Chapter 20
Iwas going to hell.
That was it. That was the only potential outcome now.
Not just because I’d let a woman get me off in the middle of a pool party. Not just because I came in my goddamn swim shorts in front of half the cast of my latest movie.
But because I liked it.
I wanted it to happen again. Repeatedly. Religiously.
Juniper sat next to me, maybe six inches away, looking like she’d just scored a touchdown and I was the field.
She hadn’t even bothered to towel off her legs.
Her thighs were still damp. Still glistening. How much of that was…
My thighs were still shaking.
“I’m going to combust,” I muttered under my breath.
Juniper tilted her head. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Her mouth quirked. God, she knew exactly what she’d done. The smugness was practically radiating from her skin.
I reached for the nearest towel and tried to casually — so casually — drape it over my lap again. It was wet. Everything was wet. I was soaked and still so hard it hurt.
Even a second towel wasn’t hiding the erection I was sporting, again.
“I’m gonna go grab a water,” she said, stretching like a damn cat. “You want one?”
I blinked at her. “I need, like… five.”
She grinned and stood, and I had to physically clench my fists to keep from groaning. Her cover-up still drifted behind her, undone, she was Aphrodite rising from a chlorine-scented sea.
I tilted my head back and stared at the ceiling.
I was going to combust twice. Once from shame, and once from horniness-induced organ failure.
Fucking…
Get it together, Barlowe.
When she returned, she handed me a bottle, then — God help me — pressed the other one to the back of my neck.
I jolted as if she'd tasered me. “Shit,” I hissed.
“Too cold?” she asked, faux-innocent.
She was having the time of her life watching me unravel.
“No,” I managed, cracking open the water as though it might save me from drowning in my own desperation. “It’s perfect. Everything’s perfect. I’m doing amazingly.”
“Mmm.” She plopped down beside me again, knees bumping mine. The water bottle was still trailing condensation down my spine. “You look a little tense.”
I was. I was tense everywhere. My shoulders, my stomach, my — yeah. Especially there.
“You are evil,” I muttered, turning the bottle upside down and pouring half of it over my head.
Juniper cackled.
“You can’t just…” I floundered, gesturing vaguely at the pool, at her, at my life. “You can’t.”
“Can’t what?” Her eyes were so wide and fake-innocent I almost believed her. “Sit next to you? Bring you a drink? Offer a little refreshment?”
“You know what you did.”
She sipped her water. “Do I?”
I turned to face her fully. “Juniper. I came in my swim shorts.”
She choked on her water. Finally, finally, a crack in the armor. “You — what?!”
“You know what!” I hissed, voice low. “You climbed on top of me and did the single dirtiest thing that’s ever happened to me in a public body of water — maybe ever — and now I have to sit here and try to make small talk with actors and producers like I’m not slowly dying inside!”
She was trying so hard not to laugh. Trying. And failing. “Oh my god,” she said, breathless. “It’s actually really cute that you think I’m so na?ve that I don’t know a whimpering orgasm when I see one.”
“You knew?”
“Of course I knew, you idiot.” But she was grinning. Ear to ear. Shit-eating grinning.
It was fucking dazzling.
“Ansel,” her voice came low, sharp. A total contrast to the teasing lithe from moments earlier. I turned, finding her eyes glued to me. “Kiss me.”
“What? June, no, we just—”
“Devon Miles is looking at us, cowboy.”
“His name is Miles Dev—”
Her lips were on mine before I could finish correcting her. Her fingers curled into my jaw, cementing my mouth against hers. She was moving in front of me, raising up on her knees so that she was positioned above me.
My hands moved of their own accord, one wrapping around her waist, pulling her flush against my chest. The other snaked up her back. I teasingly snapped the back strap of her bathing suit, which drew a little gasp from her.
Shit.
I could survive on that sound alone.
But my hand continued moving, tangling in her ratty curls, tugging gently.
We’d shared a kiss before, but that was months ago. There was more between us now. There’d been awkward coffee not-dates. Text messages. An orgasm.
This was heavenly. Euphoric.
Life-changing.
My tongue pressed against her bottom lip, begging for more of her. I felt her grin against me, shaking her head just enough to deny me.
That set my blood on fire.
“Juniper…” I growled against her lips, kissing the length of her jaw, over to her pulse point.
She pulled away, untangling herself from my grip, grinning larger still.
I rested my forehead against hers. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I murmured, releasing her hair and brushing the pad of my thumb along her cheekbones.
“It’s a weird look for friends, that's for sure.”