Fell face-first into the lake.
The cold water closed over her head, and she had just enough time to think, I’m gonna kill him, before she broke the surface, gasping for air.
She grabbed her board and hung on to it, narrowing her eyes at Jacob, who—smart man—wasn’t laughing outright. Nope, it was all in his eyes.
“How’s the water?” he asked.
Dammit, it was deliciously chilly on her heated skin, not that she was about to admit it. She waited for him to say, I told you the dress was a bad idea, or at least smirk at her clumsiness, but he did neither. Instead he crouched low and used his paddle to hold her board steady.
“Stay low as you pull yourself up,” he instructed, sure and calm.
It kept her the same as she managed to get back on. Sitting, her legs hanging off either side of her board into the water, she wrung out her hair. “You’re about to get a good look at why I keep my hair constrained,” she warned.
He took in the long, wavy red strands. “I love it like that.”
Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t kill him after all.
Her dress, which had been light and airy around her legs when dry, now clung to her like a second skin. A sheer second skin, emphasizing her hard nipples.
“I’m feeling a little self-conscious,” she said.
“That’s not what I’m feeling,” Jacob said. “You still going to try to paddle in that dress?”
Dammit. No. She pulled it off and wrung it out, sending Jacob a long look, daring him to say one word about her admittedly itty-bitty bikini.
He just smiled. “Nice. Really nice. You ready?”
“No comments on the level of itty-bittiness?”
“I was trying to be respectful, but you should know I had to roll my tongue back into my mouth to keep from drooling and that I want to worship you with said tongue from top to bottom and back.”
She both laughed and felt sexy, loving that he could make her feel that way. They drifted along on the water for a time. With maybe two hours until sunset, the sunrays slanted over the rugged peaks, making the water seem like a sheet of sheer, endless glass. Far beneath the clear surface, schools of fish swam, an entire world going on parallel to hers. Birds chirped. Insects hummed. Her heartbeat and blood pressure slowly lowered.
It was the most amazing, peaceful thing she’d ever done.
They paddled across the lake to the south side, which was forestland. Here there were no houses, just secret little coves and awe-inspiring scenery. “Wow,” she breathed. “This is incredible by daylight. I tried to stay here a couple of times at night but got spooked. No city lights, no one else around, and then there was the fact that the trees looks like three-hundred-foot-tall ghosts in the dark.”
He didn’t smile at that. Instead he looked distinctly unhappy. “Promise me you won’t do that again.”
“Be spooked by ghosts masquerading as trees?”
“Stay out here alone.”
She looked around. “You don’t think I could have done it?”
“Sophie, I think you can do anything you set your mind to. I just don’t like the idea of you out here alone and so isolated.”
Isolated seemed like a problem right now. In fact, like always in his company, all worries vanished. They slowed in a cove, drifting, resting. Jacob sat with his long legs hanging down over each side of the board. She lay flat on her belly and worked on her tan.
After a while, Jacob lithely jumped from his board to the shore and gestured for her to do the same. Knowing she could never do it with the same grace, she instead crawled off hers while he held the board steady, making him grin.
“There’s a path up to that cliff,” he said, pointing up about fifty feet above them, to a rocky overhang. “Want to jump off into the water?”
“Sure,” she said, eyeing the drop-off skeptically. “The day I’m given a terminal diagnosis, that’ll be the first thing I do.”
He cocked his head. “What are you afraid of?”
Um…everything? “The water’s cold.”
“You’re already wet,” he pointed out.
Yes, and just his words seemed to make her wetter. And as she sucked on her lower lip, he laughed low in his throat. “I can’t help it!” she said. “You have a dirty mind.”
“Babe, that’s all you,” he said, still smiling. “But I love it. Come on.”
“We don’t have shoes.”
“The path is smooth. It’ll be fine.”
Oh, dear God. They climbed the steep trail, Jacob urging her on. At the top, she stopped to catch her breath, losing it entirely when Jacob hauled her sweaty, sticky body in close to his. Palming her ass, he squeezed, smiled, and kissed her. “You’re beautiful,” he said, then flashed a quick smile, took her hand, and…ran with her right off the cliff.
She screamed all the way down and into the water, but was laughing when they surfaced, grinning at each other like loons.
After, they sat on the boards in the water side by side and watched the sun start its descent, making the water shimmer like a blanket of diamonds.
“Tell me a story,” he said quietly.
She glanced over at him in surprise. “Why?”