The Best Men (The Best Men 1)

I shoot him a steely stare. “I’ve been to the beach before. Just not this beach,” I say as we trudge through the soft-as-sugar sand, flip-flops in hand, the sun casting rays high above us.

“Exactly. I took you to the beach,” he says, like he owns the world.

Shaking my head, I laugh. “You love all the credit, don’t you?”

“I deserve all the credit.”

He’s not wrong. Asher’s specialty is getting me to have a good time, and he’s earning top grades. I’m not entirely sure what I do for him, but maybe I’m simply entertainment during this trip?like staging this beach intervention has amused him.

My gaze travels around the sand and the surf. In the waves, a fit old dude tosses a tennis ball to a Border Collie. At the edge of the water, a pack of college-aged kids play volleyball.

And beside me is the guy I won’t see much after tomorrow night.

Funny, how on Tuesday morning I was dreading these days with him. Now a part of me dreads leaving Florida.

While we make our way through the sand, I picture another first time. My eyes laser in on his hand.

Ah, what the hell.

I reach for his hand, thread my fingers through his.

Without any hesitation, he curls his fingers tight through mine. I’m holding hands with a guy for the first time. Everything about this moment feels right.

Just right.

Even when Asher says, “Look at you. You’ve come so far from the day you hid behind the dressing room curtain at Angel Sanjay’s showroom.”

“I wouldn’t say I was hiding.”

With a laugh, he squeezes my fingers harder as we reach the surf and walk along the water. “You were. You were hiding and horny at the same time. Such a dangerous combination.”

I scoff-laugh. “You will never not mock me.”

He rubs his thumb in a circle along my wrist, the motion sending small shock waves of pleasure across my skin. “Truer words.”

I laugh, and Asher turns to me, studying my face, his eyes serious.

I school my expression. “What is it?”

We stop walking. He drops my hand, then his shoes. I follow suit, letting mine fall to the sand.

“There’s something I want to do,” he says, his voice a touch vulnerable, like he’s about to take a risk.

That look paired with that tone scrambles my thoughts. “Sex on the beach in the middle of the day might be my only line,” I tease.

He doesn’t laugh. Instead, his eyes pin me, and they glimmer. “You’re so fucking fearless, Banks. It’s insanely hot. You’re kind of wild in bed, and I love that,” he says, and my heart tries to destroy my sense of reason.

That dangerous organ wants to slam into Asher. But really, he’s making it clear what I do for him?I entertain him in bed.

That works for me for now.

I mean . . . it works plain and simple. There’s only a now with us. Nothing more, no matter how intensely he looks at me.

“But . . .” Asher drags out the word. “That’s not what I want to do right now.”

Whatever he wants to do, I want it. “Do it. Whatever it is.”

A crooked grin curves his lips. “That’s what I mean.” His breath comes in a quick huff, like he can’t get enough oxygen either.

Then, he threads his fingers through my hair, and my muscles quiver with anticipation.

He draws his hands toward my face again, then gently slides off my shades. He folds them, tucks them into his pocket, and lets out a low, swoony hum of desire.

He curls his hands over my shoulders, and in some kind of voodoo slow-motion move, he dips his face to mine, then brushes his soft lips against my right eyelid.

My insides jump.

Asher murmurs, like he’s drifting off to another land as he gives the same treatment to my left eye. A gentle caress of his lips, and like that, my body doubles down on bliss.

But on something else too.

Some strange new sensation that makes my heart thunder.

Then, thump around in my chest when Asher stops just to catch his breath. He presses his forehead to mine. “Wanted to do that for so long,” he admits.

I’m so glad he staged a beach escape. I never knew what I was missing. This feeling in my body. Like I’ve escaped from my head, and it’s fantastic.

I’m not even sure what to say in response to his confession.

Thank you feels weird, but it’s on the tip of my tongue. Except, with the way he touches me, his hands sliding down my arms, the gratitude feels pretty damn mutual.

Maybe that’s what he’s getting out of this thing with me.

The same thing I get with him.

Want.

A bottomless kind of want that I feel everywhere.

Trouble is, there’s a flagpole in my shorts.

So I pull an Asher St. James.

Grabbing my shades from his pocket, I carefully set them down on my flip-flops, then I jerk off my T-shirt, yank off his, and I haul him all the way into the water and fall backwards into the ocean. With a loud, satisfying and salty splash.