grabbed a towel off the nearest lounger and draped it over my shoulders like a shield. “That wasn’t—” I paused. “I didn’t—”
“No,” he said quickly, voice still wrecked and breathless. “It’s fine.”
I risked a glance.
He looked… not fine. Flushed and wide-eyed and utterly ruined. He looked like was stuck between panic and reverence. Like he didn’t know if he wanted to crawl out of his own skin or worship me.
My stomach flipped.
I perched next to him on the pool ledge again, careful not to let our knees touch. I suddenly had no idea what to do with my hands.
He shifted the towel over his lap, still panting slightly. “You didn’t, uh—” he cleared his throat. “That wasn’t — was that okay?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, voice cracking like a teenager. I pulled the towel tighter around my torso. “That was, um. That was definitely okay.”
A long beat passed.
He exhaled slowly. “Jesus Christ.”
I laughed.
His head turned toward me. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Laugh like that. You sound like you just won.”
I looked out at the water, trying and failing to hide my grin. “I did just win.”
He groaned. “God, you’re the worst.”
“Say it again,” I teased.
“You’re the worst.”
“Louder.” My voice curled around the edges.
“Juniper,” he warned, voice tight, “I am one poor decision away from doing something deeply irresponsible.”
My heart flipped again. I fought the urge to lean into him, to push just a little further, to see how far I could unravel him before one of us combusted.
Before I could say anything smug or stupid, a guy in sunglasses and designer swim trunks walked by, pausing just long enough to recognize Ansel.
“Barlowe! Excited for the new movie, man.”
Ansel managed a weak smile and a wave, posture painfully stiff.
Once he passed, I leaned closer and whispered, “Are you about to die?”
He didn’t look at me. Just muttered, “So hard I might pass out.”
I choked on my drink. “Jesus—”
“I told you not to laugh.”