Authors: Kelly Favor
Kane smiled at him. “If it was up to you, the Sistine Chapel would be glow in the dark.”
“Now that would be fun.”
“When you have as much money as I have, you start to appreciate the simple things more.”
“Like giant backyard Olympic sized swimming pools?” Red asked.
“Exactly. Come, I want to have a drink and chat with you about some business matters.”
Red rolled his eyes, but acquiesced. He looked back at Kallie. “You all right on your own for a while?”
She nodded and kept the fake smile going. “Yes, I’m fine. It’s lovely here.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Danielle said. She came closer to Kallie. “So you’re friends with Nicole?”
Kallie shrugged. “I suppose you could say that. We only just met the other day, but she’s been really sweet and generous to me.”
Danielle nodded. “Of course. That’s my Nicole.” She walked towards the pool.
“You like to swim?”
“Yeah, but not usually in a cocktail dress.”
“I’ve got bathing suits in my room that will fit you. Let me grab you one.”
“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”
“Come on, you’ll have so much more fun if you get in the pool! I’ll go with you, Kallie. Please?”
Kallie didn’t want to be rude, but she wasn’t really feeling in the mood for swimming. As they approached the pool, though, something changed.
There was a group of about eight or ten people swimming and splashing. A large plastic ball was being batted around, from one person to the next, accompanied by shouting and laughing.
It did look kind of fun. And there was a man in the pool that looked familiar somehow, but Kallie couldn’t quite place him. The one thing she did know was he was gorgeous. In the blue light coming from the nearby floodlights, he looked almost radiant and other worldly. He had dark hair, and his body was like something out of an action movie—he might have been CGI if she didn’t know better. His biceps bulged, his shoulders were muscular and his chest rippling. He had a flatter stomach than anyone should have in real life.
Needless to say, the women swimming near him were giving him plenty of attention, giggling and laughing. When he picked one of the women up and tossed her a few feet, Kallie got a thrill at the thought of him doing that to her.
Suddenly, she very much wanted to get in that pool. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go swimming with you.”
“Yes!” Danielle said, grabbing her hand and dragging her back toward the house.
***
When they re-emerged about fifteen or twenty minutes later, Danielle and Kallie were both clad in bikinis. Kallie wished for a t-shirt or something to cover herself with, at least temporarily, but all she had was a towel that Danielle had provided for her. She slung it over her shoulder and tried to use it like a shield as she walked past the other guests, most of who were fully clothed.
They walked to the pool and Kane and Red came over, both drinking bottles of beer. Red saw Kallie’s outfit and his eyebrows raised but he didn’t comment.
“Hot mama,” Kane said.
Danielle did a twirl. “Watch me dive in,” she said, and then promptly did an expert dive and knifed through the water like a fish.
“You getting in, too?” Kane asked Kallie.
“I can’t compete with that,” she said. “Wish me luck!” And then she jumped in, doing the trusty old pencil dive, her feet penetrating the cool water first and then she was fully submerged.
It was like going into a different world, a cool and dark world where the sounds were all muted and she was in slow motion—then she was popping out of the water and bobbing on the surface.
Red and Kane were talking and sipping their drinks, and a moment later they faded into the rest of the crowd together.
Danielle kicked over to where Kallie was treading water. “It’s perfect, isn’t it?”
Danielle asked her.
“Yeah, the temperature is just right.”
“So, how exactly did you and Nicole meet again?” she asked, blinking and wiping excess water from her nose and mouth.
Kallie stuttered. Five minutes of chatting at the beach didn’t really explain why she was now staying at Nicole’s house and accompanying her husband to a party. But then again, this woman didn’t know she was staying with them. Kallie started to give the short version of how they’d met, when there was some commotion from nearby.
In the shallow end of the pool, two girls were sitting astride their boyfriends’
shoulders and wrestling—chicken fighting, Kallie thought it was called—until one of the girls was able to topple the other into the pool.
The victors began celebrating as if they’d just won an Olympic gold medal.
“Nobody can take us down,” the guy said, as the girl atop his shoulders flexed her biceps and yelled something unintelligible.
For some reason, Kallie felt really annoyed by their childish display.
