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“Swimsuit rules stand.” She drags my hand into the safety zone of her waist.
I grin against her shoulder. She freaking turned me down, and I’m grinning. “Jess?”
“Please stop talking, and go to sleep.”
It’s going to be one damn long night. And so freaking worth it.
Naked nuns. Naked nuns. Naked nuns...
chapter 51
Jess
Dad came by for the rest of his stuff. I wanted to drink so bad, but I didn’t want to let T down, so I called him instead. He distracted me for hours with his most embarrassing moments, like when he peed his pants in Little League, until my parents quit screaming and I quit shaking.
~ from the diary of Elizabeth Sara Thorne (age16)
“Jess.” My name floats by.
I’m cocooned in a blanket of heat, baking under the hot sun on a beach. Only, the sand isn’t scratchy, it’s soft.
“Jessica.” The voice is low. Angry. Impatient. And rips me off the beach and into the hotel room, where it’s not sunny, and rain slaps against the window.
I blink at the clock in the dim room. How is it three p.m.? Blink again. At the person looming over me. The very big person. “Dad?” My insides liquefy.
He rips the covers off.
Every touch and kiss Gabe and I shared last night comes rushing back—perfectly timed with a low rumble of thunder outside.
Gabe lifts his head from my pillow where he’s wrapped around me, naked chest to my back, his hand owning my hip, his leg shoved between mine.
“Jess-i-ca Ma-rie Gray.” Dad’s deep bass booms through my chest louder than storm.
“Shit.” Gabe detangles our limbs and rolls off me to stand on the opposite side of the bed, rubbing his eyes, still waking up.
I scramble toward the headboard, yanking the comforter with me. In my tank and shorts, I’m nowhere near naked. But Dad’s concentrated stare makes me feel like I am.
“Trevor Gray?” Gabe flicks a confused glance between us. “Your dad’sTrevor Gray?”
“Is that what’s important here?” I clutch the comforter tighter. In this moment, Dad’s not Gabe’s favorite author, he’s the guy who caught a boy in bed with his daughter and outbulks that boy by fifty pounds.
Dad’s gaze jerks off me to scrape over Gabe’s messy hair, fanboy grin, bare chest, and low-hanging shorts. “Who the hell are you?”
“Gabe.” Walking around the bed, he offers his hand. “Your special ops series kicks ass.”
Dad looks like he wants to kick Gabe’s—
“It’s not what it looks like.” He runs the hand Dad rejected through his hair, nodding toward me huddled in the bed.
“Ididn’tjust find you in bed with my daughter?” Dad crosses his arms and widens his stance, like the pissed-off marine he is, nailing the bulging biceps, the rock-hard jaw, and the I-know-seventy-two-ways-to-end-you eyes.
I say, “Nothing happened,” at the same time Gabe says, “We just slept together.”
“You justslepttogether?” The artery bulging in Dad’s neck pushes me against the headboard.
“We didn’t have sex.” Gabe backtracks with his words and his feet.
Did he just saysexto my dad? I hug my knees.
