Chapter 42 Water
“Reed!” I screech as he surfaces in the pitch-black water under the small pool of light provided by the one lamppost.
“Gimme a sec.” He dives under.
“How are you going to get out?” I bleat.
I spin in a circle, scanning the area, desperate for a ladder as I’m pelted with thick sheets of fresh rain. Goddamnit. There’s usually a ladder at the end of a dock. Did he even look for one before throwing himself into the scary, black, dark night water!
He pops up again. “Not that deep! Nine feet, maybe.”
“Nine feet?”
He dives back down. My hair clings to the sides of my face as I squint into the rain-blurred darkness, wishing I had my phone flashlight. Stupid fucking Bloody Mary! What was in that thing? Never drinking one of those again—
I stop short, homing in on a skinny, rotting metal ladder hooked up along the edge of the wood next to a piling, outside the circle of light provided by the lamppost. It’s folded up.
I skitter over, shove the wet hair from my face, and yank on the bottom half.
It’s hooked on to the top half and needs to be released down into the water. The thing rattles and doesn’t budge.
It’s stuck.
Things that hate me:
Zippers
Ladders
“Got it!” I hear Reed yell triumphantly.
“There’s a ladder over here!” I yelp.
I yank on the ladder again. It shifts about an inch.
The rain erupts off the water now. Leaping from the surface with its own momentum. Reed’s outline appears six feet below me in the darkness. Shit.
“It’s stuck! But I’m gonna get it!” I yell.
I shove my bare foot up against the piling for leverage.
Come on. I grab it with both hands, bend my standing leg, and heave with everything I have.
The thing flies upward, and I stumble back, relief flooding my nervous system.
I stagger toward the water and push it out, away from the other half, into the bay.
It bangs against the top piece and locks into place.
Thirty seconds later, Reed’s climbing onto the dock, sopping to my soaking wet.
“What the fuck was that?” I screech as the rain whips up in the wind.
He smiles, pulls my crossbody off his torso, puts it on me. “Note to self,” he yells over the rain. “Rikki cannot be trusted around large bodies of water.”
I shake my head, ogling up at him, heart glowing in my chest. “You’re insane.”
His grin deepens. “I think you like it.”
I grab his sharp jaw and wrench his lips to mine. Rain torrents down his face as our mouths fit together. The kiss is a roaring fire on a cold night. When we pull apart, a breathtaking, open smile lights his face.
I grin up at him, blinking water from my eyes as the sky ambushes us. “What do we do now?”
“Uber?”
We sprint hand in hand through the downpour, back toward the event building.
“Oh fuck,” Reed blurts as we get close to the wedding.
“What?”
“I left my shoes.”
“I also don’t have shoes.” I snort. “We should get your shoes.” I pivot, tugging him back the way we came.
“And I did something stupid,” he says as we jog back.
“Yeah, you jumped in the ocean in the dark outside your famous friend’s musical wedding in a rainstorm for my purse.”
“I jumped in with my phone in my pocket.”
I bulge my eyes at him, a smile breaking across my face. “Oh no you did not.”
Reed’s mouth tips up. “This is not funny, Renee. We might have murdered two phones.”
I keel over, his hand still clutched in mine, bringing us stumbling to a stop out of sheer hysteria as the rain pours down. It’s totally not funny. It’s tragic. I cannot afford to lose my phone. Or lose anything on it. But I can’t be upset right now. I’m too happy.
He’s beaming. “Are we going to go back inside like this?”
I’m dying. “At least you’ll have shoes.”
We huddle against each other in the Uber Eliza called for us. Reed’s arm locks me against his side. His palm grips my elbow.
It’s 9 p.m. We’re something real, and we’re going back to the hotel.
“Are we bad at weddings?” I ask from my spot, leaning against his shoulder.
“I think we’re just super good at adventure.”
I snort, pushing up off his shoulder, so I can see his face.
He drags me onto his lap, and I settle over him, a knee on either side of his thighs, in the back seat.
Under normal circumstances, I would never straddle a man in the back of an Uber.
But these aren’t normal circumstances. This is Reed, and I’ve never felt this particular brand of magnetism toward another member of the human race.
It’s enchanting, and utterly liberating in this moment, to give in to the ache.
If you asked me right now for a list of my favorite places, Reed Tyler’s lap would be at the top.
I take my time now, studying. Memorizing his beautiful angle-ridden face.
