Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Holy fucking pink bikini.
The swells of her breasts made my mouth water, and the slope of her waist had my hands curling. She was right. I needed a few minutes, because I was hard as hell.
“Feel that?” she asked, tilting her head as she continued her retreat.
“What?” I responded, embarrassingly dumbstruck by the sight of her in a freaking swimsuit.
“Game, Hudson.” She held her hands out, still grasping her tank top. “Effortless game.” She turned and walked toward shore, and I quit fighting my grin and walked deeper into the water to cool off. I wasn’t sure what had been hotter, the delicate glide of her fingertips over my skin, or the spark of life I’d seen in her eyes as she backed away.
For a second there, I’d seen her.
You’re the reason she— my conscience started, but I shut the asshole up with a quickness, sinking beneath the waves and dunking my head. A distraction, that’s all that had been. None of this was real to her, she was just fucking with my head, and I’d enjoyed every minute of it. I even considered sending her an engraved invitation to fuck with it some more.
Only when I had my body—and my thoughts—under control did I walk back to shore. Allie was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did Alessandra go?” I asked Juniper as she continued building her sandcastle with Caroline.
“I forgot my sun hat in Uncle Gavin’s car, and she said she’d get it because she left her phone in yours,” Juniper answered, scooping the sand from underneath the bridge she was constructing.
“That was nice of her.”
“That’s because she’s nice.” Juniper shot a look at her mother and moved on to the main tower.
Caroline rolled her eyes when Juniper wasn’t looking but didn’t utter a single word against Allie as we added to the castle.
A few minutes and two towers later, Allie came back, her bikini covered by a thigh-skimming pink sundress that nearly had me biting my fucking knuckles. She dropped her phone at her chair, then came our way wearing a look I couldn’t decipher.
Two lines were etched between her brows.
“Everything okay?” I asked, rising to my feet as Gavin ran by.
“Yeah,” she answered, her voice flat again. “Here you go, kiddo.” That fake-ass smile curved her mouth as she handed Juniper her hat, and the hair on the back of my neck rose.
“Thanks!” Juniper tugged it on, slipping the strap beneath her chin.
“No problem.” Allie backed up my direction.
“Heads up!” Beachman shouted, and I threw out my hand in front of Allie’s head, catching the Frisbee inches from her face.
She blinked rapidly, staring at the fluorescent-yellow disk. “Holy crap.”
“Watch where you’re throwing this thing!” I stepped away from Allie, flicked my wrist, and sent it sailing back to Eric.
“Thank you.” She cleared her throat. “Talk about reflexes.”
I bent my head, bringing my mouth inches from her ear. “One might call it game.”
She snorted, making me grin. It was the closest to a laugh I’d gotten out of her, and I was taking it as my win for the day.
The afternoon passed quickly. Mom and Dad praised the sandcastle and took Juniper on a walk up the beach while Gavin napped. Allie asked Caroline about the diner in a surprisingly bloodless exchange that left me oddly hopeful.
Then I watched, completely hypnotized, as Allie showed Eric how to pull off an arabesque—standing on her left foot and raising her right leg up behind her at a jaw-dropping angle.
God, she was beautiful.
“She’s graceful, I’ll give her that,” Caroline said.
“More like exquisite. I used to watch her practice for hours when we were younger.” I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on my knees.
“She made you watch her practice?” Caroline gathered up Juniper’s sand toys.
“Allie didn’t make me do shit. Don’t twist it like that.” I laughed when Eric tried his hand at the move, and face-planted in the sand. “I wanted to be wherever she was, which meant hiding out in their studio whenever her mom wasn’t looking. But she did her fair share of hiding out in the Grizzly Bear or my bedroom to spend time with me too.” I caught Caroline staring, out of the corner of my eye. “That ladder outside my window wasn’t just good as a fire escape.”
“Remind me never to let Juniper have that room,” she muttered.
Around four, we cleaned up the site, and I helped Dad carry the umbrellas to the car. Once we had everything packed up in the truck, I headed over to the comfort station to wash off my feet so I didn’t track sand into the car.
Once I’d gotten the sand off, I walked to the edge of the deck and looked out over the ocean to wait for Allie. We’d made it through an entire afternoon with my family where Allie hadn’t run and Caroline had held her tongue.