Page 35 of My Grape Crush
“Do you have a better idea?” I ask, refusing to let her go.
She glances at the shoreline, fading into dusk. I silently beg her to take me down, but she slips free of my grip instead.
“How about another race back?” she suggests.
I try to keep cool, masking my disappointment. We were on the verge. I know Dani felt it—she had to, what with my erection the size of a torpedo and pulsing hard against her bare thigh. So why are we still talking?We should be a hot, breathless blur of grasping hands, mouths, and tongues. Lost in a primal frenzy to devour each other.
Seriously, how did I screw this up?
“Glutton for punishment?” I ask with a pumped-up smile.
Dani ponders the question briefly. “Maybe I need to be punished.”
“I can arrange that,” I quip, out of fucking nowhere. Out of desperation, really, because punishment is not part of my contract, nor am I skilled at inflicting physical pain.
Her eyes dart to the sand and, okay, I get it. This, again—the race fake-out. It's not the punishment I envisioned, but if you can’t devour the woman, you might as well beat her at her own game. I brace myself for her move, my twitching muscles ready to dive right after her.
But I guess she dupes me, times two.
With a wily grin, she plants her hands against my chest and shoves hard. I stumble backward, time and space frozen into a singular moment, my body tight with the urgency to steady itself. Then I’m falling, and the cool grip of the lake clamps around my lungs. I thrash to the surface, gasping for air, struggling at this precise moment to locate my dignity after being unceremoniously dumped.
And my manhood has already shriveled and surrendered, appalled at the betrayal.
Retreat! False alarm.
And Dani? She'slaughing—full-throated and unapologetic—as she sprints off the raft, launching herself into the air. Tucked into a deadly cannonball, she plunges into the depths beside me with a joyous holler. The spray peppers my eyes, but the sting is peanuts compared to the chaos pounding beneath my skin and ribcage like a second, competing heartbeat.
So full of feelings.
Chapter Eleven
DANI
“Dani?”
Evelyn’s voice snaps me out of my daydream. I sit up in my desk chair, blinking fast. “Yes?”
Hands parked at her waist, Evelyn assesses my face and the signs of puppy love written all over it.“Dear, dear,” she clucks, her voice gentle. “Someone’s in a fog.”
“Sorry.” I crack a sheepish grin. “So much going on.”
She lifts a micro-bladed brow and why, why, why am I blushing? Because Evelyn has a way of finding cracks in your armor you never knew existed.
And because my brain is far away.
Lost in a summer’s night, bodies this close to letting go.
Out on the raft, in the fading light, I could feel my entire being responding to just a flicker of his brown eyes. There was nothing else I wanted at that moment but to kiss Rhys. Know the taste of his mouth and skin. But my heart went arrhythmic with fear. He is so out of my league.
How do I not end up hurt?
“What time does Sawyer arrive today?” Evelyn prods me back into the moment, reminding me of the upcoming meeting with Rhys’s older brother.
Sawyer reached out last week, angling for a tour of the amphitheater. Trenton Talent Management doesn’t just represent internet personalities like Rhys—they have actors and bands under their wing. Sawyer teased a couple of acts we should check out and slotted himself into my schedule for a meet and greet. He also pushed for my cell number, and I now regret caving. I eye my phone, bracing for another text to pile onto the five others Sawyer fired off since leaving Vancouver. The hourly barrage kicked off at eight this morning, which means Rhys wasn’t the first Trenton to light up my phone.
But the one text I keep re-reading came from him at nine-thirty, the dignified waking hour of an influencer.
RT: Thanks for last night. Official reboot?
