Page 46 of One Little Mistake
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“You’re in my sun.” Lexi doesn’t move from her chair, lift her head, or otherwise acknowledge me in any way, and it makes me freaking happy because, as far as she knows, I’m some dick bag looking to hit on her. “Listen, dude. I’m not interested. I don’t need a drink, a dick, a rubdown, or a friend, so keep moving.”
I don’t fight the smile that explodes across my face. “That’s an oddly specific and unusual way to address a stranger, Locket.”
I enjoy watching the flush creep up the back of her neck, and if she were to roll over, I have no doubt it would continue down her chest.
“So, tell me … Has someone offered you a drink, a dick, a rubdown, and a friend all in the two hours since I last saw you?”
“She was also asked to take part in a threesome, a hot dog eating contest, and a wet T-shirt contest. I pushed for the wet T-shirt, but she shoved me in the pool,” Colton says over my shoulder.
I hadn’t even noticed him there. The second I entered the pool area, all I could focus on was Lexi. So much for keeping her in the friend zone.
“I’m going to get a drink. You want anything?” he asks, clapping me on the back as he passes.
“Sure, just a beer. Lexi?”
“Mango me up, Colty.” I raise an eyebrow in his direction, and he laughs. “She’s a great fucking wingman, East.”
Colty? I hate the familiarity she has with my brother, and I know it makes me sound like a lunatic. I just can’t bring myself to care.
“Like you’ve ever had any trouble getting a woman?” I grumble.
“Oh, but you see, Beast, I don’t let Colty use his money. Everyone thinks he’s just a poor twenty-something on vacation. It’s opening up a whole new world to him,” Lexi says with her face still buried in her towel.
“She’s not wrong,” Colt says. “I’ll be back.”
“You know, he would still get laid, even without the money. We’re not bad people, Lexi.” Finally, she raises her head to look at me. “And not all people with money are assholes.”
“I know.”
We have so many conversations with just our eyes. I want to reach for her, but she has her rules. She thinks we’re a mistake, and as much as I want to push her, I won’t. Not now.
Removing my shirt, I take a seat in the lounger next to her. I don’t miss how her eyes roam my torso, but I have to look away before I sport a boner. There’s no fucking hiding a hard-on in swim trunks.
“Ash is checking on Pacen,” I tell her.
The sigh of relief she expels for Pacen causes an ache deep in my chest. Why is she so good at taking care of others but not herself?
There’s so much I want her to tell me, and I’m about to break my own damn rule after ten minutes when a douche canoe with too much self-tanner approaches us.
“Hey, beautiful. Can I buy you a drink?”
The balls on this guy. I’m sitting right fucking here.
“No, she’s with me.”
Lexi swings her legs to the side of her lounger to glare at me.
“I’m not with him,” she tells the stranger, “but I don’t need a drink either, thanks.”
“If you’re not with him, you want to come hang out with my buddies and me? We just got a bucket of beers for twelve dollars. You can buy in if you want.”
“Didn’t you just offer her a drink? Now you’re saying she can buy in? What the fuck, dude? Go back to the playground.”
The jerk puffs up his chest. “You have a problem, asshole?”
I stand from my lounger so fast the back snaps forward. At my full height, the guy immediately realizes his mistake. He’s maybe five foot ten, and no match for my six-four, 230 pound frame.
