Page 79 of False Start

“Woo!” He reemerged, hand up in a fist and a huge smile on his face. “Kit! That’s fun as hell!”

I crouched down, my hands not concealing nearly enough. “We had a deal, Texas!”

“Right.” I stood up at the sound of splashing. He tread water toward the rope, gripping it in one hand. “Your turn. Tell me when you’re taking off.”

I dipped a toe into the water, a chill running down my spine. With only a couple of inches of running water, there was no way to ease myself into submersion, and Trent wouldn’t stay turned away forever.

“Fine,” I huffed, sitting down and scooting into the groove of rock that served as a chute. “I’m going.”

I pressed my palms against the slick rock, surprised at how little effort it took to get me moving down the slide. My hips bounced off blunted rocks, ricocheting me in a zig-zag pattern down the rock face.

If the weather had been twenty degrees hotter and I wore a swimsuit, it’d even be fun, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off Trent as he tilted his head, viewing my descent out of his peripheral vision.

I opened my mouth to shout a warning and before I could get out a sound, I was airborne. Just as quickly, I went underwater. Brisk river water invaded my lungs and chilled my entire body. I sucked in a breath, panic setting in as the current churned around me, keeping me underwater.

This is how I died. Naked in a river. And I’d end up haunting the damn place, my immortal soul too embarrassed to go anywhere else. I’d spend the rest of my days reliving Trent recovering my waterlogged body and hauling it out of the river.

But hell, that was preferable to surviving the slide. Video evidence existed. Trent had probably already dove to find me, playing the hero to my damsel in distress.

Just as I gave in to the choppy waters, choosing a watery grave to Trent’s rescue, his vise-like arms wrapped around my waist and hauled me up. “Fucking hell, Kitten.”

I emerged spluttering water and coughing hard enough to dislodge a lung. I wrapped my legs around Trent, arms encircling his neck like a howler monkey, my body not onboard about letting me drown.

My chest spasmed as I attempted to speak. “I’m…fine…”

“You can barely breathe.”

“I just got the wind knocked out of me,” I gasped. The spots behind my eyes cleared as the panic ebbed away. I wouldn’t die of anything except embarrassment. “I’m fine.”

I pushed away from Trent, but he held on tight. “You can barely breathe. Give it a minute. I’ll get you to the rope ladder.”

He had a point. So, I stopped fighting him as I continued sucking in air, my limbs heavy. A cough rattled my chest but as my breath modulated, the seeping realization that I was naked in Trent’s very sizable arms, my breasts molded to his chest and what I weirdly hoped was his cock against my ass. The last thing I needed to add to this scenario was a curious fish.

“This was such a stupid idea,” I muttered, raking a hand over my face before I burrowed my face into his neck.

“I bet that video is hilarious, though.”

I shook my head. “It never happened. That’s getting erased immediately. We can take a photo when we get to my phone.”

“But points,” Trent weakly argued.

“My dignity is worth more than a few points.”

The rope brushed against my back, but Trent didn’t let go. I didn’t let go either. I pulled my face away, gauging his reaction. His lips tipped up in a rogue-ish smile. His damp blond hair curled against his temple, turning burnt red in the afternoon sun. Attractive. Worse than attractive. Downright hot. Attainably hot.

Which was a real problem. Not for Trent, obviously, but until now, Trent’s unattainable hotness buffered me against any actual attraction. He was a pretty face on a television screen, a guy who slept with models and was, at best, nice to look at.

But in the seclusion of the river, stripped naked, he was way too close to being attainable. We could have been a couple. We could have been two twenty-somethings on a romantic getaway. And that was a wildly dangerous thought.

I sucked in a breath and released my arms from him, grabbing for the rope. “I promise I won’t fall in. Turn around.”

Trent’s muscles flexed against my waist, drawing me closer. Maybe he wouldn’t let me go. Maybe we’d repeat that kiss from two nights ago.

His muscles relaxed as he shuttled me toward the rope, gently pushing me away. “No problem, Kitten.”

He waded into the middle of the pool and turned to face the slide, back glistening in the sunlight.

I tore my eyes away, grasping the thick rope and pulling myself up. The violent crash into the water sapped more energy from me than I realized, and I collapsed at the top of the rock in a heap.

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