Chapter 10 Fun and Games
Chapter 10
fun and games
“You have to paddle with me,” Summer snapped. “We’re going in circles.”
They weren’t just going in circles—they hadn’t even made it out past the break.
Summer was sweating through her shirt as if they’d gone half a mile, but they’d barely moved a yard. And wasn’t that a giant metaphor for her life, because it seemed that no matter how hard Summer paddled, the current kept pushing her back. She was a fighter, that’s how she was wired, but lately the fight had stolen some of the wind from her sails.
“ You are paddling in circles,” Wes took the liberty to inform her. “ I am paddling straight ahead.”
“ You are steering us straight into the shoreline! We’re aiming for the buoy, not the sand and—” Wes moved slightly, and his calf brushed against her thigh.
Summer had planned on being annoyed by the nearness of his presence, but she never imagined that the sight of a masculine, muscular calf could be so distracting. And with how they were situated in the kayak, with him behind her, his long legs encasing her, they were so close that anytime the boat so much as shifted they made contact—and her belly made butterflies.
But how could that be? They had zero in common.
He’s an attractive man , she admitted to herself. Tall and lean, with thick dark brown hair, sea blue eyes, and a jawline so sharp it could slice through steel. So the reaction she was having was totally normal. Right?
Right.
Summer blew out a puff of air to clear the hair from her eyes—and the image of his ass when he was crawling into the kayak from her mind. “Never mind. Just follow my lead.”
“Or, how about you let someone with collegiate-level experience take the lead,” he said.
“Me captain. You skipper. Remember?”
“I never agreed to that.”
“Of course you didn’t,” she said ironically. “Because why would you do something to make my day a little easier. Why stop the shit-on-Summer’s-vacay. Go ahead, have at it, Wes. What else am I doing wrong?” She stopped rowing and rested the paddle on her thighs. “Any more surprises that will inadvertently ruin my favorite week of the year? One week. That’s all I asked for. That’s all I ever ask for. One perfect week with my family. But, oh no, you and Randy had to come along and ruin it.”
Her voice cracked and, damnit , she felt emotions bubble up and tighten her throat. Blinking rapidly, she wiped the beginning of what she was horrified to call tears from her eyes on the neckline of her shirt. Her stupid Team Green shirt that matched Wes’s. Randy hadn’t just stolen her sister, he’d stolen her favorite color, leaving her to battle it out in pea green polyester that made her appear jaundiced.
She felt a hand rest on her shoulder and give it an awkward pat. “You still okay?” he whispered.
No, she was as far from okay as a woman on the verge of a breakdown could get. What was it about him that put her on edge? Sure, Autumn showing up with a boyfriend had put a wrench in her plans, but for some reason she was angrier about Wes. His unexpected appearance, his arrogant smile, his annoyingly sexy accent. All of it made screams of frustration build at the back of her throat to the point where she wanted to bellow in outrage. So she did.
Loud and long and from the deepest depths of her soul. “I! Am! Fine!”
There was a long, thick pause, and Summer was tempted to turn around to see the look on his face. But then he spoke, softly and compassionately. “You’re clearly not, love. Do you want to talk about it?”
Well, now she just felt stupid. He’d met her anger with compassion. God, he was infuriating.
“There’s no talking on the kayak, remember?” she said.
“Well, there’s no more paddling until you tell me what’s bothering you.”
That’s when Summer realized that while she’d put her paddle down, Wes had been paddling and they’d actually made some progress. They hadn’t reached the buoy, and the rest of the teams were shore-bound, but they were no longer spinning in circles. But then Wes put his paddle down and they started bobbing in the current.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He laughed loudly in her ear. “You dislike me so much that you’d rather lose a race, which is clearly important to you, than be honest with me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, according to the Russo family rules, the losing team has to prepare dinner, which means you’ll be stuck in a confined space with me while I show off my cooking prowess.” He leaned in and whispered, “You’d be amazed what I can do with a good breast.”
She spun a little in his arms and her nipples went hard at the thought of his masculine hands on her breasts. As if they’d launched a homing beacon, his eyes dropped and he grinned. “I see.”
She splashed water in his face. “Funny. There’s nothing to see.”
