Page 21 of Tequila Lime and Sunshine

She faces me again. I don’t bother looking away. She’s beautiful, and I want her to know it.

Her expression turns serious. Our faces are just inches from each other. One slight move from either of us, and we would be kissing. God, I want to so bad, but I need to know that she wants it. Because if I kiss her, and she regrets it for any reason, I don’t think I’ll survive.

Her breath tickles my lips, and it’s pure torture to be this close to her and not be able to do anything about it. Her eyes are frozen on mine like she’s debating what to do.

“We should,” she starts with a trembling voice. “We should probably go.”

“Yeah,” I manage, even though the last thing I want to do is go. I want to stay like this forever. I want to keep her in my arms until she realizes she wants me just as much as I want her.

She wiggles out of my arms, and I try to calm my dick down. While I’m proud of said dick, it’s probably frowned upon to walk through a family resort with a very visible boner in soaking-wet shorts.

I adjust myself, but it’s not much use because when we finally get out of the water, Summer’s clothes are stuck to her skin, and her nipples are at full attention.

Oh, god. This may have been the worst idea I’ve ever had, and I’ve had some pretty stupid ones.

“We don’t have towels, and the towel hut by the pool is closed.”

I wince. “Yeah, I didn’t think that through.”

Thankfully she laughs. “Guess we’ll just have to walk fast.”

We grab our things and walk toward our room. We’re dripping water through the halls like assholes, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re almost to the elevator when we hear, “Summer? Hawke?”

We freeze and slowly turn to see Holden and Carly standing there. Holden’s expression looks like concern mixed with a little jealousy, which pisses me off.

“What happened?” he asks.

“We just went for a nighttime swim in the ocean,” I offer casually.

He raises an eyebrow at us. “Fully clothed?”

“Yep,” Summer says.

I add, “I was taking pictures of her for her blog, and we just jumped in.”

Holden eyes me suspiciously, and then I watch his gaze travel over Summer. She’s standing tall and proud, with wet clothes clinging to every inch of her body, not even trying to cover her nipples. If this was any other situation, I would move in front of her to block her from his eyes.

My fists clench at my sides. I hate that he knows what she looks like under her clothes. I hate that he’s probably remembering it right now. More than anything, I want to tell him to get his eyes off my girl.

But she’s not my girl.

And I don’t want to embarrass Carly by calling him out. She’s standing there looking awfully pleased that something might be going on between Summer and me. Poor girl probably feels awkward as hell being around Holden’s ex-girlfriend, and Holden’s behavior hasn’t made this situation any better.

“Well,” Summer points to the elevator. “We’re going to go. We need to get out of these wet clothes.”

I look down at the nice puddle we’ve made on the floor.

“Yeah. Have a good night,” Holden says, even though he looks pissed at the possibility that Summer and I might be getting out of these wet clothes together. Carly pulls him away, but he looks over his shoulder one last time before going.

When we get on the elevator, I focus straight ahead. “You know he still has a thing for you.”

“He had his chance,” she answers quietly.

I bite my cheek to keep from smiling. I shouldn’t enjoy that my brother and Summer experienced heartbreak like they did, but, well, it does make me happy. I can’t and won’t say sorry about it.

“Are you saying you wouldn’t get back together if he was interested?” I don’t know why I ask, but I really need to know.

She shakes her head. “No, I think we’re too different. He basically told me my dreams were silly. If we got back together, I’d feel like he was constantly judging me. I don’t want a nine-to-five desk life, and I don’t want to be a housewife. I mean, could you imagine?”