That time when I came at her, she came at me. My hands locked on her shoulders and hers shoved into my collar bone. I might not have been too far off on that whole collar bone-breaking premonition.
I pushed her with all I had; she shoved at me with all she had. Just when I was sure she was about to topple back, she righted herself. Same went for me. We were at it for a good minute, at an obvious stalemate, when one of her hands moved lower. The next thing I knew, I was topless, and Jolene was swinging my bandeau top over her head.
Jesse’s eyes bulged as mine narrowed.
My instinct was to cover my chest, and that’s what I did for a few moments. Sitting like that, I was an easy target. Forgoing all pride and inhibition, I dropped my arms and sharpened my glower.
Giving my top one last twirl, she flung it behind her. “Oops.” Pasting on an all too familiar smile, Jolene wove her fingers into Jesse’s hair. The hair that I was all kinds of territorial over.
Bad move.
I let out a low growl, urged Josie forward, and went at that smiling, hair-petting bimbo with both arms. I was about a foot away from making contact when Jolene toppled off of Jesse’s back. Her shriek right before she crashed into the water was one of the sweetest sounds I’d ever heard.
When I glanced down at a sheepish cowboy, I found Jesse’s hands still open where they’d just been fixed around Jolene’s ankles. Shrugging, he winked up at me. “No one messes with my girl.”
When Jolene surfaced, I gave her one of my own smiles of victory. So much for not getting her hair wet. Josie bounced up and down in celebration, which was all well and fine except . . . I was still topless.
Of course, that would be the moment Garth emerged from the willow trees, and, of course, me and my bare chest would be the first thing he’d zero in on. “Woohoo! Just in time for the free show! Good timing on my part!” Garth shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.
“Go to hell, Garth!” I yelled back, covering myself a moment before Jesse’s hands were about to do the same.
“Now why would I do that when I just landed myself in heaven?” Garth had lost his shirt somewhere along the way. Stepping out of his boots, he hung his hat on a branch before sauntering down the dock. “Jess, I’m disappointed. You never told me Rowen had such a fine rack.”
“Black . . .” Jesse warned, heading toward Garth.
“Walker,” Garth mimicked. “I mean, those are a pair of serious fun-bags if I’ve ever seen some.”
Moving so fast he was a blur, Jesse grabbed Garth’s calf and pulled him into the water. Garth toppled into the water, miraculously managing not to utter a curse. Josie and I cheered. When Garth kicked to the surface and Jesse was ready and dunked him, we cheered even louder.
“I’m going to kick your backside!” If hearing Garth substituting “backside” for “ass” wasn’t funny enough, hearing him do it while sputtering out water was even better.
“Not before I dunk yours.”
Jesse and Garth continued with their man war while I dropped into the water. Time to look for a missing swimsuit top.
“Hey, Jolene. Mind telling me where my top is?” I swam toward her.
Jolene pulled the rubber-band from her hair and ran her fingers through it. She hitched her thumb over her shoulder. “Back there.”
“Yeah, I guessed that since you hurled it over your back. Mind going and finding it?”
“Yeah. I do mind. I’m not the one who lost it.” She was furiously working to make her hair less of a soaking wet mess.
“No, you’re the one who tore it off and tossed it into dark water.”
Without so much as a screw you or a good-bye, Jolene headed for the shore.
Jesse and Garth were about to have company duking it out in the water.
Josie swam up beside me. “Come on. I’ll help you find it. She must be hardcore PMS’ing.”
“Or has a hardcore crush on my boyfriend who she’s realizing is hardcore in love with me.”
Josie flicked her fingers in my face, splashing me. “After that bout of bitchiness, I’m beginning to wonder.”
“Why wonder when it’s so obvious?”
Josie and I swam in the general direction of where my top had gone under, and someone kicked up beside us. “Helloooo, ladies.” Jesse had an exuberant expression which meant he must have come out the victor in the dunking war. “Need some help?”
“Yeah. Finding my top,” I said.
Jesse’s eyes twinkled. “I believe I have some experience with that.”
If I was a blusher, I might have just from the look he gave me. “You’re a regular search and rescue pro.”
“I got this, Josie. Why don’t you go save your cousin from Garth? He’s got that look in his eye.”
Josie’s head whipped back. “If he even thinks about getting that look in his eye with Jolene, I might take Rowen up on her idea and inject him with the Ebola virus.”
Jesse quirked a brow at me.
“It was a figure of speech. That’s not how I meant it,” I called after Josie, who was paddling back. Garth had pulled himself out of the water and was helping Jolene out with, indeed, that certain look in his eyes.
“That’s how I took it,” Josie shouted back. From her tone, I guessed Josie hadn’t missed that gleam in Garth’s eyes either.
“Let’s see if we can find your top. As much as I might not want to.” Jesse winked before disappearing into the water.
We’d swam so far away from the dock we were almost to the other side of the swimming hole. A curtain of willow branches draped into the water . . . and that’s when I got an idea. I was already swimming toward the branches when Jesse resurfaced.
“Nothing.”
“I think it’s more this way,” I replied, smiling.
“What? Really? You think it flew that far?” Jesse paddled after me.
“Farther.” When I was a couple of feet in front of the branches, I dove and swam a few strokes before coming back up. The branches extended so far into the water, they created a good-sized pool. They provided such a barrier I could barely make out Jesse on the other side, let alone the three back on the dock. If I couldn’t see them, that meant they couldn’t see us . . . I’d just moved a bit closer to shore when Jesse joined me inside the private world.
“There’s no way it went this far,” he said, moving my way.
“I know.” Jesse gave me a confused look. “Use your imagination.”
“Oh, I am. Big time.” He was grinning like the devil when he stopped in front of me. His arms went around my waist, and he pulled me close. “But you know, my male, hormone-driven imagination might not be syncing with your much more innocent and sweet one.”
“I doubt that,” I whispered right before covering his mouth with mine. Tracing the seam of his lips with my tongue, I waited for him to respond. I didn’t wait long.
One hand went lower and the other went higher, and when they both found what they were looking for and gave a gentle squeeze, I swore I was about to drop my head back and cry out. Last night’s abstinence was making the afternoon’s make-up session especially intense.
When Jesse’s mouth lowered to my neck, I wove my fingers into his wet hair. “I bet you’re all right with my swimsuit top going missing now, right?”
“I really can’t imagine being more all right with anything else right now,” he said against my neck, giving another gentle squeeze to prove his point.
That time, a moan escaped my mouth. When Jesse’s grip tightened over my backside, successfully fitting my southerly region tighter against his, I came so close to orgasming, I could have been labeled the female two-pump-chump equivalent. “Jesse, oh my god, yes.”
I felt his tell-tale smile move into place, and then his hand left my breast. Practically dying from the anticipation of where it would move to next, I hadn’t expected the alternative: it had been busy removing his swim trunks. When his fingers slid my swimsuit bottoms aside and I felt something that, yet again, put me one second away from orgasming, I flinched my hips back.
How my brain was able to remember anything right then, I didn’t know, but it was all curse and no blessing. “Jesse,” I hissed.