Pretend You're Mine (Inked Hearts 3)

I bring my fingers to my lips, blow him a kiss, and fall backward in the water.

Fuck, this pool feels good.

I push off the bottom. Glide toward the deep end. Three long, slow underwater strokes and I emerge.

The deep end is a huge circle twenty feet wide. Lawn chairs line one side. Fake rocks and plants line the other. They make an almost-natural jungle gym, with high spots and nooks and baby waterfalls.

I spin in the middle of the pool. Watch Ryan swim toward me.

God, the way his shoulders flex and relax. The lines of ink running down his back. The sunlight casting him in a soft glow.

He’s a good swimmer, but I’m better. I dive under the water and glide to the waterfall behind me.

I surface in front of the blur of white-blue.

Water pounds my head as I enter. The world gets darker, more diffuse. Blue sky and sunlight filter through the running water, breaking into fragments of light and color.

Someone moves closer.

The illusion breaks as Ryan glides past the running water.

There’s just enough space for both of us.

I scoot backward, find a seat on a curved section of the wall.

He moves closer.

Closer.

Until he’s pinning me against the wall. “You’re fucking brilliant.”

I nod.

“Fuck, you have no idea what I want to do to you right now.” His fingers trace a line down my neck. Over the strap

of my bikini.

He traces its line into the water, over my triangle top, over my breastbone, along the other triangle.

Slowly, he pushes one triangle aside, exposing me.

No one can see—you can’t see anything past the running water—but I still feel like I’m on display.

My sex clenches from the exhibition of it.

He cups my breast with his palm. Drags his thumb against my nipple. It’s different in the water. Smoother and harder at the same time.

He watches as he pulls the other triangle aside.

My breast spills from my bikini.

I’m topless in a pool packed with a hundred people.

My thoughts dissolve as he covers me with his palm. Teases my nipples with his thumbs.

“Fuck.” I bite my lip. Try to wrap my legs around him.

He plants one hand on the curved wall beneath me. But he stays floating. He’s right there, but his body isn’t connecting with mine.