Chapter 15 — Wanted Most #2
Kiki sat on the swim platform with the cooler open, already passing out drinks and sandwiches like she had been hired to prevent collapse. "Nobody gets on the rope swing until they eat something."
Shay's face fell.
"I said something," Kiki added. "A grape counts if you don't make me watch."
Shay grabbed a grape, put it in her mouth, saluted, and dove.
The afternoon came apart after that in the best way. Shay hit the rope swing first and threw herself into the air with full Hollis commitment, hair flying, legs kicking, mouth open in a triumphant yell that turned into a yelp when she let go too early and slapped the water sideways.
Tatum gave her a seven for form and a ten for chaos, then climbed up and did worse with more confidence. She came down in a spinning cannonball that soaked the side of the boat and made Reese laugh so hard she had to grab the rail.
Reese was beautiful like that. Wet hair slicked back.
My shirt gone now, bikini revealed, honey-brown skin shining in the sun looking every inch the goddess she was.
She moved through the water with a relaxed happiness that still kept pulling my eye.
She caught me looking and smiled without ducking away.
Kiki noticed, of course. Kiki noticed everything.
She handed me a sandwich and brushed her knuckles under my jaw. "Eat, baby."
"I'm not hungry."
"You're always hungry. Sometimes you're only distracted."
Penny had taken the best sun on the bow, stretched out on a towel with one leg bent, green bikini bright against her skin.
She looked expensive, dangerous, and entirely aware of both facts.
When she shifted, it was never accidental.
When my eyes went to her, she smiled like the reaction had been the point.
All five of them were secure in the day. Kiki warm and practical. Shay loud and reckless. Tatum bright enough to power the cove. Penny polished and possessive. Reese soft with new certainty.
And Eden kept moving closer.
At first, it was easy to pretend the water did it. A wave from Tatum's splash rocked her into my side. Her hand found my bicep to steady herself. Her thigh brushed mine when she climbed onto the swim platform. Her fingers trailed across my back when she passed behind me for a bottle of water.
But Eden didn't do accidental.
She swam past me with one clean stroke and turned, water beading on bronze skin, navy swimsuit dark and slick against her body. My sunglasses were gone now, tucked onto the dash. Without them, her eyes had nowhere to hide.
"You look smug," I said.
"I usually do."
"Any reason?"
"Several."
She swam close enough that her shoulder brushed my chest. Her hand came out of the water and settled on my forearm. Not gripping. Resting.
"You having fun?" she asked.
"I own a boat and six women are currently treating it like a floating crime scene. I'm doing all right."
Her smile softened, only at the edge. "It looks good on you."
"The boat?"
"All of it. Mostly all of us."
Then Shay screamed from the rope swing, and Tatum yelled something about physics being a lie, and the spell should have broken.
It didn't.
Eden's thumb moved once over my arm before she let go.
The others started drifting with the kind of group coordination that didn't need words.
Shay and Tatum moved toward the rope swing again, arguing about whether a double launch was brave or stupid.
Kiki followed with sunscreen and the expression of a woman about to supervise disaster.
Reese floated toward them on her back, then rolled over and looked at Eden with a smile so gentle I almost missed it.
Penny was last.
She sat up on the bow, pushed her sunglasses down, and looked from Eden to me.
Her mouth curved.
No jealousy. No warning. Only approval sharp enough to cut fruit.
Then she slid into the water and swam after the others, slow and graceful, leaving me and Eden in the quiet pocket they had made.
It wasn't silent. The cove was full of laughter, splashing, music from the boat speaker, Shay narrating Tatum's rope-swing technique like a sportscaster with a personal grudge.
But around me and Eden, the day narrowed.
She floated beside me, close enough that the water between us kept touching both of us at once.
Her hair was slicked back. Her lashes were wet.
Sunlight moved over her shoulders and the slope of her breasts under the navy fabric, and every inch of her looked controlled except for the speed of her breathing.
"They're not subtle," she said.
"No."
"Good. I hate subtle."
"Since when?"
"Since five minutes ago."
She reached behind her, hooked the big round float by its rope, and pulled it close. "Get on."
"That's an order?"
"That's me being generous with a float I just stole."
"From who?"
"The lake."
She climbed on first, all wet skin and smooth strength, and the float dipped under her. I followed. It rolled hard enough that I had to grab the edge, and Eden's hand shot out to my chest.