His toned, effortlessly lethal on the dance floor body.
Water still drips from his hair. It clings to his lashes as he gazes at me, his usual bravado stripped away as his eyes rove over me.
I want to say things to him. Do things to him. I want him.
I comb my hand from his forehead into his wet hair and curl the front portion around my finger, dragging it forward again like his Grease counterpart. “Sluts for Adventure United.”
A slow grin etches into his war-hero face as his hands glide up my thighs. “I’m a slut for you, Romona.”
My heart pirouettes in my chest as that ridiculous-ass statement fills me up.
I slide my hands up the back of his neck, behind his ears, and meet his mouth again. His lips are cold as they brush against mine. Salty. I press in, and his tongue is blazing as it swipes over my lip, flicks against my own.
“I want you, so furiously.” I whisper the words into his mouth. I barely recognize my own voice. “I’ve never wanted someone like I want you right now.”
Reed pulls away slowly, eyes shining in the darkness. The edge of hunger in them liquefies me. He lifts his hand, fingers skimming my bare arm, over my shoulder and up the nape of my neck. They rake into my hair. I lean into the touch, chills tumbling down my spine. He pulls my mouth back to his.
“Rikki.” He purrs the name into my mouth, and it does something visceral to my body. I suck in a sharp breath as heat pulses through my center. “You say another word, and I’m going to take you in the back of this fucking Uber.”
I exhale a breathy laugh. “I dare you.”
We both startle as the horn of our current car blares. “We are here,” the driver blurts uncomfortably. “Kindly exit the vehicle. Please rate five stars. I’m never driving Saturday nights again, especially in the rain. Everyone is wet or horny or bot—”
Reed and I fumble out of the car and run for the hotel. I’m externally freezing, and internally on fire. I’m the human manifestation of Icy Hot as I sprint barefoot across the tiled lobby, gripping his hand as we race to the elevator.
It’s a nice hotel. I was too distracted earlier, thinking about the questions, to appreciate it.
Honestly, I’m kind of too distracted now as well.
It’s an indie fancy one I’ve never heard of, with a marbly Old Hollywood–looking aesthetic.
Also Reed’s shirt is soaked and clinging to every ridge of his muscular torso. Dear god.
He punches the up button with his knuckle. It dings immediately, the elevator sliding open to reveal an empty car. We stumble in, he jabs the floor 10 button, and we face forward, side by side.
I watch the doors close.
This is it. We’re going to do the sex. Will it live up to—
“Was that chapter accurate to you, Rick?”
I turn my face to his and swallow as I admit the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever put on paper is true to life. “Yes.”
Reed moves, his free hand closing over my hip as he pushes me against the cold mirror lining the wall of the elevator.
His mouth finds mine again, hot and insistent, eager.
I pour the raging gold river of lust pounding though me into the kiss, my hands skirting along the line where his shirt meets his pants and slipping under to trace the hard ridges of his pelvis.
The doors ding open, and his hands slide over the curve of my ass. He grips tight, securing me against him as we maneuver into the hallway without breaking the kiss. His hands slide up to grip my waist as the doors close behind us. He glances down at my chest. “Is this a bodysuit?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus, I fucking love those things.”
He pivots us around, swinging me into the striped wall opposite the elevator, and captures my mouth again, grinding against me in a graceful motion that feels like fucking heaven broke into my body and hijacked my nervous system.
I gasp, my head falling against the wall as his mouth drags along the slope of my neck.
Heat floods my core as he bites down lightly over my clavicle and traces over the bone with his tongue.
“Last chance to call this off.” His voice is playful, husky against my skin. His eyes make their way back to mine.
I reach up, breathless, and run my thumbs up the sharp edge of his jaw. “Did you not hear me in the Uber?”
He slides his nose down mine, brushes my lips with his. “I heard you, Renee.”
He takes my mouth again, and I secure him there, palms bracketing his cheeks. A moment later, those jacked forearms hook under my thighs and lift me off the ground, moving us toward the room as he continues to ravish my mouth.
“Did you want to call this off?” I murmur between kisses.
“Fuck no.”
I gasp as my back hits a new wall. He rocks into me, sending a fresh burst of shimmering flame storming up my center, using the wall as leverage to take the kiss deeper.
Desire is a windstorm hurling against my rib cage, tornadoing down to the hypersensitive point between my legs.
I feel the kiss in my fingertips, my knees, in the pointed soles of my feet.