Page 36 of Breathless

With her lips pressed together, she nods but still doesn’t look convinced, and it’s suddenly imperative that she believeme.

Feeling like she’s too far away, I grab her by her slender hips and pull her against me and graze my lips across the shell of her ear. “Jo.” She shivers. It’s not cold. It’s a breezy eighty-five-degree day. I’m doing this to her. “Are youjealous?”

Silence stretches between us until she finally asks, “Would it bother you if Iwas?”

Smiling against her neck, I shake my head. “For some reason, it’s sexy as hell.” She laughs, and I pull her tighter until I’m sporting wood against her stomach. “Well, we’ve never done thisbefore.”

I cough, wondering if I should let her go, but she winds her arms around my neck, pushing those perfect tits against my chest. With a growl, I kiss her neck and breathe in the sweet warmth of her skin. She gasps, and that sound rocksme.

Now that I’ve started touching her, I can’t stop. I run my palm over her back, wishing we didn’t have so many clothes betweenus.

She whispers, “Guess there’s a first time for everything,huh?”

Fuck,yes.

Only…

“Babe, we have to stop before I’m walking hunched over from this chub.” Her shoulders shake with laughter, and reluctantly, I pull back. Her fingers fly to her neck, absentmindedly touching where I just kissed her. “Tell me something notsexy.”

She thinks for a second. “Remember when you taught me how to farmer snot? I was eight, and I went home with boogers running down myface.”

My lips tilt up in a grin. She was this pocket-sized blonde sprite with a tangled mess of hair, enormous gray eyes, and ratty overalls. About the cutest thing I’d ever seen in my life. “Who needs tissue,right?”

Shaking her head, she gives me a playful nudge. “My mother marched me straight into the bathroom and hosed medown.”

I don’t know what’s come over me, but I wanna stare at her all day, except I’d rather get her in that swimsuit. “Come on. We’re not gonna let anyone ruin this weekend for us.” She smiles as I thread my fingers through hers and tug her toward thecondo.

When we walk in, everyone stops talking, but this is my brother’s wedding celebration, and fuck them if they pull anything on me. I’ll just find us another place to stay ifmy friendsgive us any attitude. We’ll probably spend most of our time with Ethan and Tori anyway. We just need a place tosleep.

I nod at Patrick and he nods back. “Hey, man. Heard we could stay here. Thatokay?”

His attention is drilled on our linked hands. He swallows. “Of course. But there’s only one roomleft.”

I give him the biggest shit-eating grin, since I’m pretty sure he wanted to tank things with me and Joey before they started because he wants her for himself. “That’s okay. We only need oneroom.”

14

Joey

The bathroom doorcloses behind me with a quiet snick. I’m freezing with the air conditioner, but it’ll be warm once we hit the beach in a fewminutes.

Taking a page from Tori’s playbook, I grabbed some old cutoffs to ease myself into wearing a two-piece in front of my friends. I tug down my bikini top to make sure it’s covering the vitalparts.

I’m still putting my hair into a messy ponytail when I stop in front of the queen-sized bed where Rambo wags his tail. Logan stares at me from the other side of the smallroom.

Slender board shorts hang off his trim hips, and he smiles, looking like my teenage dream, the one I spent way too many nights fantasizing about. His hair is disheveled, messy from pulling off his T-shirt, and there’s nothing more I want to do than run my fingers throughit.

Sweet blue blazes, I’m really rooming withLogan.

All of his tan muscles are on display. Those shoulders I want to lick. Those arms I’ve been lusting over since forever. And holy guacamole, thoseabs.

My mouth goes dry as I’m slammed with the possibility of what’s happening betweenus.

I think… I think he wants me. That’s what’s going on here, right? Because he’s never put his hands on me like he didtoday.

I didn’t imagine that erection he pressed against my stomach fifteen minutes ago on the porch or the way he dragged his lips across my neck. Elation and terror spiral through me. Taking things further with Logan will either be the smartest thing I’ve ever done or thedumbest.

Everything in me heats with desire, but I can’t deny this might be lunacy. We could obliterate alifetimeoffriendship.

---