“Oh like you’re an expert,” I tease.
To prove me wrong, he throws the ball and makes a “nothing-but-net” shot.
“Show off.”
He swims to me, snagging the ball again and putting it in my hands. His fingers linger on mine before sinking down to my waist as he settles behind me.
Oh no. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten so much today, but all the nerves from the whole week and seeing him tonight and wearing my bathing suit, I stuffed my face with the junkiest food possible. And it’s not sitting well.
A gurgle goes through my belly and I clench my butt cheeks. If I . . . let it out, I’ll win the most embarrassing thing that happens ever contest.
He squeezes my sides and I pray to the high heavens he doesn’t do it again.
“You want to hold it in one hand, and balance it with the other.”
I lift my arms, close my eyes and take deep breaths. Push it back, Kel. Do not let loose the gas bubble!
“All right . . .” He positions my hands, then lets his fingers trail down my arms as they go back to my waist. “Now shoot.”
No. If I move a muscle, I’m going to send bubbles in his face. So I stay frozen, looking like a complete airhead.
“Uh . . . Kel?”
“I’m just . . . aiming.” Now I sound like an airhead.
He chuckles and leans to my ear again. It would be supersexy if I wasn’t being completely unladylike in the intestinal region. “You’re all set, trust me. Just shoot it.”
His fingers squeeze my middle again, and I lose butt control.
I shoot the ball from my hands then start splashing around like a mad woman, trying to stop the bubbles from being obvious. Chase’s eyes are closed and he’s laughing and trying to cover his face from the wild splashes I’m sending everywhere.
Oh please say he didn’t notice! Please!
I stop splashing, hoping a “normal” look is on my face. He’s still laughing and wiping the drops of water from his eyes and cheeks.
“I guess nicknaming you ‘Stinky’ was appropriate.”
Am I dead? Because I’m pretty sure I’ve keeled over from embarrassment. Flamed up into a fiery mess and died instantly. But he’s still laughing and I slam my hands over my face.
“Oh my gosh,” I muffle through my fingers.
“Hey,” he says, tugging me into his arms. I try to wiggle free, but he doesn’t let me. “People fart. No biggie.”
My nails dig into the skin on my face. This isn’t the conversation I want to have with anyone ever. “It’s humiliating!”
He pulls my hands down, his smile still huge and his eyes—green tonight—seem to be smiling too. “It’s not embarrassing. It means you’re comfortable with me.”
I scrunch up my face and spit, “And you’re so tactful you have to point it out! You could’ve just let it slide, not brought attention to it, but no. You have to make fun of me.”
“You were the one splashing around.” He laughs.
“How old are you? Like twelve? It’s not funny!”
I don’t mean for that question to come out. I was completely teasing and now it’s out there, and if he answers, I’m not sure how I’ll—
“You’re finally asking my age.” He smiles and squeezes me. “Do you really want to know? Or should I pretend it didn’t happen?”
“Ugh.” My hands fly to my face again. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t hide from me.” He pries my fingers away to look in my eyes. “Even though you’re cute when you’re embarrassed, I want to see your face.”
“I can’t believe you,” I say, still trying to break free from his grasp. “You’re hitting on a girl who just . . .” I lower my voice. “. . . fluttered at you.”
“I told you, I don’t care. People fart. You fart, I fart, we all fart.”
“If you let one loose right now I’ll smack you.”
He laughs. “Maybe later. Right now, I have a question for you.”
“Anything to take us off this subject.”
His arms loosen on my waist, but they don’t let me go. “You’re not still mad at me for this . . .” He snakes his hand to my hair, running it through the short strands. “Are you?”
“For making me slam my head into gum and having to chop off all my beauties?” I roll my eyes. “I’m not mad at all.”
His body shakes with laughter. “You shouldn’t be. This looks sexy.” He wraps his hand around the back of my head and pulls me closer. “And gives easy access.”
The second his lips touch my neck, I push him back. “No, no, mister. I’m not wearing turtlenecks two weeks in a row.”
