Page 19 of Unforgettable Player

“Connor, put me down! Please!” Scout screams.

“Fine.” He tosses her off his shoulder and she goes headfirst into the water. I’m too busy watching for her to surface to notice Connor lunge for me.

I squeal—it isn’t a very manly sound, but I don’t have time to be embarrassed about it before Connor is pulling the ring from my hands and coming for me.

“Leave him alone!” Scout shouts. Connor doesn’t even seem to hear her as he comes for me, catching me around the waist and tossing me over his shoulder in one fell swoop.

My breath is knocked from my lungs, but I don't think it’s just being manhandled that does it.

The second his hand made contact with my bare skin, heat rushed through me and my head started to swim. The hard ridges of his body were bruising as he hefted me onto his shoulder, and now I’m dangling, close enough to smell the salt water on his skin. My chest is pressed against his naked back and his arm is tightly clutching me around the thighs. I have to bite my lip to hold in a groan of pleasure.

Scout is beating Connor with the floatie, but he’s just laughing at her feeble attempt at a rescue. God, his laugh.

“Put him down or I’ll call the lifeguard.”

“I’ll put him down if he asks nicely.”

Heat pools in my groin. Fuck. If he doesn’t put me down soon, he’s about to feel how much I don’t hate him touching me like this.

“Please!” I whine. Please put me down before I make a fool of myself in front of you.

In another moment, I’m being deposited back in the water.

I come up breathless, scrubbing the hair back from my face. I rub water out of my eyes and open them to find Connor watching me with a weird expression on his face. It’s like fear and something else, something I can’t quite read. Like he’s in a trance.

He snaps out of it. “You okay?”

I nod. “Fine.”

“Are you a psychopath?” Scout screeches. “You could have drowned us, you lunatic.”

Connor’s face changes in an instant as he turns to his sister. “I was just messing around. Relax. I’d never let anything happen to you.”

Scout misses the tenderness of his statement entirely and spits one last “Psycho,” at him before trudging out of the sea. Before I can follow her, my gaze locks back on Connor’s. He smiles. It feels like a private smile. He laughs and I laugh, too, before biting my lip to stop myself.

“Eli, come on.”

Scout’s voice drags me out of the moment and I follow her, forcing myself not to look back.

Naomi just smiles when Scout complains about her brother.

“He was just having fun with you.”

“You always take his side.” Scout has a big beach towel wrapped around her shoulders, her hair dripping down her back while it dries into her natural curls.

I lean close so only she can hear me. “Are you mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?” she asks.

I shrug. “Because I totally failed at rescuing you?”

She holds her pinkie finger out and we shake on it. Warmth and relief spreads through me.

“Snack time,” Richard announces, pulling little sandwiches and slices of fruit from the cooler. He cracks open a beer and passes a wine spritzer to Naomi.

“Want a beer, bud?” he asks his son.

Connor hesitates before accepting it.