Page 104 of The Bossy One

I kissed her. She tasted like chlorine and summer andher. “Maybe we make it up to each other.”

She searched my face. When she nodded, it felt like she was agreeing to more than the make-up sex.

Maybe this was how you built a relationship. You just kept making it up to each other, coming back together, patching over cracks, for as long as you possibly could. Even if it was messy. Even if it was humbling.

Even if the woman you were falling for was goddamn impossible to hold on to.

I kissed her, fierce. Her lips were equally hungry. It was hard to get the right angle in the water. It felt like the first time again, as we bumped and crashed and fell into each other. Olivia used my shoulders to get a better angle, and as she pushed up from the water and kissed me from above, we finally got it right.

I drank from her lips. She kissed me so damn good I forgot where we were, and we temporarily sank below the water.

Olivia disentangled herself from me and shot back up to the surface, laughing. “What the hell was that?”

“You distracted me,” I grumbled.

Olivia tossed me an impish smile. And then she dove back under the water, swimming to the wall.

I gave chase. I was always chasing this woman.

I hit the wall a second after her, caging her against it. This time when she wrapped her legs around my waist, I could brace us against the wall and keep us steady.

If only there was a way for me to keep us steady in the rest of our lives. I shoved the thought away and leaned in, my voice soft and low in her ear. “Distract me some more.”

She shivered. “Got anything in mind?”

I lowered the neckline of her swimsuit below her breasts. The neckline and the water pushed them up, plump and begging for my touch.

“There,” I growled. “That’s a start.”

She made a little sound in the back of her throat that was half gasp, half purr, and all feminine. I lifted one of her breasts to my lips and bit, just hard enough to make her buck and squirm against me. Then I soothed her with my tongue, murmuring curses and endearments in the same drugged language. I lost myself in the slick feel of her skin, the way I could make her breath speed up, the way she gave herself over to me—and gave as good as she got.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, I lifted her from the water and set her on the lip of the pool. Then I spread her thighs and kissed her through the fabric of her swimsuit.

She moaned, lacing her hands through my hair to guide me where she wanted me.

The first time we’d done this she’d been shy, almost apologetic. Now she understood I needed this as much she did. She understood what a fucking privilege it was for me to worship her like this.

“Your hands,” she gasped. “I need you to touch me too.”

I slid two fingers under the suit, stroking her the way she loved. Giving her every touch she craved.

When she came apart, the glorious sounds she made echoed in the tiled room. I nearly came, just from hearing her like that.

I rested my head on the softness of her thigh, trying to get my own breath back. Olivia ran her hand through my hair, idle and gentle now that I’d taken the edge off for her.

Meanwhile, I needed her. Hard, fast, and now.

I cast about the room for someplace to fuck her, but everywhere but the pool was too hard. I didn’t want her bruised, and I also didn’t want to be gentle. Not tonight. Not when the outside world was pressing down on us and it felt like I could lose her any second if I didn’t hold on tightly enough.

She tugged my hair lightly. “You need to fuck me hard, don’t you?”

It was halfway between a tease and a scold, and it made my problem worse. Itdidsomething to me when my clean-mouthed Olivia talked dirty.

She stood up and peeled herself out of the swimsuit, looking for all the world like Aphrodite coming out of the ocean. If Aphrodite was red-haired and covered in freckles, which in my opinion, she should have been.

Even after what we’d just done, Olivia still blushed at my frank interest. Then she bit her lip and walked toward a shelf of towels. She unfurled them all, one after another, making a bed of softness in this concrete room. Then she sank down on all fours, adjusting the thick pile of fabric, until she had it to her liking.

Olivia looked back over her shoulder andwinked. “Will this do, boss?”

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