She thought of the two of them laughing together at Wade’s that morning and the night before. For a little while there she’d forgotten how much she hated him, and while her guard was down he’d dragged her into yet another one of his stupid games. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
She was going to remind him exactly who the hell he was dealing with.
Logan’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as she drove past a road sign informing drivers that Willow Creek Park was only a few miles away, the memory of her and a naked Cole Tucker flooding her mind as inspiration struck like lightning.
Before she even registered what she was doing, Logan had pulled her truck over on the side of the road and was sending Cole Tucker a text.
She knew exactly what their next challenge would be.
*
May—Freshman Year
Cole read the note one last time then folded it and shoved it back in the pocket of his swim trunks.
No more than half a mile off, he could hear his friends and classmates laughing and screaming at Willow Creek Park Beach. It was a small beach, even for the small town. But it was just big enough for his class to get together and celebrate another school year coming to an end.
Somewhere over there, Savannah Wainwright would be sneaking away from her friends and following the narrow trail that led to the dock.
He’d been talking to Savannah a lot the last few weeks. She was cute, sweet, maybe a little ditzy sometimes. Okay, so she wasn’t going to help break the dumb blonde stereotype anytime soon.
It was just some harmless flirting. He never thought it would amount to anything, certainly not a skinny dip in the lake. But hey, when opportunity knocked, who was he to deny it entry?
Even if the only reason he’d been flirting with Savannah in the first place was to get her off his mind.
Cole scanned the water by the dock, the gravel road that cut through the trees, and then the woods surrounding him. He stripped down to nothing, tossing his clothes beside the dock, and waded into the water.
His chest was hammering, not because of the cool water enveloping him or the fact that he was naked for anyone to stumble across, but because just thinking about Logan Kase made his heart race and his jaw clench at the same time. Everything she did irritated him, and yet he still woke up in the middle of the night dreaming about her. Her soft, golden skin, the way her nose crinkled when she laughed, and her eyes that had become his favorite shade of blue.
Christ, what the hell was happening to him?
Sometimes he just wanted to throttle her, like two months ago when she’d put something in his Coke that turned his teeth black. But then she’d looked at him with those same blue eyes and a victorious smirk, and all that anger had disintegrated. Well, almost all of it.
“I see you got my note.”
Every muscle in Cole’s body clenched, and his heart skipped a beat. He turned slowly toward the source of the voice.
Logan stood by the dock with his T-shirt and swimming trunks slung over her shoulder. Strands of dark hair framed her face where they’d fallen out of her short ponytail. She had one hand raised to her hip, and he could just make out her dark bikini through the thin tank top that hugged her every curve.
Cole’s hands jerked forward to cover himself below the water. Okay, so naked in the lake was not the best time to think about Lo’s body.
Wait a second. “Did you say your note?”
There it was, that smirk that made him want to choke her and pull her closer all at once. “Pretty good, huh? Let’s just say I’ve got a friend with a criminal talent for forging people’s handwriting.”
She could only mean Carly. As far as he knew, she’d never included anyone else in their pranks before.
The side of his mouth curved upward, and he forced away any trace of worry or discomfort. “If you wanted to see me naked, Lo, all you had to do was ask,” he crowed.
“Oh, I didn’t do this for me,” she said with an equal grin.
“What—?” Cole went silent. The sounds of screaming and voices he’d heard coming from the beach were growing louder.
“Yeah.” She glanced at her watch-less wrist. “I’d say they should be here anytime now.”
“Who?”
She shrugged. “No one special. Just our entire class.”
Cole moved forward, stopping when the water was only a few inches above where his hands still carefully covered his groin. The voices were coming closer. “All right, you had your fun. Got me real good. Now give me my clothes.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m warning you, Logan.” Just then a crowd of almost a hundred kids broke through the trees. Several pointed and laughed when they saw him standing alone in the water.
“I swear to God, Kase, you better give me my clothes back!” he yelled this time. Thank God the water was murky.
“Or you’ll do what?” she called back to him. Their entire class had to be standing behind her now.
“Or I’ll make everything I’ve done to you up to now look like a joke,” he growled.
Logan shook her head. “You’re going to have to do a lot better than that if you want these back.” She pulled his swim trunks and T-shirt off her shoulder and dangled them in front of her. “Maybe something like… ‘Logan is smarter and better than me in every possible way. She’s ten times more awesome than I’ll ever be.’”
He pulled his hands out of the water and crossed them over his chest. “Seeing as I’d hate to lie in front of all these people, I’m not gonna say that.”
“Then I guess you get to hide out in the water for a while.”
“That’s how you want to play this?” He glared at her, not waiting for an answer. His hands fell to his sides. “Fine.”
Whatever Logan had been expecting, he guessed from her wide eyes and gaping jaw it wasn’t him walking out of the lake buck naked in front of her and their entire class.
There was an uproar of catcalls and whistles as he strode out of the water and onto dry land. Cool air caressed his skin, and he felt all eyes on him, but he didn’t care. He had tunnel vision, blinded to everything around him except Logan’s face.
