Page 27 of A Girl and HER Prince
He was in the middle of pulling her back just as the ball flew into the air and landed against the side of the churning water. He’d managed to block her perfect aim. Without another sound, she dove for it.
He found her waist and tugged her back. Her fingers scraped over the water. They’d already established that anything went for this game—holding, hand checking, personal violations and more. “Ooh, you play dirty!” she cried out. Livvy twisted around to face him.
That was ironic coming from her. “You don’t like having a taste of your own medicine, huh?” he asked. His hands slid down her arms. His finger caught on that dainty charm on her wrist and something stirred in his heart at touching it. He tried one last time to fight against his baser instincts. “Weren’t you the one who arranged this little dinner with me and Deedee?”
She stopped wriggling as his words hit the intended target. “I’d never! I told you I had nothing to do with this.”
He stilled, his eyes meeting hers. Her dark hair was an unruly mane curling around her shoulders and arms and now around Venice—just how he liked it. Only now did he realize that he had her pinned up between him and the edge of the Jacuzzi. Her chest lifted with her furious breaths. “You just didn’t thinkyou’dget caught in it too,” he whispered.
She planted her hands against his stomach and shoved him back. Her hand caught up the ball.
No, that was not happening!
She was focused on winning this competition, not on confession. He grappled with the slickness of her arm and his grip slipped through the water as she wriggled past him. She had the ball in two hands and threw it.
Too late, he found her shoulders and wrapped his arms across hers. A moment sooner and she wouldn’t have been able to make her move. His arms clamped over hers as he watched the ball’s progress.
The tiny plastic toy sailed through the air and drifted through the basket like it was coming home.
She fell back against Venice, laughing. “That’s that!” she crowed up at him. Her wet hair tickled his bare chest as she met his eyes. “No more Luvvy for you!”
He wasn’t so sure about that. His mind had cleared of hoops and scores; he was only arrested by the mirth in her happy eyes.
“I’m so so sorry,” she said. Nothing about her delightful snorts and belly laughs racking through her body lent credence to her words, and he was smitten. “First you get stuck in here with me,” she said, “and now you lose the biggest game of the year! This night is not going well for you.”
Unable to resist her a second longer, he picked her up and set her on the edge of the Jacuzzi. His arms went to either side of her as he drank in the beauty of her eyes.
She stilled, her laughter dying in a choke.
The galaxy made a magnificent backdrop in the black ocean behind her. The iconic windmills on Chios Island twisted lazily as they sailed past. The sight of the three ghostly stone structures was nothing to the wind blowing through the magnificence of her hair.
He touched a tendril, awestruck by even that, spellbound by this moment.
Her soft cheek was next, and it was as exquisite as he’d thought. Her breath hitched and her pink blush grew deeper under his fingers. Her lips parted ever so slightly.
That was it! He was taking that as permission to kiss her.
The door slammed against the wall when whoever was behind it pushed the thick metal open with the force of a cyclone.
Livvy scrambled back from him, so fast that Venice would think he’d only imagined she was there if it wasn’t for the water she’d left behind on the tiled deck.
“Deedee!” she cried out. “You finally came for us. What took you so long?”
Chapter Ten
She’d almost kissed Deedee’s prince.
What a disaster!
Livvy wasn’t even sure how it had happened. She’d only been playing a game of basketball, doing everything she could to win, even climb all over Venice’s strong back and shoulders… okay, maybe Livvy had alittlebit of an idea how this had happened.
She wasn’t stupid… well, not completely! It was like she was playing ball with her brothers until suddenly, it wasn’t like that… at all.
And now her gaze swerved from Venice to Deedee and the man she’d brought with her. Achilles! Venice’s best friend laughed down at him and Livvy like he’d caught them getting into Daedalus’s wings and flying too close to the sun.
Deedee’s hands gripped Achilles’s bronzed forearms, clutching him like she’d done everything in her power to bring him to this dinner with her. Was that what had taken Deedee so long to catch up to them?
Livvy picked up the basketball, her fingers sliding over the silly toy that had almost gotten her into deep water. Even now she was flooded with a Pandora’s box of emotions that could not be stuffed back into her soul. The hazel, almost yellow color of Venice’s eyes were on her and dancing with mischief; the muscular structure of his shoulders and everywhere else she’d touched in her mad dash to beat him were actually reddening under her rough treatment; and that dimple deepening under his bristly jawline was the worst thing of all, especially since it possessed some strange power over her, making her soften as he grinned at her like they’d magically become partners in crime.
