Most Likely to Succeed

He snapped me out of it when he held out his hand for my skirt. “Hop to it, Gordon. We ain’t getting any younger.”

I waded after him, shimmied my skirt down my hips, and stepped out of it. Shining drops of ocean dashed dark stains across the fabric.

He bundled it with his shorts and tossed both to the shore, which was sandy and wet. So much for keeping my skirt dry.

He turned back to me. He looked me up and down, and his lips parted. “The bottom of your shirt’s going to get wet. Why don’t you take that off too, while we’re at it.”

My knee-jerk reaction was to be offended that he was using such a thin excuse to get my clothes off. But I loved that he wanted this. And I did feel a little silly standing in the ocean in my shirt and panties. A bra and panties were more like a bikini, at least.

Before I reached for my first button, I said, “You first.”

Gamely he pulled his shirt off over his head, exposing his flat stomach, then his strong pecs, and finally his arms made of muscle. He balled up his shirt and nodded, prompting me.

I fumbled with the first button of my blouse, fingers shaking. Sawyer had seen me with less on than this. When I got undressed, I’d still be exposing exactly as much in my bra and panties as I did in a bikini. There was no reason for me to feel so nervous as I moved my fingers down to the next button, except for the way Sawyer watched me, jaw hard, eyes serious. The breeze off the ocean toyed with the top sections of his hair, bright blond in the moonlight, and moved one lock back and forth across his forehead. He didn’t brush it away.

He stared at my fingers until they reached the last button. As I pulled the shirt backward off my shoulders, his eyes rose to my face. Still looking at me, he held out his hand for my shirt. He wrapped his own shirt around it and tossed the bundle toward the shore, not looking to see where it went. Neither did I.

“Now we’re seaworthy,” he said, reaching out again, this time for my hand. Facing me, he backed deeper into the water, pulling me with him. I began to wonder if this was one of his practical jokes.

He stopped backing up but kept pulling me toward him until our bodies pressed against each other in the water. His lips found my neck, making me gasp and sending chills rushing across my skin. I felt my nipples tighten, straining against the lace of my bra.

“This is why we needed to come out here,” he said in my ear, “where the guys couldn’t hear or see us. I wanted to tell you how bad I am for you. I’m going to corrupt you. I wanted you to understand that and feel it for yourself.” His hand slipped inside the front of my panties. His fingers found me and started circling.

“Ah.” This was something Aidan had never done to me. In thirty seconds with Sawyer, I already understood why girls went crazy over him. Weak with pleasure, I collapsed into his shoulder, only caring about the position of my hips so he could still reach me.

With his other hand he lifted my chin from his chest and kissed me. The tentative boy from the van was gone. His mouth was hard on mine, his tongue exploring me. He slid his hand into my hair and tilted my head exactly where he wanted me.

Every minute this went on I got closer to climax—my first in front of anyone. I wasn’t embarrassed. I had stopped thinking. My hands found his boxers on their own, and it was the shocking hardness of him, and the strange possessiveness I felt when I put my fingers around him, that finally sent me over the edge.

He kissed me harder, holding me up against him, knowing exactly what he was doing to me.

When it was over, I leaned against him, catching my breath, and finally pulled away to stand upright. Bare-chested, with the black ocean and the blue night behind him, his golden hair whipping in the wind, he looked like a god. A sarcastic one, smiling smugly at his accomplishment.

I took a deep, shaky breath. “Was that your way of getting rid of me once and for all? Because you have totally fucked that up.”

“Good.” He kissed my cheek. “It was just my one last, futile attempt to save us both.” He kissed my neck. “I’m glad it didn’t work.” He kissed above my breast, his mouth lingering as if this was going to be his next thorough exploration.

A bright light shone in our eyes from the beach. “Police,” said a man’s voice through a megaphone. “Come out of the water.”

12

“STAY BEHIND ME UNTIL WE know whether they’re really cops,” Sawyer ordered me, leading me by the hand toward the beach.

He didn’t have to convince me. I’d told myself before that wearing a bra and panties in the ocean was no worse than wearing a bikini. But now that men in addition to Sawyer were going to see me, I wondered how opaque the wet lace of my undies really was.

When we reached shore, the light was still too bright to discern much about the figures who’d found us, but they were big. Sawyer said, “Get your light out of my eyes, and show me your badges.” His words were forceful, but his tone was reasonable enough that the light shifted to the police badges on their shirts. The names appliqued above their badges were, I swear to God, Sterns and Sorrow.

“Ma’am,” Sorrow said to me, “will you step over here?”

“Don’t make her do that.” Sawyer sounded annoyed now, which I didn’t think was a good idea when talking to policemen. “We’re obviously not hiding anything.”

Sterns said, “We got a call because you’re on park land.”

“We’re not,” Sawyer said. “We’re on Hiram Moreau’s land, and we have permission to be here.”