She was staring at him, her eyes roving down over his face and chest. When they drifted even lower, her lips parted and she sucked in a quick breath.
She didn’t fight him when he tore the clothes from her hands and started pulling them on. Her eyes had turned darker than he’d ever seen them.
He’d been wrong. This was his favorite shade of blue.
Chapter Eight
Logan leaned against her truck as the Bronco came down the gravel road, its headlights shining painfully in her eyes. It was dark, which meant no one would be around to witness the event, which Logan was grateful for. She’d almost immediately regretted texting Cole with the location of their next challenge, but it would only look worse if she backed out now.
She was supposed to be at home with her parents for an uneventful evening in. Night after night, over and over, until she married Jacob and could get out of this town. Instead, she was out at the Willow Creek Park dock waiting for Cole Tucker.
He parked the Bronco several feet from her truck and stepped out, leaving it running and the headlights shining brightly on her.
“What took you so long to get back to me?” she called out as he approached the dock. “I texted you three days ago.”
He strolled up wearing jeans, a dark blue shirt, and a thick jacket. “I’ve been at the firehouse the last three days. Some of us have to work for a living,” he muttered, his breath just visible in the chilly night air. The cold wasn’t unbearable, being March and all, but it wasn’t the air she was concerned about. The lake, on the other hand, would still be freezing this time of year. Which was kind of the point.
Cole studied the area. “You mind telling me what we’re doing out here?”
Logan shrugged. “Sure, and while I do, you can start taking your clothes off.”
His head je
rked around to face her, a tiny grin spreading across his face. “You trying to see me naked, Lo?”
She let out a bark of laughter. “Please, there’s nothing there I haven’t seen before,” she said, nodding to the area hidden by his jeans. “Keep your underwear on. We’re just going swimming.”
This time he laughed. “In this weather, are you crazy? We’ll get hypothermia!”
“Something tells me you won’t last that long.” She started pulling off her coat. “We both go in the water, the first one to come out loses.”
He huffed, pulling off his own coat as she started to take off her boots. “I’m a firefighter, Lo. I don’t do well with cold.”
She smiled. She set her boots and then her socks on the hood of her truck before pulling her sweater over her head and exposing her black bikini top. If she’d been wearing a bra and underwear instead of the bathing suit she had on under her clothes, she would have felt weird stripping down like this in front of Cole Tucker. A bathing suit was a lot less scandalous than jumping into the lake in her underwear.
She sucked in a breath as the cold air hit the skin of her bare stomach and arms. “Hence, the challenge,” she said once she could speak.
He gave her a cocky grin. “Good thing I love a challenge.”
“Exactly. Now stop whining. You said I could pick the next one, so suck it up and take your clothes off,” she said, cringing at how anxious she sounded.
“Yes, ma’am.” He pulled his long-sleeved T-shirt over his head and revealed a plain white shirt underneath. Logan scanned the area around them one last time before she unzipped her jeans and pulled them down. She clenched her jaw, trying not to let Cole hear her teeth chatter.
When he was down to a pair of boxers and his white T-shirt, he placed his clothes with hers on the hood of the truck. Then he threw his hand out, letting Logan lead the way.
The ground was cold as she crossed to the dock with bare feet. She stopped there, contemplating for a second if she should walk in or jump.
While she was still debating, Cole walked past her to the end of the dock. He sat down slowly, careful to keep his feet from dropping into the water just yet. His back was illuminated by the Bronco’s headlights as he turned to Logan.
“I say we lower ourselves in at the same time, to the shoulders,” he said. “Just try not to get your hair wet or you really will get sick.”
Logan, unable to come up with a better idea, walked down the dock and sat next to Cole. She took a second to pull her long, dark hair up into a messy bun on top of her head.
She ignored the goose bumps rising on her arms. She needed to win this one. Cole would have an R added to his name—surely enough for him to admit she was better—and she would let herself be done with his stupid challenges.
Cole stretched his legs out, letting them hover over the water. “On the count of three,” he said. Logan nodded. When he reached three, she forced her arms to lower her body into the water. The shock of freezing water was painful as it traveled up her body, but she wouldn’t let herself stop. Cole did the same beside her.
Logan was immersed in the cold water, her muscles cramping, as her lungs froze. Her left hand held on to the edge of the dock, but with the shock of cold water, it provided no strength to hold her up. She barely felt Cole’s hand grab her other arm and pull her up an inch or two before her head could dip under the water. She finally managed to move her legs and hold herself afloat in the water without Cole’s help.
“It’s not that bad,” she said through chattering teeth.
He chuckled two feet away from her. “Liar.”
She closed her eyes, trying to imagine herself snuggled up on the couch with a thick blanket and a roaring fire beside her.
“What are you thinking about?” Cole’s shaky voice whispered after several seconds, pulling her back to their reality. Logan opened her eyes to see Cole watching her, his chin just above the water and one arm hanging from the dock a foot from hers.
“Fire,” she whispered. “A nice, big, hot fire.”
