Chapter 11 #2
It was strange: They were still competing, technically, but the active part in the competition was over.
She remembered hearing about all the sex that went on in Olympic villages—the thousands of condoms handed out to prevent superathletic post-Olympic offspring (or more likely, international transmission of STIs).
The air was magnetically charged so close to someone at your level.
Sure, she’d gone out with other writers, but they had acted dismissive about her work.
It was clear that Wes respected her as they went head-to-head.
He listened. She wondered what he would have thought of her first book, the one that never sold.
She had also poured a part of her soul into that book, and she wanted to share it with him in a way that she rarely had since that project failed to sell.
The warm jets pulsed against the backs of her thighs, massaging the tension she hadn’t even known she held there. She must have moaned, because Wes bumped his shoulder into hers. “That good, huh?”
“I was more tense than I thought.”
“What kind of tense?” His voice was light, teasing.
“Oh, the sexual kind, for sure,” she said, matching his tone.
He smiled, then began to unbutton his shirt.
He slid it over his head while she pretended not to notice.
Then, glancing behind them at the dark house, he undid his pants and lowered them.
The privacy fence mostly walled in the hot tub so that it felt like being in a room—a room without a ceiling.
She thanked the landscapers for the fencing so that she could enjoy the view of his body in private.
He wore plain blue boxer briefs tight against his thick thighs.
Above them was a soft fold of stomach, a dark line of hair tracing enticingly down.
He caught her looking. “It’s basically a swimsuit,” he said.
He did a perfect box fold on the clothing and laid it in a pile next to the hot tub.
“I do not know why you’re folding your clothes when you’re going to get them wet,” she teased.
“Wet is just fine with me,” he said. “Can I help you release some tension?”
Her dress suddenly felt too tight across her chest, or maybe she wasn’t breathing enough. “By doing what?”
“Nothing you don’t agree to. I was thinking of helping those jets,” he said, stepping into the water.
The hot tub interior lights certainly did justice to his body—solid, with more than a suggestion at the muscle definition in his abs and arms. His shoulders, those shoulders that had hefted her up last night, looked sturdier bare and in shadow than they did under his polo shirts and button-downs.
It wasn’t that she didn’t usually go for preppy guys—okay, maybe she didn’t usually go for preppy guys.
But his prep had an edge of self-deprecation to it that she appreciated.
She had gone out on a few dates since Aaron, and some of them had gone further than kissing. Nothing had made her feel the way Wes did as he held her calf in his hands and began to rub.
He looked up at her from the water, one leg in each of his hands, and asked, “Is this all right?”
Mo moaned as his thumbs applied pressure up and down her calf. Knots began to untangle. “This was always my favorite part of a pedicure,” she said.
He smiled at her. “Me too, honestly, though some women might think it’s weird that I have an opinion on them.”
“You like nice things,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed, his hands moving farther up her leg, “I do.”
She let him sink his thumbs into the front of her lower thighs, pressing and moving his fingers in a steady rhythm. “Tell me if this tickles,” he said, “because that’s not my goal.”
Those hands worked for a minute, set to make her legs into jelly, before creeping ever so slightly upward.
They brushed under the edge of her dress hem, the hem she had lifted to her upper thighs to avoid getting it wet.
Looking at her lap, Mo couldn’t see his hands underneath the fabric, but she could see him, wet and mostly covered by bubbles near her knees. “What is your goal?” Mo asked.
Suddenly his hands shot from under her hem to grab her around the waist. He pulled her into the hot tub with him. She blinked, the warm water fizzing and bubbling all around her. “To get you wet.”
She pushed herself off his chest, the sopping fabric of the dress flowing upward in the bubbles. “You asshole,” Mo said, laughing.
“I’ll pay for dry cleaning,” he said.
After a glance at the dark sky and reminding herself of the solidness of the privacy fence, Mo pulled the dress over her head and let it flop on the deck of the hot tub. “There. Are you happy?”
“Extremely.”
Her bra and panties were still on—like a swimsuit, as he said.
Just not as water resistant. The fabric of her pale-pink bra had turned translucent, but she didn’t know if he could tell from his place across the hot tub.
In a few seconds, that question was irrelevant because she had rocket-pushed off the side of the tub to get closer.
Now, with her already pulled into his arena, he was acting composed, cool.
Like this was a hotel and they were two guests meeting for the first time.
His eyes closed, head drifting back, and his arms draped along the cement tiles.
She sat next to him on the ledge of the tub inside the crook of his arms. After all, this was no closer than they’d been this afternoon when they’d kissed.
It was, in truth, less close than she’d wanted to be from the second they’d stopped—which was directly on top of him. Her hips on his hips.
Even thinking about him made her core hot, or it might have been the water.
His arm fell from the ledge around her shoulders. His middle finger caught the edge of her bra strap and ran the length of the skin underneath it—up and down. Okay, it wasn’t just the water.
He caught her glance, trying to read her like he’d read his manuscript. The same controlled ease, the sense of confidence, of ownership. It made her mouth water.
“This okay?” he asked.
She wanted to nod. Still, a worrying thought broke through the sensation of his fingers on her skin. “What if there are cameras?”
He paused his attention for an instant, then glanced around over her shoulder and up at the building.
He nestled her under his arm, then murmured in her hair, “There might be, but if we stay under the water, they can’t see anything.
” He slid his hand just to the edge of the strap, then under.
“Can I touch you?” His voice was husky, low, hard to hear against the sound of the jets.
Her head tried to interrupt her heart—which was telling her please, please, please yes . Her head won out. “Is this a bad idea?”
He didn’t exactly growl, but he made a noise that almost broke her. “Probably.”
“But maybe we need to get it out of our systems.”
“I vote for that,” Wes said. His hand drifted under the current of the hot tub and rubbed her calves again. “I’ve been staring at you all weekend like something out of reach.”
She thought about the midwestern way no one ever took the last slice of cake at family gatherings, that constant deferral of pleasure even when they were hungry for it.
She’d never thought of herself as reckless, but she kept imagining the story.
The possibilities. Sure, my book never got picked up, but let me tell you about that weekend.
Making out with a celebrity in a hot tub.
Kissing a rival under the stars. The story wasn’t that, exactly, especially since she couldn’t imagine telling it to anyone but herself.
No, the story she needed was one of letting go.
His touch traced from her knee upward, and she didn’t stop him. She did, in fact, reach a hand to his stomach, feel the soft muscle there and the edge of his waistband. “This isn’t part of the game, right?”
He huffed a laugh. “I mean, how do you even draw those boundaries?”
“But we’d need to. This is just for fun. And just for tonight.”
“Agreed,” he said. His voice was ragged, wrecked. The tone made her bite her lip, and she was grateful to be curled into his shoulder in the dark so he couldn’t see her weakness.
“No angle. No games.”
“Yes,” he said. A single word, making it sound so easy. She wanted to believe him.
“Do you have condoms upstairs?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t betray how hard her breath felt to reach for.
He paused, then swore. “I don’t.” His hand caught hers in midstroke.
That made her laugh, come back to herself a little. “Why does that mean I have to stop touching you?”
“I should have bought some. I mean, I should always have some.”
“We don’t have to have that kind of fun,” she said. “But we should probably go inside.”