There are about ten people scattered around the narrow expanse of beach. We both move, in unspoken agreement, as far from them as possible and take a spot near a tall oak. I dig my oversized towel out of my bag and make sure it’s perfectly laid out on the sand. Luc pulls his towel off his shoulder and drops it in a heap on the sand. He kicks off his shoes, pulls his shirt off and drops his ass onto the towel.
I stare at him, half naked and smiling up at me. He’s got more muscles than last year and I have no idea how that is even possible. But his back looks wider and stronger and his biceps are thicker, his chest broader and his stomach ripples with muscles. It’s a thing of beauty. So is that fleur-de-lis tattoo. I never thought I was a girl who would get hot for inked men, but everything about the tattoo is so perfectly Luc it turns me on.
He lowers his sunglasses and looks over them at me. “Are you just going to stand there? You’re blocking my sun.”
“Someone needs to, you burn under a lightbulb,” I don’t know why he burns so easily, because he has a delicious almost olive skin tone, but he burns like he’s a porcelain-skinned redhead. “And I’m betting you forgot sunscreen.”
“I didn’t forget it. I purposely didn’t bring it,” he informs me, smiling even broader now. “I knew you’d have some.”
I roll my eyes like I’m an exasperated mother and dig into my bag again, producing the large bottle of Water Babies 60 SPF sunblock. I wear 45 normally, but I knew he’d need this.
“Water Babies. Appropriately named,” I snark and toss it at him. It hits his solid chest with a whack, like it’s hitting a brick wall.
As he opens the bottle and rubs the thick white lotion onto his chest I turn away, to keep myself from drooling, and shimmy out of my cover-up, dropping it onto my discarded flip-flops.
I turn back around and Luc is frozen like a statue. White lotion is running down his abs and his hand is flat against his chest like he’s an old woman trying to catch her breath. His sexy mouth is hanging wide open and I get a little tingle as I notice his broad pink tongue resting on his bottom lip. God, I want to taste that tongue.
“What?” I ask and look behind me to see if Angelina Jolie is dancing naked in the trees. Because that’s what he looks like he’s looking at.
“Holy hell, Fleur… that bikini is…” He shakes his head and swallows. “You look indecent.”
My face falls.
“Decently indecent,” he corrects himself and grins awkwardly. “Now I know why Jessie wants me to beat people up. Every guy in on this beach is going to be turned on by the sight of you.”
I blush and inside I’m more than a little thrilled. I wonder if he’s turned on too, but I don’t ask him. I may be trying to spice up my image on the outside but on the inside I’m still a chicken shit. Baby steps, I tell myself. At least I had the nerve to wear this scrap of fabric in public.
He glances around, reaches up and tugs on my arm. “Lie down already before you get noticed!”
I laugh. He stares. Just sits there and stares as I fall to my knees on my towel. At least I think he’s staring. It’s hard to tell with his shades on. But it’s like I can feel his eyes on me. Undressing me? Maybe. That thought makes me warm. But I’m still self-conscious.
“Luc, look somewhere else.”
“I can’t look away.”
“If I throw sand in your eyes you won’t be able to stare,” I threaten and he looks away and finishes rubbing lotion into his chiseled torso. Now it’s my turn to look away.
I flop down on my stomach, resting on my elbows, with my face toward the water and concentrate on the cool blue surface. Luc’s face is behind me now so if he’s ogling my ass, I can’t see it, thankfully, but I do make a point of tilting my hips a little and making it look as perky as possible. Just in case.
All of a sudden something wet drips down my spine. I twist my head. Luc is kneeling beside my towel, his thick arm hovering above my back, the open lotion bottle in his hand.
“You need this or you’ll burn,” he says firmly.
There are a million reasons why I don’t need the sunblock. I hardly ever burn. I already have a base tan. I had put on some 45 at home after my shower. But I don’t tell him any of that. I just let his big, rough hands slide down my spine, rubbing the lotion into my body, and I try not to shudder with the lust that’s begun heating my blood.
