Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
“You cheated.” I fold my arms on the side of the pool and match her grin. “There’s no way you beat me.”
“Why?” It’s good to see those green eyes, so sober yesterday after her meeting with her mother, smiling back at me. “Because I’m a girl?”
“No, because while you’re doing your squats and pliés or whatever the hell they are at the barre every morning, I’m here swimming. This is my thing.”
“And since I beat you at your thing, you automatically conclude I must have cheated?” She leans back, arms straight and palms pressed to the concrete behind her. “That’s some ego you’ve got there, Bishop. I beat you fair and square.”
“How?” I’m too competitive not to frown. “I’m stronger.”
“I’m faster.” She sits forward to poke my shoulder. “And have less bulk.”
“Bulk?” A laugh sputters on my lips. “Is that what I have?”
“Just saying maybe some of that muscle slowed you down in the water.” She shrugs and points to herself. “Also, swimming scholarship.”
“You were on the swim team?”
“And the rowing team. Two state championships.” Her husky laugh bounces off the walls of the otherwise empty room. “The coach from UCLA? You should have seen his face when he realized he’d offered a scholarship to the daughter of Ernest Baston.”
She kicks her feet in the water.
“I actually loved that he didn’t realize who I was, and that I got that offer on the merits of what he’d seen me do.”
I float into the canal between those long, slim legs, sliding my palms down her slippery calves.
“So you’re saying you didn’t cheat?”
Her lips, full and free of lipstick, tweak at the edges. She presses them against the laugher I see bubbling in her eyes. Finally, she flings her head back, howling with a laugh that comes from some part of herself she’s quarantining from all the drama unfolding in her life.
“You little cheat!”
I drag her by her ankles until she’s at the lip of the pool, then lean into her stomach, hauling her over my shoulder and wading back into the water.
“No! Bishop, no!” She beats my back with her fists, her laugh vibrating through my skin.
“You better hold your breath,” I warn her.
“No, I…you…Bishop, don’t you—”
I take us under, the water closing over our heads, sealing out the world above. I wish we had fins so we could stay under for hours, just us, breathing in the underwater utopia. Peaceful, as if a garish spotlight isn’t about to turn on Sofie’s every move. On her past. Our heads break the water’s surface at the same time, both of us coming up gasping and laughing. Our eyes catch and hold until the air between us shifts, and even the cold water can’t dampen the heat flaring between our eyes, between our bodies.
I find her in the water, sliding my hands over her hips to caress her thighs. A breath separates her lips as her hands climb my chest and slip into my hair. There’s no one else here, but if there were, I’d have to say fuck it. This woman has had me tied in knots since she stared me down from a billboard, her face bare and her soul cloaked. And the more of herself she shows me, the more I want.
I plunge into her mouth, a treasure seeker. There’s a moan, mine or hers, I can’t tell, because I’m so busy making it happen again. Pressing into her, my hands lapping like water at her thighs, at her back, at her ass. She’s so much of everything I want.
My hands slip under her bikini bra. I knead her breasts until her lashes drop, her head falls back, and nails dig into my scalp. She reaches around to unhook the bra so it falls away. I go down on my knees in the water, pressing my mouth to her breasts, nuzzling and suckling, pulling hard on her with my desperation to get as much as I can.
“Bishop, we should stop.” Her words reach me on a ragged breath.
She’s right. Anyone could come in, but my control is barreling downhill with no brakes. Hands gripping her butt, fingers sliding under the fabric of her suit until it’s skin on skin. Tongue licking under the full curve of her breasts. Her skin, cool. My mouth, hot against her.
I don’t want to stop, but I do when a noise catches my attention, the door opening. I’m instantly up and clutching her to my chest to cover her. I catch sight of her black bikini top floating just out of reach.
“Stay still, Sof. Don’t move, darlin’.” My voice is hoarse, and in my head I’m cursing myself for exposing her like this.
“Um, Bishop?” Harold asks from poolside. “You might wanna…”
“Got it,” I snap, not bothering to look at him before he darts back out the way he came.