Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Henry
P aradise Beach should have been renamed Nightmare Sands from the moment Phoebe removed that sheer shirt of hers, dropped it to her feet, pulled up the edges of her bikini bottoms, and glanced out at the ocean as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
She had a body to die for, and I was about willing to throw myself at her feet and tell her to behead me already. But then she'd started to play, and my body had never had such a strong reaction to another's like it.
She fucking glowed. So much so, I had a hard time pretending like she didn't hold my attention in front of Andy and Jace.
When it was just Phoebe and me staring into each other's eyes, bantering back and forth, I almost forgot the other four were present.
Truth be told, I wished they'd fuck off already.
While the girls sat around drinking their bottles of water, it took all my efforts to stay focused on Andy, who was kicking the volleyball between Jace and me.
He didn't look pissed off, and he hadn’t given me any death glares recently, which had to be a good thing…
but at what point did you stop breaking yourself in two to please those who were supposed to love you just as you were?
“Andy?” Bailey called out, making him trap the ball under his foot to look up at her.
With a crook of her finger, he ran to her side, and they had a brief conversation before Andy glanced over his shoulder at us, then looked back at Bailey and offered her his hand to help her up. She picked up her beach bag and slung it over her shoulder as though ready to leave.
“What's going on?” Jace asked Andy.
“Bailey wants to go for a drink at the bar up ahead.”
“You're dipping out?”
Andy just shrugged and gave us both a half smile that said he might be dipping out on us in the hopes that he'd be dipping into something else later, which only made me roll my eyes and turn away as I blew out a breath and planted my hands on my hips.
“Guess we're done here, then,” I said to Jace.
“Aww. Scared you off, have we?” Phoebe's voice grew closer, and when I spun back around in her direction, I saw her walking towards me with a challenging expression on her face, her hips swaying with easy confidence. “Any excuse to quit, huh, Cohen?”
She’d been a fiery little thing today, and I couldn’t get enough of it. But if she called me Cohen one more time…
“You still want to play?” I raised a brow, taking in the damp sweat on her chest.
She came to a stop in front of me. “I could spare a little more time to embarrass you, sure.”
Goddammit.
“How about we switch things up?” Jace offered, pulling our attention his way.
He'd picked the ball out of the sand and was currently tossing it between his hands.
“I'll partner up with Rhea, and you two angry souls can be a team. You know... learn how to work together instead of against each other.”
Hell. No.
“Hell no!” Phoebe cried the same time as I thought it.
I couldn’t be sure of her reasons for that response, but it had been hard enough keeping my hands off her with a net between us. With nothing but our willpower between us on the same side of the makeshift court, who knew what would happen?
It didn’t take long for those thoughts of worry to turn to thoughts of opportunity though, because, actually, without Andy lingering around, maybe I could have a little fun making Phoebe squirm in ways she didn't yet know she could.
“I think that's a great idea,” I said, watching with amusement as Phoebe's attention whipped my way, her lips parted as her eyes searched mine.
“You do?”
“Why not? I think we could take them both, don't you?”
“That's fighting talk, Cohen,” Rhea piped up.
I didn't look away from Phoebe, though. I couldn't. She was so small and perfect as I towered over her, and all I could think about was picking her up and throwing her over my shoulder. “What do you say?”
Her lips twitched as she tried to fight off an obvious smile. “Fine. But get in my way, Henry, and you die.”
I didn't, in fact, get in her way. The moment we started working together instead of against one another, we became a team nobody could beat. But fuck me, the struggle I had keeping my attention on the ball when Phoebe's little grunts of sporting enthusiasm were practically in my ear…
She'd just taken a killer shot that sent the volley straight past Rhea before she could even attempt to reach it, and now Phoebe was walking towards me with her palm in the air, waiting for me to high five her.
I did, and when she sauntered past me, I had to stop myself from slapping her arse as she strode on by. I had no doubt she'd stick to her promise of ending my life if I dared to cross one too many lines.
Her breaths were as heavy as mine, and the mid-afternoon heat had become suffocating now.
One look at Rhea told me she had definitely had enough, and Jace.
.. well, it didn't seem like he cared either way.
All of us were ready for either the ocean, a drink, or both, but Phoebe seemed the one keener than keen to keep this game going.
The wannabe wallflower had a wild, competitive side that only made her all the more intriguing to everyone with a pair of eyes. If I wanted this game to be over, it had to come from Rhea.
“You guys getting tired of losing yet?” I called out to them on the other side of the net.
Rhea stood there with her hands on her hips, exhausted. “Officially tired and bored.”
“Wanna call it a day?”
Before anyone else could answer, Phoebe arrived at my side, cocking her hip, so damn close yet still so far away. “How about whoever wins this next play wins the whole game?” Her brow rose, and a confident smirk came to life.