Chapter 7
Luc
Mon Dieu! I could feel all the blood rush to my dick as soon as she slipped out of her dress. It was so fast and so absolute I actually felt light-headed. And so what do I do? I crawl over and put lotion on her back. Because touching her half-naked body is totally going to help stop me from getting hard. Merde, I am stupid.
My hands run over the smooth, pristine skin of her back. I slide up to her tiny shoulders and my fingertips feel each vertebra slip by as I make my way down—all the way down—to where her tiny excuse for a bathing suit barely contains her perky, tight ass. Yep! Now I’m almost completely hard. Fucking great.
I finish with the lotion and quickly scoot back to my towel and flop down on my stomach in an effort to hide the situation in my swim shorts. She glances over.
“Thanks.”
“I’ve got your back, Rose,” I reply and wink at her, which makes her smile.
We both close our eyes and lie beside each other in silence. I don’t know what she’s thinking about, but I’m thinking about hockey equipment, and shootouts, and skating drills—anything but her in that bikini.
The warm sun on my back and the need to shut my brain off is the perfect mix for a nap and I slip into sleep. I don’t know how long I’m out but suddenly I’m being catapulted rudely into consciousness by a thick trail of cold water crashing down on my sun-warmed skin. I flinch and let out a deep yelp, like an animal in a trap, and twist my head to see a soaking-wet Rose bent over above me, her long hair dripping lake water on me. I roll off the towel onto the sand and she flips her head up, wet hair flying back onto her shoulders, and grins proudly.
“You looked a little warm. Thought I would cool you off.”
I shake my head, my lips curling upward. She knows what’s coming and she turns and runs. I’m faster and reach her as she squeals, picking her up, tossing her over my shoulder and running to the water. When I’m almost waist-deep I bend and push up, tossing her from my shoulder and smiling as she flails in her backward descent into the water.
She pops up seconds later and hurls herself into me. Her slippery arms go around my neck and her svelte thighs wrap around my waist as the rest of her body slams into my torso. She’s soaking wet and the chilly water shocks my skin, but the feel of so much of her exposed skin against me—because her bikini is so damn nonexistent—is shocking for completely different reasons. I could have handled her assault without tipping over. She’s not heavy enough to bring me down, but my blood is rushing south again so I allow myself to fall backward with her on top of me. Thankfully, being engulfed in the cold lake water kills the hard-on my hormones are trying to sprout.
We both pop to the top of the water facing each other and she promptly pulls her arm back and slaps the surface of the lake, spraying me with a solid wall of water. I reach out and grab her arm, yanking her toward me, and jump up, pressing my free hand to the top of her head and shoving her under again. Under the water she places her tiny feet on my thighs and shoves with all her might. I fall backward and before I can get up she pops out of the water and jumps on top of me, her hands landing on my shoulders and pushing me down.
As we wrestle under the water, her hands slide down my shoulders and down my chest, her fingers going so far as to graze the top of my shorts. I feel a shiver of need roll down my spine and instinctually reach for her waist, my hands brushing the underside of her bikini top, grazing her rib cage, before wrapping around her back. She lets me pull her right against me, even moves her legs to either side of my waist so she’s basically completely wrapped around me. When we pop up, breaking the water’s surface, we
’re still tangled intimately around each other. We’re both breathing heavily, her wet, warm skin sliding against my wet, warm skin in places we’ve never collided before. I watch a water drop slip from her earlobe to her neck and I have a sudden, unexpected urge to trace its movement with my tongue…
“Luc Richard?” A voice cuts through the air. The interruption is like an invisible wedge thrown between us, and we both instantly pull apart.
I turn and see a guy, about midthirties, standing a few feet away staring at me. I’ve never seen him before in my life and since he called my by my full name, I’m guessing he’s a hockey fan. He’s got a giant grin on his face that switches from leering to excited as he looks from Rose to me. Jessie’s joke comes back to me and I hope I won’t have to slug this guy.
“Hey there,” I say and extend my hand.
He shakes it a little too vigorously and his grin grows wider. “I’m a huge fan.”