“Fair enough.” He grins.
“What about you?” I ask, running a hand over his soaked shirt. “You mad about getting body waxed?”
“You mean butt and back waxed, because that’s all I could handle before I begged her to stop. I was going to take it like a man, prove a point, but yeah . . . that’s a lot of hair pulling.”
My laugh bursts from my mouth with so much force, Chase leans back a bit. “So you only got half waxed?”
“I wasn’t going to let her touch the front.”
“Are you really that hairy?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
He shifts, keeping his hands around me, but holding himself at a distance. “I’m like the missing link in the theory of evolution.”
“No way!” I giggle, and my hands dive under the water for the bottom of his shirt. “Let me see.”
“No.” He grasps my wrists playfully, yet stern, and shakes his head.
“Is that why you won’t take your shirt off?” I bite my lip to keep my smile from exploding on my face. How cute is this?! Chase Moroney, self-conscious about something.
“Trust me, you don’t want to see it.”
“Come on,” I whine, using my pouty lip. “We’re comfortable around each other, remember?”
He backs away from me, but I hold tight to his shirt and his arm until we’re slammed into the side of the pool.
“I promise not to laugh. Unlike some people.”
Again, he shakes his head. No smile, nothing, even though I’m teasing him. All right, if he’s that embarrassed I suppose I can let it slide, even though I did just do the most humiliating thing in the history of make out partners.
“Fine,” I say through another pout. His face falls into a relieved semi-smile, and I take advantage of it. Pushing my body as much as I can against his, I do that thing he always does to me. I murmur in his ear, and I can tell already I’m giving him goose bumps. “Just so you know, I happen to like hairy guys.”
He lets out a groan, and whips his head so our lips can meet. We suck face for a good few minutes before he breaks away, breathing hard against my mouth.
“Kel?”
“Mmm?”
“I’m twenty-one.” His eyes open, and they’re still green. A deep deep deep green. They’re the sexiest I’ve ever seen them. “That’s not a problem, is it?”
My mind has to rewind for a second. Twenty? He said twenty, right? And that’s totally not a problem. A lot closer in age than I thought.
“Is my being fresh out of high school a problem?” I smirk, tugging him closer.
He shakes his head. “Not when it’s you.”
Wow. He’s upgraded his lines.
“Same answer for me, then.”
Our lips meet again, and we don’t break away. He lifts me up to straddle his hips, and I’m totally okay with that. He can still move his hands around because the pool makes me settle there without any help. His lips and mouth are superdelish tonight, with the water and whatever mint he popped before he headed over.
Yes, Chase is an amazing kisser. I’ve known that for a while now. But there’s something else that’s tugging me behind my chest. Pulling me closer to him, and not in a physical way. It’s the weirdest thing ever to describe. But this time, instead of feeling wanted, I feel wanting. He’s what I want. Not Chase the good kisser. Not Chase the smart aleck. Not
Chase the college frat boy. I want Chase Moroney. Just him.
My heart is pumping so fast I’m surprised it’s not bruising his chest. What is it with all these feelings? I’m not allowed to have them! No emotions for Kelli Pinkins. But as his hand holds mine, tickling my fingers and giving me everything no one else wants to give me, I don’t care anymore. I don’t want to argue with myself. I want to let myself feel.
I dive to the bottom of his shirt. He’s taking this off whether he likes it or not. He shakes his head, still attached to my lips and I smile through our kiss.
“Please?” I ask, my voice coming out in a seductive whisper I didn’t know I was capable of. “I want to see you.”
He sighs, and it’s one of those defeated sighs. And because I’m a complete dork, I actually squeal with success as I twist his wet shirt up his torso.
I trace my fingers over his body, which is furry, he didn’t lie about that. But it’s not a bad furry. It’s like . . . man furry. Like sexy, in-heat, all man hair. Wow. I’m with a man. Even though we both act like kids, have fun, joke around, tease . . . he’s a man. And I can’t believe how sexy it is that I get to touch him, kiss him, hold him. Gah . . .
