Page 30 of Rivals to Lovers
“Like me,” Wes said.
She didn’t want to laugh, but she did. She loved how everything seemed to come so easy to him. She hated how everything came so easily to him.
“Want to dip your feet in the hot tub?” Wes said.
The patio was illuminated only by subtle in-ground lighting. The back of the house was dark. The kitchen staff were done with cleanup from dinner and drinks and had gone home for the night. The pool house, which probably sometimes hosted guests, was similarly dark, so that she felt momentarily peaceful. “Sure.”
The area was walled off behind a slatted privacy fence, obviously not on the tour route. Wes edged off the cover of the in-ground hot tub, undoing the sides and sliding it up and placing it near the ADA lift next to the basin. He dipped a hand in the top of the water, then leaned over to adjust something on a box nearby. She knew as much about hot tubs as she did about Maseratis—she could probably handle one if she needed to but wanted someone else to do the servicing. After a second, more bubbles hit the surface.
Wes sat on the cool concrete beside the hot tub. He took off his calf-length socks, then rolled the cuffs of his pants. He patted the ledge next to him. She left her flats on the pool deck away from the water. She paused momentarily, worried about the dress that Ulla had bought her, but ultimately, life was short and she sat down next to him. Mo placed her feet in the bubbles next to his and leaned back. The sides of their hands touched, not that she meant to do that, but she didn’t move them away either.
It was strange: They were still competing, technically, but the active part in the competition was over. She remembered hearing about all the sex that went on in Olympic villages—the thousands of condoms handed out to prevent superathletic post-Olympic offspring (or more likely, international transmission of STIs). The air was magnetically charged so close to someone at your level. Sure, she’d gone out with other writers,but they had acted dismissive about her work. It was clear that Wes respected her as they went head-to-head. He listened. She wondered what he would have thought of her first book, the one that never sold. She had also poured a part of her soul into that book, and she wanted to share it with him in a way that she rarely had since that project failed to sell.
The warm jets pulsed against the backs of her thighs, massaging the tension she hadn’t even known she held there. She must have moaned, because Wes bumped his shoulder into hers. “That good, huh?”
“I was more tense than I thought.”
“What kind of tense?” His voice was light, teasing.
“Oh, the sexual kind, for sure,” she said, matching his tone.
He smiled, then began to unbutton his shirt. He slid it over his head while she pretended not to notice. Then, glancing behind them at the dark house, he undid his pants and lowered them. The privacy fence mostly walled in the hot tub so that it felt like being in a room—a room without a ceiling. She thanked the landscapers for the fencing so that she could enjoy the view of his body in private. He wore plain blue boxer briefs tight against his thick thighs. Above them was a soft fold of stomach, a dark line of hair tracing enticingly down. He caught her looking. “It’s basically a swimsuit,” he said.
He did a perfect box fold on the clothing and laid it in a pile next to the hot tub.
“I do not know why you’re folding your clothes when you’re going to get them wet,” she teased.
“Wet is just fine with me,” he said. “Can I help you release some tension?”
Her dress suddenly felt too tight across her chest, or maybe she wasn’t breathing enough. “By doing what?”
“Nothing you don’t agree to. I was thinking of helping those jets,” he said, stepping into the water. The hot tub interior lights certainly did justice to his body—solid, with more than a suggestion at the muscle definition in his abs and arms. His shoulders, those shoulders that had hefted her up last night, looked sturdier bare and in shadow than they did under his polo shirts and button-downs. It wasn’t that she didn’t usually go for preppy guys—okay, maybe she didn’t usually go for preppy guys. But his prep had an edge of self-deprecation to it that she appreciated.
She had gone out on a few dates since Aaron, and some of them had gone further than kissing. Nothing had made her feel the way Wes did as he held her calf in his hands and began to rub.
He looked up at her from the water, one leg in each of his hands, and asked, “Is this all right?”
Mo moaned as his thumbs applied pressure up and down her calf. Knots began to untangle. “This was always my favorite part of a pedicure,” she said.
He smiled at her. “Me too, honestly, though some women might think it’s weird that I have an opinion on them.”
“You like nice things,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed, his hands moving farther up her leg, “I do.”
She let him sink his thumbs into the front of her lower thighs, pressing and moving his fingers in a steady rhythm. “Tell me if this tickles,” he said, “because that’s not my goal.”
Those hands worked for a minute, set to make her legs into jelly, before creeping ever so slightly upward. They brushed under the edge of her dress hem, the hem she hadlifted to her upper thighs to avoid getting it wet. Looking at her lap, Mo couldn’t see his hands underneath the fabric, but she could see him, wet and mostly covered by bubbles near her knees. “What is your goal?” Mo asked.
Suddenly his hands shot from under her hem to grab her around the waist. He pulled her into the hot tub with him. She blinked, the warm water fizzing and bubbling all around her. “To get you wet.”
She pushed herself off his chest, the sopping fabric of the dress flowing upward in the bubbles. “You asshole,” Mo said, laughing.
“I’ll pay for dry cleaning,” he said.
After a glance at the dark sky and reminding herself of the solidness of the privacy fence, Mo pulled the dress over her head and let it flop on the deck of the hot tub. “There. Are you happy?”
“Extremely.”