Another couple decided to take them on and promptly lost as well. Now the celebration was really over the top.
Danielle hauled herself out of the water. “Too much yelling and splashing for my tastes. Want to grab a drink or something?”
Kallie was going to say yes, but then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the hot guy from earlier was looking at her. At least, she thought he was.
Kallie looked back at Danielle, her heart beating fast. “I don’t know,” she said.
“I might just hang in the pool for a few more minutes. It’s so refreshing.”
Danielle shrugged. “I’ll swing back in a few minutes.”
Kallie smiled and nodded, thankful that someone was at least trying to be friendly to her. Danielle seemed like a nice person and fairly unassuming—even though she happened to be richer than Lady Gaga.
“Come on, who wants some of this?” the obnoxious girl shouted, as her even more obnoxious boyfriend bounced her on his shoulders and demanded more competition.
“Come on—is everyone that scared of us?”
As she looked away from their shenanigans (which were drawing the attention of most bystanders by this time), she happened to once again make eye contact with the dark haired guy with the familiar face.
He smiled and swam over to her in a few quick strokes of his strong arms, and she felt a flutter in her stomach and goose bumps rising across every inch of her skin as he came towards her. “So what do you say?” he asked her, once he’d arrived a couple of feet away. “Want to knock those two fools off their pedestal or what?”
“I don’t know,” she said, suddenly nervous.
“Come on,” he said. “It’ll be fun.” And then he was grabbing her hand and pulling her with him.
He raised his other hand out of the water. “Okay, we’ll have a go!” he shouted.
The obnoxious couple started smack talking immediately, while a small crowd gathered to watch the new round of competition.
Kallie’s new partner turned to her, still holding her hand under water. His touch was exciting and his confidence was overwhelming.
“Ready to hop on board?” he asked, smiling, his dark eyes steady on her.
She wondered if he knew how that question sounded and decided that he probably did, which made her quiver even more. Kallie tried to think of the last time she’d had this kind of reaction to a man, and decided she couldn’t remember one. Something about him was just pushing her buttons in ways that both thrilled and frightened her.
Knowing they’d soon be touching skin to bare skin was almost too much to bear.
But she thought that since they had a chicken fight to win, she should put her game face on and forget about how hot he was.
He ducked down low enough in the water that she was able to thread her legs over his muscular shoulders.
His skin was smooth and slick and he immediately wrapped his strong hands around her shins in a way that she could only describe as “firm and resolute.” She knew that he wasn’t going to let her go—no matter what. Her pelvis was pressed against the back of his neck, and as he rose up out of the water, she felt sturdy, completely confident in her partner.
The two obnoxious jerks were waiting for them, poised for battle. Up close she liked them even less. The girl was short and stubby with dark hair and an upturned nose that matched her attitude perfectly. “Easy pickings,” the stubby girl crowed.
Her boyfriend was tall and lanky, but clearly strong and in good shape. He had a series of tattoos across his chest and both ears and his lip were pierced. “Sorry, but we got to take you out, honey,” he said to Nicole. “No hard feelings.” He waded towards them, slowly, his stubby partner grinning as she sat on his shoulders.
“Let them tire themselves out,” the stranger called up to Kallie. “And then we go for the kill.”
“Got it,” she replied.
And then the other couple was upon them, and the stubby girl was grabbing Kallie’s arms and pushing her, pulling her. Kallie felt like she might be thrown off at any moment, and she was honestly surprised by the other girl’s strength. No wonder they’d beaten the other teams so easily—this girl was like a linebacker!
But Kallie’s partner adjusted his hands up above her knees, helping her to stay astride his shoulders and not be yanked off by the more aggressive girl’s frantic pushing and pulling.
Soon people from around the pool were cheering them on, as the match continued. Kallie yanked her arms free of the other girl’s grasp. Now they were circling one another like it was some Roman coliseum fight to the death. “Taryn, this chick is nothing,” the tattooed guy said. “She’s weak sauce, honey. Take her down.”
“Okay!” Taryn yelled back, seemingly annoyed. They rushed in for another attempt. Taryn grabbed Kallie’s arms yet again, pulling and pushing to no avail. Kallie saw that the girl was starting to breathe a little heavier now, too.
