Page 21 of Never Date A Player
Now he tells me?
His low, deep voice above my ear, the spread of his fingers on my hips, have my arms shaking. I fight the sensation, because, dammit, I’m more coordinated than this, though you wouldn’t know it with him around. I adjust my grip and bend my knees into the shallow waves, making slow, steady progress across the water.
Lewis’s fingers splay wider and tense with the rise of a large swell. Heat ripples through my stomach and thighs. “Where’s Mira?” I say irritably, focusing on his hands instead of the paddle.
He’s silent for a moment, his fingers loosening the only acknowledgment he heard me. “Not sure.”
“You don’t know where your girlfriend is?”
“My what? Mira’s not my girlfriend… It’s complicated.”
Of course it’s complicated. I dip the paddle and move us out farther. “You don’t have to talk about it. I get it.”
“No, you don’t. Mira… She’s had it rough. I know she comes off testy sometimes, but she’s vulnerable and sweet when you know her.”
And he’s there to protect her, his beautiful not-a-girlfriend. God, why did I ask?
“To answer your question, I haven’t seen Mira for a couple of days.” His voice tightens. “I think she’s with her mother.”
That makes him angry, Mira being with her mother?
He clears his throat, but it’s forced, as if to change the subject. “What about you? What’s your family like?”
“My family?” Not getting into a conversation about Chantell. “Complicated.”
“I see.” His hands tighten on my hips again. A spear of arousal hits me in the sweet spot.
I spin around. “What’s up with you?” Did I just say that?
He glances above my head. “You should keep?—”
“Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. You need to pay more attention to your ‘it’s complicated’ relationship and the signals you give off—ooof.”
I’m falling. Onto Lewis.
This time, instead of catching me, he’s going down too.
I let go of the paddle a split second before it tangles with our bodies. The cold of the water stings my skin in counterpoint to the heat of Lewis’s chest as he envelops me in his arms. I cling to the devastating warmth at the same time I push it away, my instinct to kick to the surface stronger.
I breach the water a second before Lewis pops up, his head flinging back a spray. My teeth chatter. I’m gasping from shock, from cold.
He chuckles.
“This isn’t funny.”
His mouth turns down a fraction, but his smile doesn’t completely fade. He swims to me and wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me to his warm chest.
I can’t catch my breath, and it has nothing to do with the water temperature and everything to do with the rightness of his body against mine. Why does he do this to me?
And how is he not freezing his balls off? His body is like a heater.
Lewis’s legs swish below mine to hold us up, the paddleboard drifting off. He swims us in the direction of shore, my body tucked above his like he’s my life raft.
“I can swim on my own.”
“Feel free to,” he says without releasing me.
I stay right where I am—wrapped in his arms. Pathetic, but damn, a woman is only so strong, and my man candy is holding me.
