Run To You by Rachel Gibson Page B

he’d like to get started on that. He’d like to get started on her. “Marine,” he said just above a whisper. He’d like to start with her mouth and work his way down. “A soldier is Army.”
    She flicked a droplet of water at him and laughed. “Potato-potahto.”
    One second he was looking at her small hand, wet fingers, and soft palm, and in the next he grabbed her wrist and pulled. To stop her laughter and the things it did to him. Because he had no control. Because he couldn’t stop himself from wanting her to touch him. Because he’d been thinking about it since she’d accidentally touched him earlier.
    The big splash cut her scream short and a wave of water swamped Beau’s mouth and chin. She came up gasping through a tangle of wet hair. “Help,” she sputtered, the white shirt floating up her belly.
    Beau turned away from the glimpse of bright pink panties and bare legs beneath the surface. He swam toward the ladder on the other side.
    “Help!”
    No way.
    “I can’t swim,” she gurgled through all that thrashing.
    Right.
    “Beau!”
    He grabbed the ladder and glanced over his shoulder at the flailing white shirt and dark hair. She went back under and his brows lowered. “Quit playing.” She wasn’t coming up. All she had to do was kick off the bottom and grab the side of the pool. “Stella?”
    Her head broke the surface. She sputtered and gave a watery cry before she sank again.
    Jesus. He pushed off the side and had her beneath her flailing arms within seconds. They came up in a gush of water and tangled limbs and hair. “I’m drowning,” she choked.
    “You’re fine. I’ve got you.”
    “I can’t swim.”
    Clearly. “You’re not that far from the side of the pool.”
    She pushed her hair from her eyes and glanced at the side of the pool several feet away. “Are you trying to kill me?”
    The shirt floated just beneath her breasts and brushed his belly and chest. He should let her go. Push her to the edge of the pool and let her go. Not just stand there, feeling the cool water and brush of cotton. His voice came out rough, low when he asked, “Why would I do that?”
    She looked back at him and her hands settled on his shoulders. “So you wouldn’t have to take me to Texas.”
    Maybe it was the moon and the envelope of darkness. Her lips just below his. Her hands on his skin. His body so close to finally getting what it craved like a junkie craved his favorite drug. He moved a hand to the back of her neck and slid his arm around her waist. He pulled her to him and lowered his mouth to her. Shirt and bare skin pressed into his chest and belly, and a flood of want and need and greed surged through his veins like liquid flame. He felt the breath of her gasp and took advantage of her parted lips. He knew how to kiss a woman to get what he wanted, how to give just enough to make her want him. He was thirty-eight. A man. A man who loved everything about a woman’s body. The touch and smell and taste. A man who loved to take his time, but God. God, her mouth was soft. And wet. And tasted good. And he couldn’t think beyond her warm mouth and the front of those pink panties pressed into the front of his swimming trunks. Into his erection.
    She opened her warm mouth a little wider. Her slick tongue tangled with his, drawing him a little deeper. The suction got a little tighter, the kiss a little wetter, and the world around them a whole lot hotter.
    “Mmm,” she moaned as she had during dinner. A breathy moan of pleasure that made his skin so tight he ached.
    He tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her closer. She was good. So good, and he was gone. Gone. Drowning in her. Drowning in the raw lust pulsing through his body. Lost in the heat of him and her. Of their bare bellies touching and that damn shirt floating all around and keeping her bare breasts from resting on his chest. So lost he wanted to push her against the side of the pool and shove aside the little scrap of her