They broke apart and Taryn’s boyfriend rolled his eyes up at her. “What’s the problem? That chick weighs about two pounds and looks like a stiff wind would knock her off. Come on!”
Taryn shook her head angrily at him. “You’re unsteady. You keep going off balance.”
Kallie’s stranger looked up at her now. “Ready?”
“Ready,” she said, and gave him a thumb’s up. Suddenly he was charging full speed, and it was shocking how fast he could move in the pool, with water up to his chest. The other couple wasn’t expecting it, and when they got close enough, Kallie grabbed the girl by one arm and yanked her once, plenty hard enough to completely topple her face first into the water.
The crowd poolside let out a cheer.
Kallie threw her arms up in the air and did a quick fist pump. The stranger put up one hand and grabbed hers, squeezing. “That was pretty cool,” he told her.
She started to swing her leg off of him, but tattoo guy wasn’t done just yet. “Hey, best out of three,” he said. “We’re the champs. You can’t beat us unless it’s best of three.”
“I’m done,” Kallie said.
“Figures,” the guy replied. “She knows that win was total bullshit.”
Taryn nodded at him. But Kallie could see the other girl didn’t want any part of another round.
Something about that guy reminded her of all the jerky, snobby people she’d run into in The Hamptons, and Kallie figured maybe it was time to take a stand. “Okay, let’s go then. Best of three,” she said.
The stranger laughed beneath her. “You keep surprising me.”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“Apparently.”
Taryn sullenly clambered up on her boyfriend’s shoulders. This time they were more cautious as the two teams slowly approached one another in the pool. They circled one another, and then Taryn went to grab Kallie’s arm and instead grabbed her hair, yanking anyway. Kallie gave a small, strangled yelp—it hurt. A lot. But then she got a rush of anger, because this was cheating, plain and simple.
Kallie had always hated cheating, and growing up in a house with five boys, she’d dealt with her fair share of rough housing and cheating. The rough housing was nothing, but cheating enraged her.
Despite the fact that Taryn had a huge fistful of her hair and was yanking it, Kallie managed to get her arm hooked under Taryn’s arm, and swung her around so that she nearly spilled forward. Then, as both she and her tattooed boyfriend tried to pull their weight back to counterbalance the forward motion—Kallie pushed the girl in the chest, knocking both her and her boyfriend straight backwards into the water.
They sank like stones and the entire watching audience cheered like it was a great tackle in a football game.
Kallie swung down off the man’s shoulders and he suddenly hugged her. The feel of his chest against hers, his skin, his body—was like nothing she’d ever felt before. His heat was amazing, his touch was absolutely magnetic. He was a total turn-on in every way.
The losing team slunk away and the stranger just chuckled. “Some times good guys really do finish first,” he said.
“I don’t know. Are you sure we’re the good guys?”
His dark eyes smoldered and his smile momentarily faded. “Well, I’m pretty sure you are. Maybe I’m just lucky I found you.”
Kallie tried not to show how much she liked that he’d said that. “Are you here with friends or something?”
“Nope,” he said. “I know Kane Wright because he did some advertising for one of the films that I produced.”
“Oh,” she said, not knowing how to respond. He was some kind of big shot film producer, and she was a disgraced East Hampton nanny.
“Want to get out of this pool now?” he said, looking around. “Everyone else left and my hands have turned to prunes.”
“Definitely time to get out,” she agreed, conscious of his eyes on her body as she got out of the water. She found that she rather hoped he liked what he was seeing.
Shivering, she hugged herself as she stood dripping at the edge of the pool. He climbed out and saw her standing there, obviously cold and wet, and gave her his towel. “Here,”
he said, “wrap this around you. I’ll be back in a second, I just need to grab a towel for myself.”
And then he disappeared through the throng of people and Kallie was left standing there—hoping he would come back. She waited, wondering who he was and if she was right to feel that there was a connection between them.
Maybe he was just a cute guy who also happened to be nice and somewhat chivalrous. But somehow Kallie thought there was a lot more to him than that. She found herself desperately wanting to find out more about him, but told herself not to be silly. He was a rich movie guy here on vacation and probably lived in LA. There was nothing to be excited about.