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Despite her avoidance tactics over the past few days, his awareness of her seemed to be getting more acute. Even after she’d slumped off to bed yesterday halfway through the afternoon, he’d been hard-pressed to concentrate on the notes for his article. His head had been filled to bursting with images of her: shooting him the gimlet eye while they got smarmed to within an inch of their lives in Monroe’s office; chomping down on her breakfast muffin this morning; and, just a few minutes ago, pursing her lips into that little moue of surprise as she was blown away by the wild flowers.
Given that she seemed to be waging quite a battle to even be able to stand the sight of him, not one of those images should have been remotely hot. But somehow that didn’t stop
the heavy weight in his belly lowering to tighten his ball sac as she wiggled her toes.
‘I doubt it’s safe to swim in it, though.’ She tucked her socks into her trainers. ‘I can’t see the bottom. Dipping our feet in should be enough to cool us off.’
‘Suit yourself, but I’m going in.’ Because nothing short of a freezing-cold dunking would cool him off enough. He crouched to unlace his boots—and hoped she couldn’t hear the roughness in his voice. ‘The park authorities don’t much like people swimming, but I reckon it’s fine as long as you’re careful.’
Their gazes connected and he could see his own awareness reflected in the glassy sheen of her eyes.
Dream on, Best, she’s not interested unless you can time-travel back to 1998.
‘You’re mad,’ she said, lowering her big toe into the water. ‘You do know it’s freezing.’
‘Spoken like a true girl.’ He tugged his T-shirt and shorts off, keen to get into the water before the heat swelling in his gut hit critical mass.
From what his now completely one-track mind could recall of the research he’d done into the region, Cherokee Creek flowed down from the snowmelt on the highest peaks of the Blue Ridge in North Carolina—which should ensure the water was sufficiently cold enough to get his wayward dick under control.
He climbed up to the shelf of granite overlooking the pond. Clamping his teeth together, he cupped protective hands over the Eiffel Tower growing in his pants and leaped into the water, yodelling like a Comanche on the warpath.
He hit with a magnificent splash and heard Halle’s yelp of protest, above his own startled hiss, before he plunged under, gulping for breath a split second too late. The cold stung his skin, freezing the heat in his nuts. The shock to his system, though, made getting another stiffy before Christmas unlikely.
Mission accomplished.
Kicking off the rocks at the bottom, he broke the surface spluttering and coughing to expel the ice water he’d inhaled into his lungs.
‘You drenched me, you idiot.’ Halle stood over the pool wiping the droplets off her face.
‘Oops.’ He smiled. For once, she sounded amused instead of pissed off.
Mission impossible accomplished.
‘How cold is it?’ she asked.
‘Absolutely bloody freezing.’ He shuddered, treading water, his groin now blessedly numb, like the rest of him. ‘But it feels great. You coming in?’
She plucked at the soaked cotton of her top, which had moulded to her breasts as if she were modelling a wet T-shirt competition. ‘Sod it. All right, then.’
He grinned.
Then she whipped her T-shirt over her head, revealing a plain white sports bra that flattened her breasts against her torso, and the smile died. Her choice of underwear couldn’t have been less erotic, but it did more than enough to remind him of the full, firm weight of Halle’s breasts, the dusky pink shadow of her supersensitive nipples … The Holy Grail of his teenage years.
Fantasising about Halle’s boobs had caused him several mortifying moments as he sat cross-legged in the assembly hall and watched her file in with her class while he imagined the treasures that lay beneath the shapeless pinstriped blouse of her uniform.
Despite the thick fabric of the bra she wore now, which disguised the shape into a flat ridge, he could imagine the plump swell of soft succulent flesh, the large, ripe nipples through the spandex. And the soft sobs of her breathing as he captured them between his lips and tongued them into hard peaks. Damn, he could still remember the night they’d found out a guaranteed way to make her come with penetration was if he licked and nipped all around the areola and then sucked the tip to the roof of his mouth while establishing a deep, even rhythm of strokes. It had required every ounce of his control not to climax before she got there, but despite the occasional mishap, he’d learned to do it the way she liked with some degree of finesse.
He could perform with much more finesse now.
Was that still the only way she could hit the jackpot if he wasn’t manipulating her clitoris? Or had she discovered other sure-fire ways to achieve orgasm in the years since?
Blood pumped into his crotch while simultaneously blazing a trail up his neck.
He dived under the water, horrified at how quickly his thoughts had gotten out of control. But as he came up for air, there she was standing on the bank, wiggling out of her hiking shorts. And the torture continued.
She folded the garment and bent to add it to the neat pile she’d assembled, affording him a tantalising glimpse of her lush bottom covered in snug white cotton.
‘I’ll have you know I’m not a complete pussy,’ she declared as she marched towards the water.
