Page 31 of A Game of Ruck
She swallows.Her eyes flick up to mine.“So, it’s okay?”
“Okay?It’s fucking devastating.”I trail a finger along the strap of her bikini top.“You have no idea what you do to me.”
I lower my head, brushing my lips along her bare shoulder.
“Still worried?”I whisper against her skin.
She’s breathing faster now.
Her fingers clutch the edge of my trunks like she doesn’t trust her knees.
“No,” she breathes.“Not anymore.”
“Good,” I grin, stepping back just enough to grab a towel and the bag with the sunscreen.“Because I’m about to be the luckiest man alive on the sand, and I plan on rubbing this in every single smug fucking face I see.”
She laughs, soft and disbelieving.
But I can see it.
She’s glowing.
And damn if I don’t want to spend the rest of my life making her feel that way.
“Okay, then let’s do this,” she says, offering her hand.
I take it.
Fuck yes, I take it.
We head through the lobby, toward the beach entrance, and I’m so caught up in the sway of her hips in that sheer cover-up I don’t see the ambush coming until it’s too late.
“Annabeth!”Lisa’s voice drips with faux surprise, syrupy sweet and about as genuine as her knockoff Chanel earrings.
“Oh, good—we caught you!”
And there they are.
The Brat Brigade.
Lisa and her three clone-like bridesmaids in matching pink bikinis and smug expressions.
Boyfriends loiter nearby like human accessories with towels slung over their shoulders.
“We decided to move our little pool day to the beach instead,” Lisa says, eyes flicking between me and Annabeth with shark-like precision.
“Hope that’s okay?”
“Of course it is, Lisa,” Annabeth replies smoothly, like a seasoned diplomat at a hostage negotiation.“It’s your wedding party, after all.”
Grace under fire.That’s my girl.
“Catch, bro!”David, the groom-to-be and certified dickhead, tosses a football at me without warning.
Like the rugby player can’t play American football.
I catch it with one hand, mostly out of spite.
My smile is tight and not nice.“Cool,” I say flatly.
