Page 40 of Some Like It Hott

Plus I need time to think about things.

Like what happened in the Jell-O pool.

I should never have taken Shane’s place. I guess I got caught up in the moment. Everyone was having fun. It all seemed harmless.

Lesson learned: It’s all fun and games until someone gets poked in the thigh by Preston Hott’s big, hard cock.

All of a sudden, I was wanting things I had no right to want. I imagined opening my arms and spreading my legs and letting his weight pin me to the ground. I wanted?—

God, Iwanted.

I still want.

And, if the…sturdiness of his arousal was any indication, I am apparently not the only one.

“Hey,” a voice says from the gate.

A deep voice, slightly roughened from a long day, rasps over my overheated, oversensitive skin like the stroke of a calloused hand.

“You, um, mind company?” Preston asks.

I shake my head.

“I came down for a soak, but if you’d rather—I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding. There’s plenty of room for both of us.”

I’m not sure that’s true. There might not be enough room in the world for the two of us and my body’s reaction to him.

He sets his towel on a table, then pulls his T-shirt over his head. It’s almost completely dark out now, except for small landscaping lights and the fairy lights that ring the enchanted space, but I can see well enough. And all the breath leaves my body, because he’s beautiful.Renaissance statuebeautiful,romance novel coverbeautiful. Sculpted pecs, ridged abs, sturdy shoulders, and God’s gift to arms.

He slides into the springs, and my nipples tighten at the sight of him and the tease of the rippling water.

He sits a couple of feet away from me. A theoretically safe distance. And he submerges himself to his chin under the surface of the water, which lets me draw a few full breaths.

“It was really nice to meet your family,” I say.

“Thanks.”

“You and your brothers—you seem to really love each other. Despite the shit they give you.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Hey. Thanks for, um, saving me from the third degree with Shane and Quinn.”

“They were asking you about Kali, huh?”

He nods. “I didn’t want to talk about it with them.”

“You probably don’t want to talk about it with me, either, then,” I say lightly. Because I want to know, but I don’t want to force him.

But he shakes his head. Shrugs. And—I don’t think it’s my imagination—moves closer to me along the ledge submerged beneath the steaming surface of the water.

“I met her at college,” he says.

My pulse kicks up. He’s confiding in me, and I want to take his words and tuck them into a treasure box and keep them safe.

“My granddad—” He stops.

“You and your siblings all were raised by your grandfather?”

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