The pressure around my ribs vanished. A ripple traveled across my chest as the fabric loosened.
He didn’t grab my skin.
He didn’t touch anything he wasn’t supposed to.
He simply stole the string.
And my bikini top floated up between us like some fragile sea creature, caught between his fingers.
“Riley,” I breathed, horror and heat crashing together.
“Relax,” he murmured, lifting the small scrap of fabric into the warm night air. Droplets ran down his wrist, glinting in the starlight. “You’re covered by the water. Mostly.”
“Give it back.”
“Of course.”
He twirled it around his finger like a prize he had just won at a carnival. “For a price.”
My pulse hammered. “I’m not playing this game.”
“You already are.” His voice dipped, smooth as deep ocean water. “You came into the pool with me. You let me touch you. You let me tell you what you look like when you lie.”
“That doesn’t mean I owe you anything.”
“No,” he agreed, eyes gleaming. “But it means you’ll bargain.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
I lunged for the top, but he simply lifted his arm higher, the move effortless, almost lazy. I couldn’t reach it without rising out of the water, and he knew it.
Of course he knew it.
“Riley,” I hissed. “Seriously. Stop.”
He took a slow step toward me, closing the distance until the heat of his chest hovered inches from my face.
“One kiss,” he murmured, the words brushing my skin like a whisper shaped only for me. “Just one. Then you can have this back.”
“No.”
“Not even a small one?” His voice dripped sugar and sin. “Right here.” He tapped a finger to the corner of his mouth, eyes glittering. “Tiny. Harmless. Barely counts.”
“I said no.”
He laughed, low and soft and unhurried, the sound sliding down my spine. “You’re adorable when you’re stubborn.”
“This isn’t stubborn,” I snapped. “This is me refusing to let you own me.”
His smile sharpened, a flicker of something darker shifting beneath it. “I don’t need a kiss to own you.”
I froze.
The words hit harder than they should have.
Because they felt true.
