Free Soaked (The Water's Edge #2) by Stacy Kestwick Page A

patted his arm and moved around him to head down the hall. “Don’t you have something to take care of before dinner?” I waved my hand in the direction of his crotch.
    “Worried about my junk now, Sadie? I think I’m making progress. Try not to think about me during your shower.” His voice grew louder as I moved farther away. I blushed as I slipped into my own room, my pulse a notch or two higher than normal, as I unwillingly thought about what it would be like to do a shoot like that. Be totally uninhibited, wild, bold . . .
    I could never do that.
    I’d be too embarrassed, too awkward, too stiff. My body wasn’t terrible—hell, it was better than his client’s—but I didn’t have the confidence.
    Fuck.
    Was that it?
    Confidence. Was that the difference between me and Aubrey? Was that what it boiled down to on a fundamental level?
    I slid down the door until my knees touched my chin, the tile cold under me.
    Did I lose to her —or did I lose because I let her take what was mine? Because I didn’t think I could compete with her, did I leave room for her to slip in and sink her gel-manicured claws into him?
    I was not okay with that.
    Not at all.
     

     
    I PONDERED THOSE questions over the next few days. Examined all my past encounters with both West and Aubrey in painful, excruciating detail. Then went over them again.
    She’d intimidated me more times than I cared to admit. And I’d let her. I’d fucking let her. But, even worse, so had West.
    He’d stepped away from me after that breathless first kiss in the pool house—when she came into the room.
    He’d let her touch him for that stupid ass picture under the palm tree at his grandmother’s house, that bold hand on his chest staking a claim without words.
    He’d let her climb in his truck at the drive-in, as if she had a right to be there by his side.
    He’d fucking let her stay at his house for the night after the BBQ instead of calling a cab and kicking her ass out.
    And those damn pictures of her were in his fucking nightstand.
    But when I showered, I remembered how he took care of me when I was sunburned.
    I thought of him when I saw the pancakes at the buffet in the mornings.
    When I shivered at night, I remembered him slipping through my window to spoon until the break of dawn, his warmth surrounding me.
    The old beat up maintenance truck on the resort rumbled and rattled like his.
    The kids’ area at the resort boasted an air hockey table, like the one at the Wreck. Same colors even.
    The boat at the activities’ shed had a beanbag in the back, like the one I’d slept in on the Vitamin Sea.
    The sky turned the color of his eyes during the afternoon storms that moved through most days.
    And those damn paper planes showed up without fail every fucking morning.
    I was staring at them. Twelve of them strewn across my bed. Some were big and basic, the kind a second-grader might make. Others were smaller and intricately folded, mini fighter jets perhaps. Pieces of his angular handwriting peeked through on all of them.
    Messages.
    Words I’d been too angry, too scared, too raw to read.
    Until now.
    Tonight, I was tired of being on the tightrope, balancing anger on one hand and love—yes, goddamn it, love —on the other. I was tired and I was ready to fall. To let go of it all and just see where I landed. Discover which side was gonna win out in the end.
    I ran my finger across the wing of a plane, the one that had showed up the first day. I didn’t quite remember the order they’d all been delivered to me—didn’t know if that mattered—but I remembered this one.
    I had to give West credit. He hadn’t given up.
    I hadn’t called, hadn’t texted, hadn’t looked at Facebook once.
    No contact, yet the planes arrived faithfully each morning with a glass of orange juice.
    He was a stubborn bastard, if nothing else.
    Anticipation and nerves had my heart thudding heavily behind my ribs.
    Biting my lower lip, I tugged apart the folds of the