"Put me down."

Despite the extreme amount of anticipation coursing through my veins, I chuckled. "You don't want to be put down, Adler."

She smacked my back, but it was weak. If Nessa wanted me to put her down, she'd have to hit a hell of a lot harder than that. I'd seen her swing a punch before. I knew what Nessa-Who-Meant-Business looked like, and this wasn't it.

When I readjusted her on my shoulder, she shrieked and grabbed onto my neck.

"Yes, I do," she protested and then pretended like her breathy voice didn't completely give away how much she was enjoying this. "I was kidding. It was a dare."

I scoffed.

I wasn't surprised that it was a dare; Nessa didn't usually act that brazen in front of her friends. She liked to keep displays of affection a little more private than Madie and Bren, who were damn near groping each other in front of the fire, and even Beau and Collins, who kept exchanging glances that made their plans for later tonight more than obvious.

But she'd meant every word she just whispered in my ear.

"It might have been a dare," I muttered. "But you weren't kidding."

"Grayson," she whined, but there was a tiny hiccup of laughter in there, too. I heard the smile in my name.

"Yes, darling?"

"Put me down."

"Fine," I said, kicking my way into the bathroom adjacent to our bedroom. Flipping Nessa back over my shoulder, I set her on the countertop next to the sink.

I let myself take in her breathless state before shooting her a wink and spinning to turn on the water in the large freestanding tub opposite the counter.

"Grayson Everett, we are not taking a bath right now."

Oh, she wanted to pull out the two-name-scolding, did she? Maybe by the end of the night, I'd get her to include Wilder, too.

With a turn of my heel, I caged Nessa in, hands planted on the countertop. Leaning in, I dropped my voice.

"Oh, so now you don't want to check out this tub?"

Nessa's throat worked as she swallowed, her brown eyes flicking up to mine. "I wasn't being serious," she said, fooling no one.

"You weren't being serious when you very purposefully reminded me of the last time you wore this swimsuit?" I slipped a finger beneath the string that held her top up, plucking it like an instrument. It was light green, bringing out the olive tones in her skin. "You weren't being serious about how you sometimes think about how hard I got when you sat on my lap in that hot tub in the mountains?"

When all Nessa could manage was to blink up at me and bite down on her lip, my grin cocked to the side. Yeah, that was what I thought. I bent even closer.

"You weren't serious when you said we should see if this tub is deep enough for you to sit on my lap again?" I whispered.

"Well, not right now," she said thickly.

"Oh?" I raised a brow. "You suddenly don't want to see if it's deep enough to ride my cock, to finally see what that feels like beneath the water? Because a minute ago...you sounded pretty damn ready."

"I, well—"

A flush worked its way up Nessa's neck. It might have been because of my words—which were her words—but it also could have been due to the steam rising in the bathroom. Nearly halfway filled, the tub was raising hot, sticky moisture, which coated the mirror behind Nessa. It swirled in the air, thick enough to get Nessa's words stuck in her throat.

"Damn, baby." I smiled, leaning down to kiss along her jawline and murmur across her skin. "Did your sharp tongue drown in the whiskey tonight?"

She bristled at that. "Of course not."

"Of course not," I repeated with a broadening of my grin. My lips fell to her neck. "You're just trying to decide exactly how deep you want to dig your heels in about this."

"You're acting ridiculous, Grayson," she said, and once again, I could hear Nessa's expression in her tone. The roll of her eyes, the tightening of her lips.

"You're wrong about that, Adler. Tonight, I'm being very serious. Which is what you were a minute ago, too. Until you decided to be the ridiculous one."

With a meaningful look, I backed away. Nessa kept her eyes on me as I walked to the shower and rinsed my feet so that I wouldn't get sand in the tub. The water splashing into the bath echoed noisily around us, but I swore Nessa's heartbeat could be heard, too. She watched as I stripped my shirt off and over my head, flinging it to the tiled floor. My shorts followed, and Nessa's eyes betrayed her, immediately falling to scrape over my naked body.

"Gray..." she said warningly, and I flashed her a cheeky grin before stepping into the bath and sinking into it.

"You're awfully stubborn tonight, Wednesday baby." I moaned as the hot water caressed my muscles, which were stiff from the long car ride earlier. "More than usual."

"I'm just doing us both a favor." She sniffed, purposefully—and regretfully—looking away. "How boring would it be if I always let you get what you want?"

I laughed at how falsely determined she was. "You should have thought about that before dangling something you knew I'd want right in front of me." I dropped my voice as a reminder. "You know I'm persistent when I want to be."

Nessa's eyes couldn't help but dart back toward me. They caught on my face, my smile, and I could tell she was fighting her own grin. She crossed her arms over her chest as her gaze fell to wander over me.

"If you don't want to get in, fine," I said, accompanied by an over-dramatic sigh. "I'll just enjoy a soak on my own and imagine you in my lap, then."