“Thanks, man.” I nod.
“I don’t want to bug you but could say hi to my kid?” he asks me and points excitedly to the shore. “Colton is eight and he’s a huge Vipers fan, too. He’d love it.”
I nod and smile. I never say no to kids. I glance over my shoulder at Rose, who is standing there glistening in that incredible bathing suit looking more like a supermodel than Nessa ever did. She smiles encouragingly and makes a small shooing motion with her hand. She gets it. Rose has always been accommodating to fan interruptions when they happen in her presence. Nessa loved them too, but only because she used them as an opportunity to get attention for herself.
I follow the guy toward the shore, leaving Rose to swim alone, and smile and nod as he tells me how he’s been a huge fan since I was a local player and he’s really sorry for the bad luck I’ve been having since I was drafted. His kid, Colton, is an adorable, scraggly thing with a few teeth missing and he completely lights up at the sight of me. I squat down next to him and we talk hockey for a couple of minutes. As is usually the case with kids, he gives the sharpest advice. “You just gotta score more. Then the TV people won’t say mean things about you.”
I laugh as his dad’s face grows pink. “You’re completely right. I’ll try and do that next year. But even if people are mean to me, it’s okay. I can’t take it too much to heart when I’ve got cool guys like you on my side.”
He grins proudly at that and starts to tell me about how he plays hockey but he thinks he’s going to be a goalie because he doesn’t skate very well. His dad asks for a picture, which I gladly pose for next to Colton and then I offer him a selfie, which he excitedly takes. “Thanks again. I really appreciate it. Sorry I interrupted you and your girlfriend.”
I blink. “You didn’t. She’s just a friend.”
The guy’s smile turns sly. “With friends like that I guess you don’t need a girlfriend.”
He says good-bye and I walk back toward our towels. I run a hand through my damp hair and watch as Rose walks out of the water looking like a fucking Bond girl. When the hell did she become a Bond girl?
I’ve seen Rose sporadically over the last couple of years since she graduated high school. She came home every summer—and so did I—but for the first few years Jordan and I were still living with his parents in the off-season and Jordan did his best to avoid the Caplan sisters. I’d see her around town and at the occasional summer bonfire. There was no denying she had turned into a very pretty woman. I wasn’t blind and I was attracted to her, sure, but I still thought of her as this pure, innocent, sweet thing that I was meant to protect like a big brother. Today in the water, there was nothing pure about the gleam in her dark eyes as she wrapped her wet, wondrous curves around my body. In that bathing suit she looked anything but innocent.
I watch as she bends over and grabs her towel and begins to wipe the water from her skin. My eyes automatically sweep over her exposed skin and curves.
“Eyes up, Luc!”
“Damn that bikini!” I grab my own towel and swear in French under my breath. “You know, that guy thought you were my girlfriend.”
The wind picks up and the big oak nearby rustles loudly as she mumbles what sounds like “Everybody does but you.”
“What?” I ask.
She takes a deep breath and then shrugs. “I said, what are you gonna do?”
She lays her towel down on the sand and lowers herself onto it. She catches me staring at her again and I quickly look away, dropping my own towel and lying on my stomach again.
“Speaking of doing something,” I say, changing the subject because if I keep focusing on my dark thoughts about her, I’m going to get myself in trouble, “I was thinking of doing a charity event this summer.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I think it’ll… help my image.”
She smiles encouragingly at me and I’m instantly glad I shared this with her. I haven’t really thought it through, but the idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while. A lot of the more respected players in the league put together something in the off-season to promote a charity. Jordan, Devin and I always visit the local children’s hospital, make a donation and visit the kids, bringing them signed pucks, posters and jerseys, but this year I felt like I wanted to do more.
“I just don’t know what…” I confess.
“Everyone always does golf tournaments,” she replies and I feel my hope deflate a little. I was thinking about a golf tournament. She must catch the defeat on my face because she gives me a soft, sympathetic smile. “I’ll help you think of something better.”