"Careful."
"You ordered me onto unstable plastic."
"I like a challenge."
The float steadied. Barely. We ended up side by side with six inches between us and all the lake in the world around us.
Eden looked at the space.
Then she closed it.
***
She moved into me like she'd run out of patience.
One second there was air between us. The next her leg crossed my thigh, her arm slid over my chest, and her wet body pressed along mine from shoulder to hip.
The float rocked under us. Eden didn't flinch.
Her hand went into my hair, her mouth came to mine, and the first kiss hit with enough force to empty my head.
Not careful.
Not testing.
Eden kissed me like control had been a door and she'd finally kicked it open.
Her lips parted against mine, tongue sliding over mine with a low sound that went straight through my chest. I caught her waist, pulled her closer, and she came willingly, climbing over me in a smooth, hungry shift that put one knee on either side of my hips.
The float dipped.
Water rolled over my ribs.
Eden's body settled on mine.
Wet swimsuit. Warm thighs. Her arms around my neck. Her hips low enough that my cock hardened against her through my trunks before I had time to be noble about anything.
She felt it.
Of course she felt it.
Her breath hitched, and then she rolled her hips once, slow and deliberate, making both of us go still.
"Eden."
"I know."
Her voice had lost the polished edge. It was lower now, rougher, dragged out of her by the same friction that was doing terrible things to my ability to think. She kissed me again, harder, her teeth catching my lower lip, her fingers tightening in my hair while her body pressed down against mine.
Across the cove, Shay shouted something. Tatum laughed. The rope swing creaked. Water slapped the float.
The world was right there.
It might as well have been another planet.
My hands moved over her back, down to her hips, then lower to the curve of her ass under the water. She made a sound into my mouth that wasn't controlled at all. Her hips moved again, chasing friction, and the pressure of her against me through wet fabric was so hot it made my vision narrow.
She broke the kiss with a gasp and rested her forehead against mine.
"God," she whispered. "I thought I could manage this."
"This?"
"You."
Her body was still wrapped around me. Her legs locked at my hips. Her arms tight around my neck. The float rocking gently beneath us while she stared into my eyes with every careful layer stripped off her face.
"I thought I could be smart," she said. "I thought I could wait, make sure everyone else got what they needed, keep my hands to myself until I had a plan."
"And?"
She laughed once, shaky and real. "Terrible plan."
I slid one hand up her spine, feeling her tremble through the wet fabric. "Talk to me."
Her eyes closed. Opened. The hazel had gone bright, green and gold in the sun.
"I went last on purpose."
I didn't speak.
She needed room for this.
"Not because I didn't want you." Her hands came to my face, fingers bracketing my jaw as if she needed to hold me still while she told the truth. "I need you to hear that first. It was never because I wanted less. It was because I wanted too much."
The words landed in me with the same force as her kiss.
She swallowed, and her mouth curved for half a second like she wanted to turn it into a joke. She didn't.
"I watched Kiki cross that line and thought I was fine. I watched Shay, Tatum, Penny, Reese. I watched all of them stop waiting for the thing I wanted, and every time I told myself I was being patient. Strategic. Mature." Her thumb brushed over my cheek. "I wasn't. I was scared."
"You don't scare easy."
"No." Her laugh was small and raw. "That's the problem. I don't. So when something actually does scare me, I treat it like a house fire."
"And I'm the fire?"
"You're the whole damn house."
The honesty in it took me apart.
She dropped her forehead to mine again. Her hips shifted without meaning to, and we both felt it. She froze. Then, because she was Eden, because even terrified she was still herself, she didn't back away.
She pressed closer.
"I know what I'm like when I love something this much," she said.
"I get possessive. I get clingy. I get loud in ways I can't take back.
I start touching what I want because pretending not to want it makes me feel insane.
" Her voice thinned on the last word. "And with you, it's worse.
It's all of that turned up until I don't recognize myself. "
I held her tighter.
"I kept thinking if I waited, I'd stay in control.
That I could still be the one who understood the room, understood the timing, understood the risk.
But every time you looked at one of them like you loved her, I wanted that.
Every time one of them touched you, I wanted my hand there.
Every time I sat in your kitchen and didn't climb into your lap, I felt like I was lying to everybody. "
"Eden."