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“Just giving them a good show, Angel.”
“You—”
And then he does a push-up in the water with me on his back.
“Dick,” I hiss.
Jesse lets out a laugh and does a one-handed push-up, using the other hand to reach back and tickle my side.
I can’t stand him using me as a tool to show off his strength, so I release my grip and slide off his back. The minute I do, he’s on me, grappling with my arms. Jesse grabs my wrists and pins them over my head, and I kick out with my legs, rolling and twisting to the side.
He lets me go. I hate it.
Because he’sletting me go.It’s not like I’m fighting free or making him uncomfortable. It enrages me, and I turned toward him again.
Jesse’s eyes flicker from my face to my chest and back up again, and I don’t even care that my shirt is clinging to my body. I want to take him down. I want to make him pay in this small way. Just once.
Jesse’s so smug. So unaffected.
He claps his hands and crooks the fingers on both hands.
I run at him. He catches me around the waist, easily, then falls to his knees and brings me onto my back in the water, almost gently.
“Fight me,” I say. “Fight me.”
“There’s no contest.” But his eyes flash at the challenge, and he pins me down, clamping my wrists above my head with one hand, the other resting on my waist. “Tap out. You’re done.”
“Never. Fuck you.”
“Only in your wildest, wettest dreams, Angel.”
The words are whispered into my ear.
I buck against him, but his hand presses against my midriff, holding me down, his fingers spread. Jesse laughs as the countdown starts up from the Taylors.
“Ten, nine, eight?—”
“Come on, Marci!” June calls. “You can do it.”
“Kick his ass!” Hannah puts in.
“Hey,” Jesse says, turning his head, showing me his defined, cleanly shaven jaw. “Whose side are you on? I’m your brother!”
“Her side,” Hannah yells back.
I grin, but the minute Jesse looks my way, I stop.
The countdown reaches zero, but he doesn’t let go. “Guess I win,” he says.
“Congratulations, Jesse. You’re an asshole.”
“Don’t be a sore loser.”
I resist the urge to stick out my tongue at him. I lie in the water, aware of how his hands feel on my body. He isn’t hurting me, and the touch is… it sends my heart pattering like a traitor.
“Let me go.”
Jesse releases me right away. He sits in the water rather than standing, and I get up and get out of the kiddie pool, rolling my eyes heavenward. “I’ll get him next year,” I say.
