Page 79 of Wingwoman
He set his down on one of the side tables, then taking the hem of his t-shirt, he yanked it over his head, leaving him, not for the first time, gloriously shirtless in front of me. That torso of his had so many lines and ridges I was pretty sure if I ran my fingers across them, it would strum like a guitar.
I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t realized the shorts he was standing there wearing were swim trunks until the very moment when he dove into the water, his body arching over mine like a rainbow.
When he came out of the water, I was in the same spot, still treading water.
Just like in life.
Keeping my head above water. Peddling my feet and arms only to get nowhere and gain nothing but surviving yet another day.
When he emerged from underwater, he swam easily to me, his muscles rippling right along with the water.
I backed up, bumping into the edge of the pool. I lifted my one free hand, steadying myself against the side while I held the coconut cup in the other.
“Tell me a secret,” he said. The blue of the water bounced off the blue of his eyes, deepening the hue to a shade that looked nearly inhuman. He looked like a faery or werewolf or something out of this world.
“I don’t have secrets.”
“Bullshit. Everyone has secrets.”
I thought for a moment. “I don’t have intentional secrets. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, but that doesn’t make it a secret.”
“We’ll learn a lot about each other over the next six weeks,” he said. “But I want to know something no one else knows.”
My jaw ticked. I didn’t like demands. And I definitely didn’t like them from men I didn’t know well. “Secrets are earned. Not given. As per our contract, I am required to stay here in this house, take no other clients, outside of Maggie, and attend public events with you. Nothing in that contract stated I had to bare my soul to you.”
The tip of his tongue darted between his lips. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah. Good answer.”
God, I hated these games. “Why? Wait, let me guess. Because a muse needs to be mysterious? And sexy?”
He shook his head slowly. “It’s not as much about being mysterious as it is making me work for it. My mother always saidwhen something comes too easy, you let it go easily too.”
“That’s… profound of her,” I said. I think I would have liked Josh’s mother from what he’s told me.
“It’s a quote from one of her favorite authors, Nora Roberts.”
“That explains the bookshelf,” I said.
He nodded. “The guest room used to be her room.” Then after a moment’s thought, he added. “That doesn’t make you uncomfortable, does it?”
“Not at all.”
And it didn’t.
Without warning, Josh leaned forward and wrapped his lips around my straw, taking a long, playful sip of my drink.
“Hey!” I wrenched it back and away from his mouth, but he held onto his straw between his puckered lips. Still sucking, even as I pulled my coconut away, a little bit of the piña colada dribbled out of his straw landing in the pool water between us.
The slightly yellow, icy liquid spread through the pool water looking like pee.
I scrunched my nose. “Gross, look what you did.”
“WhatIdid? It wouldn’t have made a mess if you hadn’t pulled away.”
“You have an untouched drink sitting right over there!” I pointed to his abandoned coconut he hadn’t even taken a sip from.