There was an almost imperceptible nod. “Hmm. A beach in the Bahamas, the white sand scorching my feet,” he said between shallow breaths.
Logan let out a soft moan. A hot beach sounded so good right now. She closed her eyes. “Wade’s, with the heat blasting and half a dozen shots of whiskey burning in my stomach.”
“And the lovely Lilly putting an H under your name,” he said dreamily.
Logan ignored him and tried to focus on her warm daydream. Her entire body was shaking beneath the water. She could barely pull air into her lungs, and her muscles were stiff.
“So this fiancé of yours, what is it he does again? Something incredibly dull to match his personality?” he mumbled with a tight jaw.
“Actually,” she forced out, “he’s a doctor. He works in the ER. So no, not dull at all. Quite the opposite, since he saves lives every day.”
He rolled his eyes. “I might be impressed if I didn’t risk my own life every day running into burning buildings…often saving someone else in the process, I might add. What’s the worst that could happen to him—he catches a cold?”
Logan’s eyebrows would have lifted in surprise if her forehead weren’t frozen. “You really don’t like him.”
“Why would I? The guy acts like he’s got a stick up his ass.”
“You don’t even know him,” she said, suddenly very aware of the platinum engagement ring that felt like ice on her fourth finger. “He’s a great guy.”
“I bet he’s not so great when he finds out the truth about that tattoo.”
“Good thing he isn’t going to find out.” She could feel her stomach muscles shaking violently, and she shifted to pull her legs up to her chest. She was closer to Cole now. But given the small amount of heat that came with the proximity, she didn’t care. She struggled not to move closer just to increase that warmth.
“You know,” he said softly beside her, “you could have it removed.”
Logan shook her head as much as she could. “Maybe if I had a couple thousand dollars lying around.”
“I think you’ve grown attached to it. That you like seeing my name on you every day,” he said with his crooked smile, no doubt trying to unnerve her, distract her, so that he could win. Didn’t he know that she wasn’t like all the other girls, that his charms didn’t work on her?
She smiled back. “If only to remind me how much better my life is without you.”
He was about to say something but then closed his mouth, his brow wrinkling. “What do the rules say regarding time-outs?”
“Time-outs?”
He nodded. “Like a pause in the challenge.”
“There are no pauses.” She laughed, and that, at least, seemed to warm her a little.
“If we can just pause for ten seconds—”
Logan shook her head. “If you can’t take it anymore then just give up. It’s only one letter anyway.” And, God, did she need him to give up. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take. They couldn’t have been in here talking more than five minutes, but it felt like it had been hours.
“All right,” he said, looking grim. “You asked for it.”
She stared at him, hopeful that he would start to pull himself out of the water, but Cole Tucker didn’t budge.
Asked for what? She couldn’t get the words out, every inch of her too numb. Feeling only slowly started to return as the water around her grew noticeably warmer.
Chapter Nine
“Ew!” Logan screamed as she fought to pull herself up out of the water. Cole followed only a second behind her.
“I can’t believe you!” she yelled, wrapping her arms tightly around her. “Did you seriously just pee in the water? While I was right next to you?!”
He pulled himself up onto the dock and into the shining headlight beams, bouncing up and down as he tried to warm himself. “Relax. You do realize that every time you get in that lake you are swimming in urine and blood and othe
r unmentionables.”
“That’s disgusting!” She stared at him, also hopping up and down. The air was a lot colder this time around, and the soaking bikini she wore did nothing to help. She wasn’t sure how Cole was managing to keep his dripping wet shirt on, as cold as it had to be.
“It’s the truth. And I told you I wanted a pause; it’s not my fault you wouldn’t give me one.”
“You couldn’t just hold it like a normal person?”
“Have you tried holding it in cold water? It’s not easy!”
“That doesn’t mean a grown man should just let it out when he’s less than a foot from someone!” she growled and started marching up the dock.
“Where are you going?” Cole asked, following close behind her.
She grabbed her clothes from the hood of her truck, not bothering to look at him. “I’m going home to take a very hot shower and wash off whatever unmentionables I’m currently covered in.”
He grabbed Logan by the arm and started dragging her to the passenger side of the still-running Bronco. “Your truck won’t heat up fast enough before you get sick.” He pulled the door open for her. “Get in.”
She wanted to argue, but then the hot air from inside the Bronco hit her. She jumped into the seat, and Cole slammed the door behind her. He raced around the front, grabbed his clothes, shoes, and her boots from the truck, then hopped into the driver’s side. His shirt and boxers were clinging to him, and Logan could only imagine how she looked in her very cold and wet bikini.
She shoved her hands up to the air vents and rubbed them together in the blasting heat. Cole turned to pull something out of the back behind their seats. Soon, she was covered by a large, warm wool blanket. She let out a sigh and wrapped it around her, snuggling into it.
Cole pulled out another blanket for himself. Next, he grabbed two thermoses and handed one to Logan. “Coffee,” he said when she just stared at him. “To get us warm.”
She opened it, hesitating only a little at the thought that it might be a prank. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d offered her a sullied drink.
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