She knew they didn't stand a chance.
“You're on!” Jace called out, while Rhea just groaned at having to move around again in any capacity.
“Erm, teammate?” I said, nudging Phoebe's damp skin on her arm.
She looked up at me with beautiful doe eyes that made the colour of the ocean look shite in comparison. “What?”
I gestured between us both. “Don't you think that's something we should have discussed first?”
“Why? You scared?”
“Fear is not an emotion I carry.”
“Okay, Mr Hard Man.” Phoebe turned her back on the others, side-eyeing me as she looked up and created an intimate moment between us that felt far too natural for any good to come of it. “Look, we can take them out in three moves, no problem.”
“The sun sure makes you confident.”
“Not the sun. I just believe in us.”
Jesus.
Us.
There’s an us now?
What the hell could I say to that?
I found myself swallowing my thoughts and nodding my agreement. “Fine.” I moved away from her to take up my position without saying another word.
Staying too close to her would have been dangerous, and we were already playing with fire.
Within seconds, Jace and Rhea served the ball, took their hits, and the volley was sent over the net to us, coming directly to me. I clamped my hands together and waited for the ball to connect with my joined fists, and when it did, I carefully aimed it Phoebe's way.
She’d been waiting for me exactly where she should have been, and she eyed the ball the whole way, but the moment she moved, her ankle seemed to give way at an odd angle, making her stumble slightly to the right, and when the ball connected with her hands, it went flying up in the air far too high.
The two of us seemed to look at it for what felt like a lifetime, and then it registered with me where this ball was going to fall, and there was only one way for me to get her to it.
Without thought, I ran up behind Phoebe, wrapped my big hands around her delicate hips, and I lifted her up into the air before the ball sailed back down to hit the net.
With one perfectly outstretched hand, she smashed it down into the other side of the court with all her might, before my own feet went out from beneath me, and we both went crashing down to the sand.
I took the weight of the fall and the weight of her as much as I could, the air bursting out of my lungs in one long grunt of pain when she twisted and landed on top of me as though she trusted me to keep her safe.
And then it was just the two of us in the sand.
Heaving breaths mingling. Skin on skin. Sweat on sweat. Sun lotion on sun lotion.
Her legs tangled with mine.
Her tits against my chest.
Heartbeat to heartbeat.
No air between us.
The world seemed to stop still for the entirety of it.
We didn't cheer or celebrate our win. We didn't jump to our feet to rub our victory in Jace or Rhea's faces. Instead, we stared at each other's chests before finally daring ourselves to look up into each other’s eyes.
What I saw in hers had my fingers digging tighter into her hips—a simple flex I hadn't meant to make, but one that let her know just how much my body liked having hers on top of it this way.
I swallowed. Hard. Which didn't go unnoticed as Phoebe's tongue came out to run over her bottom lip as though her thoughts were running in the same direction as mine.
I’d never felt chemistry like it in my life. No one had ever felt like such a good fit on top of me before. I’d wanted to dislike her and keep her at a distance, but right here, right now, all I could think about was lifting my mouth closer to hers and losing myself in a cotton-candy kiss.
Her eyes searched mine. “You…erm, okay?” she asked, snapping me out of my desire.
“Yep. All good,” I strained. “You?”
“Good.”
“Cool.”
She sighed softly. “Yeah.”
I shuffled beneath her, desperate to remove her thigh from being too close to my dick, which had perked up, sensing something of interest close by. Something he could sink himself into for a while.
“You got the win,” I croaked.
“Thanks to you.”
“Thanks to us,” I said, unable to get that two-letter word out of my head now.
“Henry, I?—”
“Jesus Christ, you two. Talk about taking the competitive streak too far!” Rhea dropped to her knees beside us, breaking the moment between Phoebe and me completely.
What the hell had Phoebe been about to say?
“Any broken bones?” Rhea started feeling Phoebe's arms, making Phoebe eventually push herself off me as carefully as she could before she waved Rhea off and told her to stop fussing.
“We're fine. Champions don't break,” Phoebe said, rising to a stand above me, while I just laid there on my back, staring up at her golden hair falling over her face as she looked down at me and held out her hand. “Isn't that right… partner?”
With a groan, I took her hand, and allowed her to think she was helping me up as I began to stand, doing my best to ignore the shooting pain that struck up my coccyx.
“Well, I'll be damned,” Jace said, coming to a stop in front of us as he dusted off his hands. “Who knew all it would take was a bit of inappropriate groping and a clusterfuck of a fall to make you two become besties, huh?”
“Shut it, Jace,” Phoebe and I said in unison, which only made us turn to look at each other once more, and for the first time since meeting her, we shared an easy smile without a sarcastic or nasty comment to be made.
That single moment changed everything.