We’re silent for a few minutes. She lies there on her back, sunglasses on, damp hair fanned out behind her, and I try to keep from leering at her again. Suddenly she sits up and claps. “All-star game!”
“What?”
“You can hold a charity all-star game!” She pulls off her sunglasses and squints at me excitedly in the bright sunlight. “There’re tons of NHL players, retired and current, who live in New England. Invite them all and invite some of your teammates and, of course, the Garrisons. Have an auction so people can bid on coaching you guys. A different coach each period. And you can have a skate beforehand with the kids. You can do it at the local indoor rink. It’ll be fun and you’ll raise a ton of money.”
I think about. She’s right… Silver Bay loves hockey, even in the summer. And I love any chance I get to skate. “You’re brilliant.”
“Yeah. I am.” She smiles and laughs at herself. “I can help you plan it if you want.”
“That’d be great.”
“Oh! It’s Kate!” Rose squeals and points to a group of girls lying on their towels by a log a few feet away. “Be right back.”
I watch her as she walks over to her high school best friend, her ass swinging sexily. I have got to get it together, I tell myself sternly. The last thing I need is to fuck up one of the only good things in my life right now. My friendship with Rose is one of those things.
Chapter 8
Rose
I come downstairs and make an effort to not look anyone in the eye as I enter the kitchen. I breeze right past Jordan and Jessie, push open the screen door and step out onto the porch. It’s only when they don’t follow me that I lift my chin and try to level an innocent stare at them. “You said we were heading over at seven-thirty. It’s seven-thirty. Let’s go!”
“You know we’re just going to Luc’s to hang out, right?” Jessie questions, her moss-colored eyes moving from my wedge-sandaled feet, up my bare calves and thighs to where my tiny little black-and-white sundress starts. Her gaze pauses on the low neckline and then follows the spaghetti straps up to my exposed neck and lands on my face. I know she’s admiring the subtle but smoky eye makeup I spent half an hour perfecting.
I shrug. “This dress is comfy. Can we go?”
Jessie nods and Jordan grabs his keys off the hook. Luc invited us all over to his place to help brainstorm and plan the charity event we talked about at the beach two days ago. It’s a relaxed, friendly get-together. Jessie is wea
ring a tank top and jean shorts. Jordan is in jeans and a simple T-shirt. I definitely stand out, but that’s what I need to do, I remind myself.
Luc is out back when we get there, positioning Adirondack chairs around the crackling fire pit. The weather is slightly cool, with a strong breeze off the lake. He’s wearing a black V-neck T-shirt with a pair of beige shorts and a dark plaid shirt tied around his waist. He looks like a hipster model or lead singer for a grunge band from the nineties and as usual, it’s fucking hot.
He smiles welcomingly as we all pile onto his deck, but as his eyes land on me they flare and I swear to God I see a little spark there. The smile vanishes, then reappears a little softer, a little darker.
Jordan speaks, breaking the moment into dust. “So! Be a good host and get me a beer.”
“Get it yourself, bitch,” Luc snarks with a smile and Jordan gives him a playful punch on the shoulder as he walks back into the house to retrieve his beer.
He comes out with beers for everyone and we settle in around the fire and start planning. Luc takes notes on his iPad balanced on his knee. We decide which NHL players and alumni to invite, which weekend to have the event, when to put tickets on sale and what to sell them for. But with every detail that’s decided comes a bigger list of everything that needs to get done, and Luc’s sexy face starts to turn into a grimace of stress. And the one thing none of us can help him with is picking the cause.
“It has to come from you, bro,” Jordan says. “You have to pick something that really means something to you.”
He nods. I catch a glimpse of his tongue resting on his bottom lip as he thinks and I feel that hot tingle of lust between my thighs. I shift in my chair.
“I have to think about that one,” he admits and his voice is low, like it’s some kind of failure.
Jordan gets up to grab another beer and Jessie leaves to use the bathroom. I lean over from my chair and place a hand on his. “It’s okay. We can book the venue and the arena and figure out the cause after. You’ve got a little time.”
Making a Play Page 5