The Wedding Gift Read Free Page A

were holding hands, not interested in anything underneath her towel.
    It was a peaceful, mature crowd. All the rowdy spring breakers were lodged down by Duvall Street.
    If ever she was going to leave old Jan behind, now was the time. This was the place.
    Taking a deep breath, she dropped her towel.
    M ICK ROLLED OFF his float and sank like a stone to the bottom of the pool.
    Unbelievably, Jan’s bikini looked even tinier on her body than it had in her hand.
    Peering up through the water, he watched her walk to the pool’s edge. Her image was blurry and fractured, but not so much that he couldn’t tell what was what. The pink part was suit— not enough —and the silvery part was skin— too much .
    His shorts shrank two sizes.
    As she started down the steps, one slender foot at a time, he turned and stroked along the bottom to the deep end of the pool, dribbling out the precious oxygen he held in his lungs, determined to stay under until the last atom was gone.
    Sixty-five seconds was his record, set in his junior year at Penn State. Today he beat it by four, breaking the surface with a gasp.
    â€œWhat’re you doing, dummy?” Jan called from her end. “Your lips are turning blue.”
    No, that would be his balls.
    She’d paused halfway down the steps. The ripples he’d caused when he surfaced lapped at her thighs.
    Her creamy white thighs.
    He turned his head away, but his eyes didn’t make the trip. They stuck to her like glue as she pushed off, gliding toward him in a graceful breaststroke.
    Jan was a nymph in the water.
    She stopped an arm’s length in front of him, treading water. “This is great. I could stay in here all day.” She tipped her head back, wetting her hair, then slicked it back with one hand, sleek as a seal.
    He eased away from her until his shoulders bumped the lip of the pool. “Sun’s a lot stronger in the tropics,” he said, the voice of authority. “You should cover up or you’ll burn to a crisp.”
    â€œNah. I brought the world’s strongest sunscreen. But I couldn’t reach my back. Will you do it for me?”
    Jesus. What next?
    â€œBring me the lotion,” he said gruffly. No way was he getting out of the pool with this boner.
    He squeezed his eyes shut as she climbed the steps, but couldn’t help peeking as she dripped her way to the lounger. Her bottoms had ridden up—of course they had—and she did that thing women do, where they hook a finger under the elastic and snap it down over their cheek.
    Jesus.
    Then she was in the water again, heaving herself belly down onto the float, paddling toward him. When she got close, she turned ninety degrees and the float bumped his chest broadside.
    â€œI did my legs and shoulders,” she said, “so you can just do the rest.”
    That’s all. Just the rest.
    He shook the tube and squirted white stuff onto her lower back.
    Bad idea. Really bad.
    Biting the inside of his cheek, welcoming the pain, he flattened a palm in the white stuff and smeared it around, discovering six freckles in roughly the shape of a heart.
    He freaking loved freckles.
    Gritting his teeth, he dipped his pinky under elastic, a hairsbreadth from the crack of her ass . . . He got out of there fast, sliding up, up, under her strap, sweeping from side to side, covering everything, missing nothing.
    Higher he stroked. She twisted her hair in her hand, moving it out of the way. More freckles dotted the dip between her shoulder blades.
    â€œSquirt some more,” she said.
    For Christ’s sake.
    He shot some into his hand.
    More freckles hiding in the short hairs at the nape of her neck. He’d seen these before, all twelve of them. He could find each one in the dark.
    And then it was done. He snapped the lid down, dropped the tube beside her, and gave the float a shove. She lifted her face from the crook of her arm.
    â€œThanks, Mick. You want me to do