Take a Chance(6)

“I guess it’s me who gets to say I told you so this time,” she said in a quiet voice before walking past me. The weight on my chest felt like someone had set a thousand bricks on it. I clenched my hands into fists and closed my eyes. What had I done? And why? Why was I letting Nan fuck up my life?

Why the hell had I drunk so much damn whiskey last night? I would have never come here had I been sober. And Harlow . . . Harlow . . . why was Harlow here? I turned and looked back toward the staircase. A door clicked closed. There was no slamming or yelling with Harlow. She wasn’t that way. Any other woman would have cursed me and possibly slapped me then stormed up the stairs and slammed her door. But not Harlow. That made this even worse. If that was possible.

Two months and three and a half weeks ago . . .

Harlow stepped out of the house, looking unsure of herself. It had taken me twenty minutes to convince her to swim with me. She had made up all kinds of excuses. But I was pretty damn persuasive when I wanted to be. The oversized Slacker Demon concert T-shirt she was wearing covered up whatever swimsuit she’d finally put on. I had been waiting on her for half an hour. I was almost ready to go up to her room and pull her out here myself. I had just gotten back to L.A. a few hours ago. Being in Rosemary was hard when all I could think about was Harlow’s sweet smile. I was anxious to be near her.

“About time. I thought you were gonna make me swim alone,” I said, standing up from the lounger I had been reclining on while waiting.

Harlow blushed. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

As if she needed to apologize. There was no way a man could be even remotely annoyed with her. It was impossible. She was too damn sweet and innocently sexy, which was screwing with my head. There was no way she was that innocent. She was in college. She had to have dated before. In high school the guys would have been all over her.

“You’re here now. Let’s swim. It’s warm out here today.”

Harlow reached for the hem of her shirt and I considered diving in and not watching her take it off. It would be the polite thing to do, but hell if I could convince my eyes that looking away was the best idea. They were zoned in on her every move.

We had been . . . I wasn’t sure what we had been doing. This was the strangest relationship—if you could call it that—I had ever been in. Harlow was letting me get closer every day but she still kept up her barriers. I hadn’t managed to get my lips near her skin again.

My eyes drank in her long legs as the T-shirt slowly lifted, revealing a simple high-necked one-piece white bathing suit. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a girl my age in a one-piece swimsuit. But it was white. Holy fuck. I felt myself harden as my eyes traveled up from her legs to the nipple I could clearly see pebbled beneath the fabric.

I turned and dove into the water before I scared the hell out of her. I swam the length of the pool before coming up for air and turning to look at her. She was walking down into the pool through the sloping entrance. Damn, she was perfect. She lifted her eyes and smiled at me. It was a good thing my reaction to her was hidden under the water.

Once she was far enough in that the water touched her shoulders, she seemed to relax. Having her body on display made her nervous. It had been all over her face. I couldn’t figure out why. It was like throwing me a challenge. I wanted her body completely on display for me. And I wanted her to like it. To want it.

“Come on, pretty girl. Come swim with the big boys,” I teased. Her mouth puckered up in a frown. She didn’t like me calling her pretty girl. Her reaction to it only made me want to do it more.

“I don’t trust the big boys,” she replied. Her head tilted to the side and she raised one eyebrow.

Chuckling to myself, I couldn’t remember a time in my life that one female had entertained me so much. “Are you scared?”

Her eyebrows snapped together this time and I laughed harder. If you wanted Harlow to do something, then taunting her was the way to go. She didn’t back down from a dare or a threat. There was a silent toughness in her that you didn’t know existed until you spent time with her. “My pretty girl is getting all fired up. Come get me.”

Harlow let out a small growl of frustration. “Stop calling me that.”

“No,” was my only reply.

“You drive me crazy.”

I closed some of the space between us. “I drive most girls crazy, babe. It’s what I do. And they like it.”

A grin tugged at her lips but she was trying very hard to hold her frown. “I can’t imagine why they would like it.”

I stopped when I got a couple of inches from her body. “Same reason you like it. I’m so damn sexy, you can’t stay away.”