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She looks surprised and blinks up at me. She seems torn. I know she wants to stay mad at me, but she can’t. “You’re such a hypocrite,” she snaps. She pulls her hand out of mine and wraps her arms around herself. The move only pushes her chest out more.
“Hypocrite?” I repeat. She nods and glares at me.
“Yes, hypocrite. I know you go on dates all the time. Matter of fact, Gemma told me you took her to a coffee shop to ‘hang out’ last week,” she says, air quoting the words. I bite back a smile.
“Minx, what exactly did you think hanging out meant? Gemma and I were working on a project together. I asked to meet her so we could finally finish it.”
She looks at me in disbelief, and the stubborn tilt of her chin tells me nothing I say will convince her I didn’t actually go on a date with Gemma. Hell, I’ve never bothered to go on a date with anyone, but she won’t ever take my word for it so I don’t bother telling her.
I pull a hand through my hair and sigh. “Okay, Minx. How about a clean slate? I’m sorry. Can we stop arguing, please? I hate arguing with you. You know, like really arguing. I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never mean to hurt you, Emilia. I was just being me.”
She purses her lips and eventually nods at me. “Was it really that hard to just apologize?” she asks. I drop my head and sigh.
“You never apologized, you know. You ruined the first date I ever went on, and you didn’t even bother to say sorry.”
That’s what she’s so upset about? She’s upset because I didn’t apologize? I bite down on my lip and nod contritely. “You’re right, Minx. I didn’t even realize, but it’s true. I didn’t apologize. I just assumed that you knew I was sorry. And, you know, I kind of just didn’t really get why you were so upset about Tony. Him, really? He doesn’t deserve to so much as look at you, Emilia.”
She blushes and looks up at me with wide eyes. “It’s not him I was upset about, per se,” she whispers.
I sigh and twirl a strand of her hair around my finger. “Then what was it?”
Emilia looks away, her cheeks bright red. “Carter, that was my first date. I might not have cared that much about Tony, but I was still excited. And now all I’ll remember about my first date is how bad it was.”
I shake my head and place my hands around her shoulders. “That wasn’t your first date, Minx. It wasn’t a real date. Let me make it up to you, okay? Truce?”
Emilia smiles. “Yeah, okay. Truce,” she whispers.
I exhale in relief. I was worried I’d have to do far more groveling, and I have no idea what the right thing to do would be.
“Okay, great, so can we swim now?” I ask, smiling down at her.
She looks at me in surprise. “Swim?” she repeats.
I nod and tip my head to the lake behind me. I’m hoping this might make up for the date I ruined.
“It’s evening, Carter. We can barely see. Surely we shouldn’t be going into the lake right now.”
I grin mischievously. “What, you don’t dare go skinny dipping?” I pull my t-shirt over my head and let it fall to the floor. My hands move to the button on my jeans and her eyes are glued to my fingers. Fucking hell, I’m hard already.
“Turn around,” I tell her. She swallows hard and looks at my body longingly. She’s undressing me with her eyes. I doubt she knows what she’s doing to me when she looks at me like that. Emilia nods and turns around, and I undress quickly. I hesitate, but end up taking my boxer shorts off too. I drop them on top of my jeans so she’ll know I’m actually naked.
I rush to jump into the water. I was hoping it’d be colder so I could at least get rid of my damn hard on, but no such luck. I turn my back towards Emilia. “Okay, your turn, Minx.”
Part of me is worried that she’ll change her mind and walk off, leaving me here naked by myself. Or worse, that she’ll walk off with my clothes — I wouldn’t put it past her.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear fabric hitting the floor. Emilia lowers herself into the water far more gracefully than I did, and suddenly I’m nervous as hell.
“Hmm, I thought you’d chicken out,” I say, my voice trembling slightly.
Emilia glares as she swims towards me. “I would never.”
I’m startled when she grabs my shoulders. I’m tall enough to stand here, but Emilia isn’t. She uses me to keep herself afloat and her body is far too close to mine. All I can think about is that she’s naked and my heart starts racing. The tips of my shoulders are above the water, and the way Emilia holds herself up allows me to just about see the top of her breasts. She’s so stunning.
“How come you wanted to go swimming?” she asks.
“Skinny dipping was on my bucket list,” I murmur. “Besides, I heard that it makes for a cool, unique date. It’s the only thing I could come up with on such short notice and with no time to prepare.”
She looks at me in surprise and smiles. “This is a date?” she asks. I shrug and brush her wet hair out of her face. She sees right through me. “You wanted to make up for the date you ruined?”
