Free Some Like It Hot by Zoey Dean Page A

Plus, I got up early for you; I never get up early for anybody.” She leaned over to kiss him gently, concentrating on his lower lip. “Nice here, huh?”
    “Very. You have friends in high places.”
    Yes, she did.
    Adam reached for Cammie and tugged her down next to him on the blanket. She landed artfully, her head on his chest. “Did I tell you how hot you look in that?” he asked.
    “That's called stating the obvious, Adam. The real question is, How did you ever hook up with such a babe?”
    “Brat.” He reached for a giant white chocolate-dipped strawberry that nestled on a special cold plate he'd brought in their cooler and dangled the berry near Cammie's lips. She flicked her tongue out and licked it, eyeing him slyly.
    “Don't do that in public, Cam. It gives me a very private reaction.”
    “Good.” She took the strawberry and bit into it. When they'd first been getting together, she'd tried to seduce Adam on a beach and it definitely had not worked out. Adam was a private-sex kind of guy, while Cammie adored an audience. He kissed her gently, and she felt it down to her flame-red pedicure.
    “Hey, you think we should rent a limo for prom, or should I drive?” he asked, then kissed her collarbone.
    She made a face. “Everyone has prom on the brain; Sam and Anna were talking about it yesterday. It's so desperately high school.”
    “We're
in
high school.”
    “Please. Prom makes me think of clueless fat valley girls stuffed into mall gowns like huge pastel sausages. Then their dates rent some hideous purple tux and buy every rubber in Rite Aid in case they get pathetically lucky.”
    “You're such a snob, Cammie.” He reached for her hand and helped her to her feet.
    “Thank you.”
    “Come on, you. You're about to get wet.” He spanked her ass once and started jogging toward the water. Cammie sighed. When she'd planned this private, serene picnic, actual swimming had not been part of her plan. She couldn't even remember if the MAC mascara she'd put on was waterproof, but since she was in dutiful-girlfriend mode, she trotted after him. When they reached the edge of the surf, they goofed around for a while, kicking water at each other with each gentle breaker that rolled up the beach. Then they waded into the cold water, up to their thighs.
    Adam pointed. “Nice boat. Gotta get me one like that.”
    A white cabin cruiser, maybe thirty-five-feet long, was cutting slowly through the water from north to south about four hundred yards offshore. Cammie could see two fishing rods in the stern.
    She wasn't fond of small watercraft, hadn't been ever since her mother had mysteriously drowned at sea. Every New Year's, Cammie made a secret, private, and very drunken pilgrimage to her mother's gravesite at Forest Lawn Cemetery in the valley, where she wondered if her mom's death ten years ago was really what it had been reported to be: an accident.
    That night, her parents had been guests on the yacht of their friends the Strikers. They'd been cruising near Santa Barbara Island. Cammie had spent that night at the Strikers' second home in Montecito. She was friends with their son Brock, and they'd had a live-in Irish nanny. It was strange: Cammie remembered nothing of that evening other than a game of Scrabble for Children with Brock and the nanny.
    At that point in his brilliant career, Clark Sheppard had yet to make his fortune as a talent agent and the Sheppards had not been living large, so Cammie had been wowed by the place. It was a French château that had been brought to America stone by stone and then painstakingly reassembled on a hillside with a perfect view of the Pacific.
    Cammie had been eight at the time; she remembered hearing her parents argue a lot. Her father, who had always been very ambitious, was frustrated that his career hadn't yet gotten on track. Cammie's mother was an elementary school teacher who couldn't have cared less about the whole upwardly mobile show-business thing. She taught