Paradise Lost (Private 9)

Of course, having Upton and Dash on the opposing team with Kiran and Taylor had one positive effect--it got my competitive juices flowing. I don't know why, but I had to beat them. Maybe to prove to them that they didn't make me nervous.

Even though they did.

"So, Upton, think you're going to win it all again at Casino Night this year?" Kiran asked, reaching up to dust some sand from his shoulder. She let her hand linger on his skin. My face, already hot from sun and exertion, burned.

"I don't know," Upton said, glancing through the net at me. "There's some new competition this year." He winked at me, and suddenly my face was burning for a whole different reason. Okay, time to move on.

"Fourteen serving twelve!" I shouted.

"Go Upton!" Paige cheered from her lounge chair.

I paused to glance over at Paige and the others, wondering if she'd purposely tried to mess me up. She was sitting between Amberly and Sienna, facing the game instead of the water. Noelle and West were lying a few feet away on a beach blanket, his arm around her back. Sawyer was sitting on his towel, T-shirt on, reading Of Mice and Men. I wondered why he even bothered to come along. And how many books he'd brought with him on the plane.

Luckily, Poppy was MIA, as was Daniel, so I didn't have to worry about Poppy drooling all over Upton every time he made a point.

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Refocusing on the game, I tossed the ball in the air. As it came back down, I envisioned Poppy's face on it and slammed it over the net-right at Upton's head.

"Whoa!" Upton shouted. He made a last-second play for the ball, but it glanced off the side of his hand and went flying toward the rocks that lined the beach.

"Yes! That's game!" I shouted, throwing my arms in the air.

Graham hugged me and lifted me up. "Nice work!"

"Good job, loser. I'm impressed that you didn't eff it up," Gage said, reaching out to slap my hand.

"How very supportive of you, teammate," I said pointedly.

"Supportive like that straight jacket bathing suit you're sporting? " Gage replied. "Come on, Brennan, you gotta let the ladies breathe."

He mimed the universal boy sign for breasts and made some wet kissy noises. Graham cracked up, but he blushed and looked away when he saw the mortification on my face. I adjusted the strap of my one-piece black bathing suit--which was, admittedly, the only one-piece on the beach, aside from Noelle's much more sophisticated red strapless. These St. Barths girls were all about the teeny bikinis.

"Gage, you're disgusting," Tiffany said.

"Whatever, prude: You know you want me." Gage laughed, his hands on his slim hips. He actually looked annoyingly hot in his brown plaid board shorts with no shirt on. He had a tattoo of a sun on the back of his right shoulder, which was unexpected and intriguing. But not intriguing enough to give him the satisfaction of asking about it.

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I felt a hand close around my wrist and turned to find Upton smiling down at me. "A kiss for the winner?" he said.

Before I could answer, he'd slipped one hand behind my neck and had pulled me in for a knee-melting kiss. By the time Upton released me, Gage and Graham were hooting and cheering and all the girls were sneering in my direction. But for once I didn't care. I'd have been jealous of me too. Because, wow, could that boy kiss.

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CHAPTER 14 UNHAPPY HOUR

"I say we hit the showers," Tiffany said to me a few minutes later, fanning herself with her hands. Upton, Gage, and Dash were volleying the ball back and forth over the net, and everyone else had plopped down on towels. "I am way too sweaty for comfort."

"Agreed," I said, figuring I could use a cool off, considering my knees were still shaking from kissing Upton. Waving good-bye to the others, we grabbed our beach bags and made our way up the beach toward the Simon Hotel's outer buildings. The hotel itself stood on the bluff and was accessible by a huge staircase cut into the rocks, if you were in the mood for a hike, or, if you were feeling lazy, you could get there by one of the many golf carts that zoomed between the lobby and the beach all day long. Down there were a casual breakfast and lunch restaurant and bar, a beachsi

de pool, and a line of slim, canvas-topped huts, each of which contained a private shower.

"You really like him, don't you?" Tiffany asked as she stepped

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inside her own stall, closing the thick wooden door behind her. I heard her latch the lock as I walked into my own stall. "Upton, I mean. Not Dash," she clarified.