My nails go through his chest hair and up to his shorter stubble on his chin. I smile and squeeze as tight as I can against him. “Silly Chase,” I say as I wiggle my nose against his. “You don’t have to worry about this stuff with me.”
His eyebrow goes up, along with one side of his mouth. “Who are you, and what have you done with the real Kelli?”
I smack the back of his head, and we both laugh, sharing the same centimeter of air between our lips.
“There she is,” he says, then kisses me again. His hands move to the bottom of my swim shirt, and he strips it off me. Our lips only part so he can get it off my head, and it lands on the side of the pool with a squilsh.
I’m not in a bikini—shot down Sades every time she pulled one out—but I’m still more naked than I’ve ever been with anyone. Well, I mean, there was the whole locker room incident with Alex. But I don’t count that because our relationship is strictly business. With Chase, though, it’s thrilling, and sexy, and . . . all that stuff that makes me nervous, not confident like I was with Alex. Because it was no big deal with him.
So I guess it’s a big deal with Chase, but I don’t know why. I’m so not used to these feelings. And for right now, instead of pushing them back, I’m going to soak in them, because it feels amazing.
Oh, and the skin on skin stuff? Yummy!
He starts walking away from the wall I have him trapped against, taking me with him. We kiss, kiss, kiss until I’m the one pressed against the side of the pool. He braces his arms on either side of me while I’m attacking his mouth, his neck, behind his ear, down his hairy chest, anywhere and everywhere I can without drowning. I’m going down his arms, the crook of his elbow and his wrist when he catches my face in his palm.
“Kel, I wanted to tell you something last week, but we got interrupted.”
I nod, letting him cradle me like a baby, his hands and voice so warm the popcorn in my stomach threatens to burst.
He looks into my eyes and smiles. It’s that smile I saw back in his apartment when I snuggled into his chest in front of Raj. I’ve only seen it a few times, and I like it, even though it scares me a little.
“I-I’m pretty sure I’m . . . kind of . . . you know . . .”
He stops, letting out a huge sigh.
I giggle. “Chase? Having a hard time getting it out? I’m pretty sure that’s never happened.”
He laughs, but it’s not a normal laugh. It’s shaky and nervous and supercute.
“Fine. I’m in love with you.”
The popcorn stops, turning into a bunch of rocks. “Uh . . . what?” I croak.
He brings my face closer to his. “I love you, Kelli Pinkins.” He smirks, the smart one. “What do you say? You love me too?”
Chapter 31
I blink a few times, while my head and my heart argue with each other. One says, “Squee!” and the other says, “Stop now before things get really messy.”
And I know which one is winning.
He pulls me close, smirk still on his face. “Relax, Kel. I’m teasing.”
“You are?” Because that’s mean!
“About you saying it back, yes. But about me saying it to you? No.”
“Huh?”
He laughs, shaking his head and dripping water down my cheeks with his wet hands. “I love you.”
His lips inch toward mine, but I don’t let him close the distance. “Chase, stop it.”
“What?”
“Stop saying that. It’s not funny anymore.”
His eyes darken and look confused. “It never was meant to be funny.”
“I mean it. Knock it off.”
The heat coursing through our bodies from passion turns to something real tense and scary, at least on my part. He seems mystified as crap. But I won’t let him say this stuff to me when we don’t even know each other. How can you love someone you don’t know?
“Kel, I’m serious.” And darn it, I know he is. Guess I do know something about him. “I’ve liked you for a long time. Even before we officially met.” His hands drop to mine and I resist the urge to whip them out of his grasp. He’s not making this easy. “I looked forward to Fridays every week so I could get my butt kicked by the Friday Night Girl. Someone whose life may be as messed up as mine, but helped me forget about all the crap and just be me.”
