Page 41 of Redemption

CHAPTER TWELVE

The goose bumps on Victoria’s skin jumped, but it had nothing to do with the water and everything with the rush of adrenaline. The scruff from Ryder’s cheek scratched her neck, and his muscles captured her against his warm chest in the best oxymoron she’d experienced in her life. His body was hot to touch, hard to hold, cut like steel, and soft to burrow against. His mouth was against her ear. Her nipples reacted to the tease of his lips before her mind could rationalize that even as she laughed and cried no, all of her moanedyes.

“Close your eyes.” He held her tight, laughing even harder as she kicked her legs.

“Don’t you dare.”

“We’re going under.” They spun the other direction.

Victoria freed an arm and scooped as much water as she could, throwing it at him over and over. “You’re a dead man.”

“Three… two…” He tipped backward in slo-mo, taking her with him.

“Ryd—”

The water couldn’t have been more than three or four feet deep, but Ryder was submerged, and she easily could have stood. As her feet fluttered for the sandy bottom, he sank like deadweight, and his palms slid from her side, over her butt, then to her thighs. Victoria stopped fluttering, if just for the moment, to let the delicious shock roll over her. His hands smoothed back up, wrapping around her back, and Ryder pushed off the ground, rocketing them out of the water. They shot into the sun, and her hair was everywhere, sunglasses gone.

Victoria flipped her hair back and wiped the water from her face, blushing and smiling because she couldn’t help it. He even had a playful grin, a boyish I-felt-up-my-girl tease hanging on his face, and she didn’t care that they probably an audience.

“You’re a dead man,” she whispered, catching her breath, having no reason to have lost it except that the man in front of her kept stealing it.

“I’d love to see you try, love.”

It wasn’t as if she was inept at a takedown, even if he had her in terms of weight and training. Victoria grabbed his arm and swung—the water buoyancy wasn’t helping—and he pulled his forearm round. She pushed up.

“Ha!” She couldn’t stop laughing because that move should have used her weight to counteract his defense, but she simply lofted herself up in the water. Instead, she pushed, he pulled, and they were face-to-face. Almost lip to lip. Breath to breath, her heart pounding, pulse thumping in her ear. The tickle of their breaths colliding made her roll her lips together. All she wanted to do was kiss him. Every nerve hummed, every thought drifted to their magnetic pull.

A football landed a foot away, shooting water in its wake. They jumped apart as someone from the beach yelled to Ryder, “Chill with the swim lessons.”

Her face lit on fire. “Oh my God.”

Still smiling but shaking his head and laughing, he cursed before snagging the ball and drilling it back toward one of his teammates.

“I just died.”

Ryder winked as he turned back. “Ah, they’re just fucking with us.”

“I’m dead.” She might never get out of the water. Did she almost kiss Ryder in front of a shore full of his coworkers and their kids?

He took her hand, dragging her to walk deeper. “Forget them—”

“Who wants in on volleyball?” Mia yelled loud enough that Victoria questioned how such a tiny person could exert that many decibels.

“Unless you want in on that?”

“Iampretty good,” she admitted.

He changed directions, walking them back toward the beach. “Well, let’s go because I don’t lose.”

As the depth became lower, she realized that no one was staring at her like she should be mortified for nearly making out with Ryder in the water. Heck, Luke and Maddy were making out, and right after Mia finished laying out the volleyball and net, Colby ran over and kicked the ball. Their kids and dogs chased it, and as everyone laughed, Mia picked up a squirt gun that looked like a bazooka and exacted her revenge. Not a hot second later, Colby had her disarmed and carefully in his arms, running after the ball with the kids and the dogs as Mia laughed.

Clearly, Victoria almost kissing Ryder wasn’t going to make anyone uncomfortable, and this was the happiest place she’d ever been.

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Knock.Knock.

“Come in,” Victoria called from the edge of her bed.

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