“If you say so.” The way he said it, with the O rolling off his tongue in that British accent, drove her so crazy it was almost like foreplay. At least, that’s how her body reacted. All the blood rushed to her face and her heart thrashed wildly at the idea of flirting with the grumpiest man on earth.
“Fine, Crumpet Man, what do you want to hear?” She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, and when she met his gaze her tummy gave a little flip. “That this is the one week I get my sister all to myself. No distractions. No boys or social media to contend with. The one week when I don’t have to pull all the weight of running a small business. The one week a year where I can just be me.”
He studied her for a long moment until she felt raw and exposed. She wanted to break eye contact but then he’d win. And she wasn’t about to give Weston Kingston another win.
“But are you being you ?” he asked. “Because the woman I know would never let me get away with what Autumn gets away with.”
“She didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. She just doesn’t like conflict.”
“So what? She just expects you to go with it?”
“My family drives me crazy. Someone has to bend, or things can get heated.”
“And you have to be the one to bend? Because I haven’t seen anyone even sway, let alone offer a compromise. It’s just you.”
“It’s just been a weird day, that’s all,” she said defensively. “It isn’t normally like this. Autumn is, um—she has a big heart and means well, she can just be a little self-centric at times. And my parents just want this week to go well because Autumn has never brought a boy to family vacation.”
“Have you? Ever brought a boy ?”
“No,” she said, as if the idea of it were the most ridiculous thing in the world.
“I didn’t think so.”
“What the hell does that mean?” she snapped. “Are you saying I’m incapable of getting a boy who’d care about me enough to join me on a family vacation? You are such a dick.”
Summer had lifted her paddle to smack him when, at the precise moment she turned in her seat, a small current hit their kayak from the side. One minute she was batting at Wes’s head and the next she was plunged into the freezing Atlantic water.
Her skin beaded on contact and water shot up her nose. She felt disoriented, not sure which way was up, and panic coursed through her. Then she felt someone grab her arm and tug.
She gasped the second she broke the surface and was sputtering like a fish fountain. A warm hand slid around her waist, fingers splaying around her entire midsection. Her shirt must have ridden up because they were skin to skin and their legs brushed each other as they kicked to stay afloat. It was as if someone had built a bonfire in her stomach, and it was roaring to life at the simple contact.
“Are you okay?” Wes asked, and he did not sound breathless in the slightest. He sounded worried—for her.
She wiped the hair out of her eyes and the moisture from her glasses and took several deep breaths. When the water cleared she saw the prettiest, most intense blue eyes looking at her. Lashes speckled with drops, lips wet from the ocean. His shirt was plastered to his chest, showing off just how muscular he was—something that his usual button-ups and suit vests camouflaged.
He had a swimmer’s body, with big shoulders and tight pecs. He was also wearing a smile that was pure cockiness.
“Love?” he asked with an I-caught-ya-ogling tone.
“I’m fine. I’ve been the Russo family’s swimming champion eleven years running, I’ll have you know. So I don’t need your help.” She didn’t move though, she noticed. She stayed right up against his body. For heat of course. Nothing more.
He bit back a grin. “Then why are you holding onto me for dear life?”
She looked down and realized she was clinging to him like he was catnip. She shoved him away and grabbed onto the capsized boat. It was hard to remain coherent when she was so close to him.
“You put me in a state and that’s why we flipped,” she said.
His arm rested over the side of the kayak, his big bulging bicep on display. “How serious is this state?”
“Infuriatingly serious.”
He reached out to brush her hair out of her face, and there went those damn flutters. “Are you telling me you don’t like the state you’re in?”
Nope, she absolutely positively despised that he could invoke a reaction from her body. She shoved at him again. “I don’t like you.”
He was all business when he said, “All you have to do is tell me you don’t like it and I’ll stop.”
“Stop what? Being an ass, flirting with me, coming to my rescue?” She especially hated the last one.
“All of it.”
She opened her mouth to say yes she wanted him to stop, but nothing came out except a squeak. His eyes dropped to her lips—which she licked.
His smile extended. “That’s what I thought.” His legs purposefully wrapped around hers and she shivered—and not from the frigid waters. “When you’re tired of boys and ready for a man, just let me know.”
And without warning, he flipped the kayak over, sending her plunging back under the water.