Page 42 of Some Like It Hott

Creases form between his eyebrows.

“That’s not supposed to be a hard question,” I say, laughing.

He looks away. “I don’t know if I know how to have fun.”

Oh, Preston. But that makes sense, too.

“What about when you were a kid?” I ask.

He runs his hand over the surface of the water, and his fingers nearly brush me. I’ve been moving closer to him all this time, drawn in by his story. “What about it?”

“Did you have fun then?”

“Someone had to watch out for Hanna,” he says. “Someone had to make sure Shane and Quinn didn’t kill each other. Someone had to call 911 when Tucker decided it would be a good idea to try to jump from one tree to another like Tarzan.”

So he could never let down his guard. Never be a kid. My chest tightens. “So, basically, you were the grown-up.”

“I guess I never thought about it like that—but yeah, kind of. Not when we were really little. Back in those days, we played capture the flag and tag and all those kinds of games. And yeah. It was fun. We’d run and play, and there was so much space and so many hours before we’d get called to dinner.”

He’s got a faraway look in his dark eyes, staring at memories over my shoulder. A smile tugs at both corners of his mouth now, and I have to make myself stop staring at how beautiful it makes his chiseled face. At some point, he’s drifted even closer to me. I’m breathless.

His eyes snap back to my face. “We made a pact,” he says abruptly. “The five of us brothers. That when we all grew up, we’d stay or come back, and run the ranch together.” He holds out his hand to show me a scar at the base of his thumb. “We swore a blood oath.”

I reach for his hand. He lets me cradle the back of his hand against my palm. The heat of his skin singes me, in the best possible way.

“And you?—”

“And I broke it. We all broke it. But I was the first one.”

I haven’t known him long, but even I understand that when he broke that oath, something in him broke, too. I ache for him.

I can’t help myself; I run a fingertip over his wet skin along the scar, and it’s like touching a live wire. For him, too, I think because he rasps out something between a sharp exhale and a grunt. My breath catches, a quieter echo.

My eyes find his, dark and frank and pleading, and I can’t look away.

His gaze drops to my mouth.

“Preston,” I murmur, and my voice doesn’t even sound like mine. “Maybe you need to do something just for fun.”

“Maybe I do,” he murmurs back, right before he takes another step closer and his mouth comes down, hard, on mine.

21

Preston

She whimpers and clutches me. Her mouth opens, instantly generous, and God, her lips are so fucking soft. Her tongue slips against mine, silky and welcoming. Hunger flashes through me. I’m raw and ravenous, the kiss greedy and slick and combative. Like we’re fighting for control, even in this.

“Natalie,” I groan as she glides closer. She’s wearing a bikini, and she’s all smooth wet skin, slick against mine, and it’s driving me crazy. Lighting me on fire. I touch her waist, and it’s just like I thought, satin and squeezable, and I want more of her, I want my hands all over her, I want my mouth all over her.

For now I content myself with loving how her bare skin tightens with goose bumps under my touch. I content myself with running one hand up the perfect, pretty slope of her belly until I find what I’ve been fantasizing about, the weight of her breast in my hand. I explore all the curves that she offers to me—the sensitive underside, the generous roundness. And then my fingertips brush over her hard nipple, and she whimpers and clutches me, hungry and trusting. It almost undoes me, but it also makes me remember that she’s vulnerable.

So, reluctantly, I drop my hand and break the kiss. I force myself to put distance between us.

“Preston.”

My name is a question.

“I want—” I start, but I can’t even finish the sentence. There are too many things. I want to pinch that peaked nipple, roll it, tease the tip until her knees go weak. I want to find out how to make her come, if I can bring her there with my mouth on her breasts and my fingertips on her clit, or if she needs more. My thigh between hers. My mouth between her legs. My fingers crooked inside her.

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