Whoa, wait. His life is messed up? I don’t even know how it’s messed up. I have guesses, hints, and all that because I’m a snoop. But not because he told me. Not because I’ve asked. No emotions, that’s my rule with everybody.
“Then I met you, made an idiot of myself, and you fought back. You one-upped me every time. You put up with my jokes, with my jerkoff attitude, and you not only matched it, you threw it back at me. The second you played the waxing prank, I wanted to kiss you.”
“Is that why you kept pushing it?” I ask, instantly wishing I didn’t. I don’t want to have this convo. It’s too scary romantic, even though he’s talking about us teasing each other. It’s not supposed to be like this with Moron. Making out, fine. Being friends on Fridays, yes. But having a relationship? Lovey dove love? No. I can’t. I can’t let myself have that. I’d lose everything . . . my business, my clients, everything about me.
“Of course,” he says, rolling his eyes to the window ceiling. “And once you finally let me, you had me hooked.”
He goes to kiss me and I push him away again. “That’s hardly a basis for love, Chase.” I hop off his hips, just now noticing I was still perched up there. “So what? We played online games together. We pulled pranks and gave each other crap. We make out. But you know as much about me as I do about you. Which is like, nothing.”
“That’s not true,” he argues, still keeping me up close and personal with his bare chest. “I may not know your parents’ names, or if you’ve ever owned a pet, or what your major is. But I know you.”
“No one knows me.”
I don’t mean for that to come out either, but it seems I’ve lost my filter completely.
He sighs, pulling a finger over my forehead. “You get a crease right here when you’re frustrated with your own thoughts.” His other hand squeezes mine. “You know how to fight dirty and know how to have fun, but you’re afraid to. You worry too much about being perfect. You wish you had friends. You wish you weren’t invisible to your parents. You want to be needed. You like feeling needed. Which is why you’re the alibi, because it allows you to fill the emptiness.”
I start to shake my head, even though he’s right, and he stops me with more words.
“You’re stubborn. You’re frustrating. You’re challenging.” He tucks me back against his body, and I let him. “You’re beautiful. You’re fun. You’re . . . everything.”
There he goes again, thinking I’m someone who can be his everything. But . . .
“I-I can’t—”
“I need you, Kelli. You want to feel needed. Well, I need you. More than just on Fridays, and more than as a friend. You have no idea how much you’ve saved me already.”
My head and heart argue again. Saved him? How have I saved him? And how does he know all this about me when I don’t know anything about him?
I can’t know more about him. I can’t let myself feel any more for him than I already do. I’m the alibi, the good Christian girl from Sundale. If I let go of that, then even I don’t know who I am.
“You know I can’t. People will see. They won’t ask me to be their alibi anymore.”
“So give it up.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes it is.”
I sigh, breaking free from his arms. “No, it’s not. You don’t get it. Do you know what my clients will lose if their parents find out the truth?”
“Their precious trust funds.”
I startle back from his tone, which was warm two seconds ago, and has gone ice cold.
“Do you understand how big a deal that is? It’s a lot of money.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“Well, if it was me, and someone was worth going through all the trouble of using an alibi, they’re probably worth losing all that money over.”
Heat crawls up my neck and I cross my arms. “That’s exactly it. I’m giving them a different solution.”
“Sounds to me like you’re providing shallow people a way out of standing up to their parents.”
“They’re not shallow, Moron. It’s a LOT of money. More than you’ve probably ever seen or will ever see. You’d try to save it any way you could, too.”
His face gets twisted in a way I’ve never seen before. Spit and water flies from his mouth when he fires back at me.
“I’m not like that. If it’s someone I love, then money wouldn’t matter to me.” He backs up another few inches. “And I know it’s a lot of money, because I used to have a trust fund. And I know I’m not like that because I did give it up for someone I loved.”
There’s a wave of tears that builds in his eyes, and my heart screams at me to go to him. Ask him a million questions about this big piece of news. I want to wrap my arms around his neck and tell him I’m sorry. That I’ll give it all up. I’ll trade my image to spend an unknown future with him.