Stripped Down

The cold shock of the water feels good, even if I hadn’t planned on swimming in my clothes. Or my boots. Rose bucks, pushing away from me instinctively, fighting to reach the surface and breathe, and my hands brush her soft skin. It would be so simple to let my fingers move of their own accord and trace her slick pussy. Her body is warm and supple, despite the chill of the water, and I could pull her close so easily. She can’t fight me, not here.

But she’s not mine to touch. Not yet. She’s not a woman flirting with her lover. I’m her former best friends’ older brother. Her not-quite-stepbrother for a few short months. Fuck. I don’t feel the least bit avuncular. Despite the cold water, I’m rock hard and have been since the moment I spotted Rose swimming.

Wrapping an arm beneath her breasts, I kick upward with powerful strokes, bringing her with me toward the surface. I won’t leave her behind. Rose has always been resilient, but this isn’t a thing to chance. Not in the dark, where it’s impossible to find her underwater if something went wrong. Afghanistan taught me that. No one gets left behind in the dark ever again.

Three hard kicks, and I break the surface, her back pressed to my front. She squirms, pushing at my arm locking her in place.

“Be still,” I order. Damned if I’m moving before we have a few things straight, Rose and I. “Did you think this one through?”

Rose has never done the expected. She should be pissed off, scared, something. Instead, she laughs, and the sound is downright happy and amused. I’ve never been able to read her. “No, but you think too much.”

“You’re alone out here,” I point out roughly. “Naked. In the dark. What do you think could happen, Rose?”

“You wouldn’t hurt me,” she says and that makes me angrier. She shouldn’t make that assumption. There are so many things wrong inside me, so many broken parts of me. If she stripped away my skin and got inside, I don’t think she’d like what she finds. I don’t.

Instead of answering, I brush my thumb over the underside of her breast where there’s some kind of green vine with a pink flower. She’s impossibly soft and so damn pretty. “You so sure I’m safe, Rose?”

“What else would you be, Angel?”

Some primitive part of me responds fiercely to the unmistakable challenge in her voice, or maybe that’s the broken part of me. Because the question isn’t what I want to be—it’s what I want her to be. Mine. I drag my thumb over her skin again.

Unfortunately, Rose Jordan has always loved challenging me, and she keeps right on talking like I’m not inches from claiming her nipple.

“I swam here for years. Why shouldn’t I now?”

She tries again to twist away from me. I consider tightening my arms. Showing her just what happens when she teases like that. Wouldn’t be right, though, so I simply hold on. Rose is different than the girl who spent six months in Lonesome. My feelings for her haven’t changed, though, even if they feel more right than wrong now.

My dick throbs in agreement, the cold water no deterrent to what she stirs up inside me.

She freezes—no way she doesn’t feel that. I’m big, and I’m not trying to hide. She’s plastered up against me, and my clothes are soaked through.

“I’m asking again, Rose,” I whisper, my mouth by her ear, where the scent of those damned apples is strongest. “You so very sure I’m safe?”

She shoves at my arm. “Let me go.”

I do let go, despite my unruly dick fighting to overrule the good manners that were drilled into me as a kid. I kind of want to hang on to her, haul her up really close until she stops asking questions and the only demands she issues are sensual ones. But that can’t happen. Not yet. She’s gonna give it up to me, surrender herself, and that can’t happen if I take tonight.

“You’re the one who started this, Rose. I’ll be happy to finish it, though.”

She cuts through the water with fast, sure strokes. There’s a teasing flash of bare arms and legs as she hauls herself out of the swimming hole. She waxes and that little strip of soft, soft hair on her otherwise bare pussy hides a part of Rose Jordan I intend to be kissing sometime real soon.

She bends down, reaching for her towel, and my libido explodes. Christ, doesn’t she care what she looks like? What that luscious body of hers does to me? Is she deliberately teasing me—or am I still just her friends’ older brother, hardworking and sexless?

Treading water, I watch her. My boots are uncomfortably heavy with wetness, but I can’t haul myself out of the water sporting the erection that seems to be my new permanent companion. She must sense my impatience, because she doesn’t bother getting dressed, just scoops up her clothes and beats a retreat.