I let her get a head start and go after her, grabbing my shoes on the way in.
When I catch up to her, she’s standing at the back door to the house, waiting for me. I walk casually, to make her think I’m not chasing the shell anymore.
“I didn’t want to get sand in the house. Is there a foot shower thing to rinse?” She holds out a leg, her foot and most of her leg covered with sprinkles of sand.
“Yeah, it’s just over here,” I say and drop my shoes and phone by the back door. I tilt my head to gesture. She furrows her brow but follows my lead, dropping her own shoes next to mine.
I walk her closer to the edge of the pool, making it look like I’m heading toward the grill.
“Do you have your phone on you?” I ask.
“Left it in the truck, why?”
I whirl on her, wrapping an arm around her waist, and throw both of us into the pool.
16
ABBY
I have about half a second to catch and hold my breath before Miles launches both of us into the pool. We both go under, the slap of the water against my skin barely softened by Miles’s body under me. He releases me as we both thrash to get our heads above water, kicking our feet and propelling our arms for upward motion.
When we both pop up, I rub my eyes to clear the water from them.
The pool is warm, probably from soaking up the sun all day, and the water cocoons us as we kiss. The world around us is quiet, save for the distantwhooshof the ocean moving against the sand.
I’m almost mad at him for tossing us fully dressed into his client’s pool, but the look on his face is the silly kind of joy you see when a kid has done something mischievous and they know they’re not really in trouble for it because everyone thought what they did was funny.
Maybe a thirty-three-year-old man shouldn’t be acting like this, but this is one of my favorite things about Miles. Maybe it’s because I work with kids all day, but sometimes I feel like my soul is still ten years old, even as my body ages. I saw my soul’sage reflected in Miles’s soul when we met. His playful approach to life felt so similar to mine, and now I see that not much has changed.
“What was that for?” I ask, playing indignant.
“Definitely not because you ran from me on the beach,” he says around a devious grin. We ended up in a part of the pool where he can put his feet on the bottom and stand with his head above the water, but I can’t. I’m treading and plotting my revenge.
“You were trying to take my shell!”
“And I haven’t stopped trying.”
He reaches for me, but I kick out, going onto my back, stretching my legs in front of me to splash water into his face. I windmill my arms, trying to swim out of his reach. But he gets a hand on my ankle before I can go anywhere and yanks me toward him.
Water flows around me, as if to aid Miles while he drags me toward him. I use the momentum to get my hands on his shoulders and lift myself out of the water to attempt to push him under, but he doesn’t budge. In fact, it just gives him better access to wrap an arm around my legs and hold me in place while he fishes around in my pocket for the shell.
I’m locked into place with no choice but to accept defeat. He holds the shell between two fingers, a smug grin on his face.
“You earned that by overpowering me. Does that feel good?” I taunt him, but he’s unfazed by my words, grinning like he won a stuffed animal at a carnival.
“It feels like winning.”
He loosens his grip on me, but doesn’t fully let go, so as I sink back into the water, my thighs, hips, and chest graze his, and by the time we’re eye level again, I’m pressed right up against him, still in his arms. The wet fabric of his white T-shirt is barely a barrier between us and shows off every curve of his upper body.
“And if I told you I was willing to bargain with you for the shell?” I ask.
I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. His large hands find the undersides of my thighs, the tips of his fingers grazing the edge of my shorts.
I’m pleasurably warm, and it’s not just the sun bearing down on us with her relentless heat. I feel like I’m being warmed from the inside. Like the heat source is in my chest, and it’s warming all of my limbs, making my skin more sensitive. I feel every droplet of water on every inch of my skin.
How does he do this to me? Make me want him without even touching me—and then when he does touch me, it’s like the volume knob goes all the way up on that wanting. And somehowwantingstill doesn’t feel like the right word for what I’m feeling right now. I need to consume him. To satisfy the animal in me howling for his touch. If our bodies were anything but crushed against each other right now, it wouldn’t be enough.
“What’s on the line?” he asks, digging his teeth into his soft lower lip.