My erection was pretty undeniable at this point. It had snapped to attention as soon as I'd looked up earlier to see Nessa dragging her feet through the sand as she walked toward me, naughty expression—and words—in tow. And if she didn't want to follow through, I'd just have to make do without her.

Momentarily, of course, because we both knew she was about to fold.

I tipped my head back and closed my eyes, relaxing. Well, pretending to relax. I couldn't really relax. Not now when I was so goddamn wired from what Nessa had described. But I tried to make myself relax anyway so that when I wrapped my hand around my cock beneath the water, I could let out a satisfied groan.

Even over the sounds of the water, I heard Nessa's intake of breath. Well, I felt it more than I heard it. I felt it tug from my chest because her breaths were always connected to mine.

At the sound of another faucet turning on, I opened my eyes to see Nessa rinsing her feet and legs in the shower, shorts already lying on the floor. Mission accomplished.

"I'm only getting in because I don't want to hear you complain all night," she muttered.

"Complain?" I put my free hand to my chest as if offended. "I never complain."

That got a small, compressed smile out of her while her eyes twinkled with amusement. But my glittering feeling of triumph vanished when she began stepping over the side of the tub, still wearing her swimsuit top and bottom.

"And is there a reason you're keeping the suit on, Adler?"

Nessa lowered into the opposite side of the tub. She sank to cover herself up to her chin, legs tangling with mine, before popping back into a sitting position. Her swimsuit top was plastered to her chest, her nipples poking the soaked fabric. Shit.

The grip I had on my dick tightened.

"What?" She cocked her head to the side like the goddamn tease she was. "You don't like my swimsuit?"

I gritted my teeth together. "I love the swimsuit. But if you come over here, I'll also love taking the swimsuit off."

Her lips curved as she raised a finger, wagging it. "Uh-uh. See? Always something to complain about with you."

"I'm not complaining," I muttered. "I'm making a suggestion. I have an attitude of improvement. It's one of my best qualities. Besides, you might want to remember that this was all your idea."

"I wasn't—"

"Being serious. Yes, yes. I know. You've mentioned." Leaning forward in the tub, I made a show of pumping my cock again. Nessa's attention immediately dropped with interest and then flicked back up when I continued talking. "But if you think that little strip of fabric between your legs is going to do anything to stop what's about to happen... you're delusional, darling."

Nessa's eyes shone with heat like they did whenever I said something overly cocky that she couldn't help but fight and be turned on by simultaneously.

"Oh, I don't know," she shot back, mimicking me by leaning forward in the tub. "You couldn't figure out how to get around my jeans on the car ride down here."

"Yeah, fuck that, by the way. I would have made you come at least twice if you hadn't been wearing those."

Her eyes didn't leave mine when she said, "I know you would have."

My heart thumped with her easy agreement and how we both knew that I could give her what she wanted. We'd come a long way since her insistence that she was better off without me, without our connection—the connection that was currently twisting through the steam rising between us.

"You wouldn't have been able to keep your hands out from under my skirt," Nessa continued, "and I wouldn't have had the strength to stop you. So I wore pants."

"God, you really punish me sometimes."

"I was being considerate, Grayson."

"Not to me."

"No, to Beau and Collins. Who we were sharing a car with."

I shrugged. "Beau and Collins looked ready to get handsy right in front of us tonight."

Nessa sighed with a laugh. "That's not the point, Grayson."

"You're right." The water rushed around me as I reached forward to grab Nessa by the waist and haul her onto my lap as she squealed. "The point is that swimsuit bottoms are much easier to get around than jeans."

Nessa's laugh quickly turned to a moan as I began kissing a line down her neck. Her breathing picked up; I felt her chest heave against mine. And then, as my mouth continued down, I felt those rapid gasps beneath my lips. Her limbs twisted around me, desperately hanging on.

"Grayson."

That was more like it. That was what I'd been hoping to hear.

"Hey, baby," I murmured.

"What about swimsuit tops?" Nessa arched into my mouth as I inched closer to the fabric covering her tits.

"Yeah, I'd say they're pretty easy to get around, too." I swiped my tongue beneath the top. "If that's what someone wants."

As usual, Nessa seemed annoyed that I was making her spell it out. "That's what someone wants."

I scraped my teeth over the swimsuit, grazing her nipple. Nessa rewarded me with a sharp gasp that I relished in.

"Yeah? You sure?"

"Grayson Wilder Everett," she groaned, half-scolding and half-pleading.

There it was.

Smiling into her chest, I yanked back the swimsuit and covered her skin with my mouth. Licking, sucking, kissing. God, she tasted so good. Like sticky, sweaty days. Like whiskey and hot, wild nights.

Nessa loosened the bun in her hair, letting it slowly fall and tangle around her shoulders. I leaned back, wanting to get the full effect—hair down and swimsuit tied around her waist, bare-chested besides that tiny strip. Irritated that the water was starting to cover her, I reached around Nessa to turn the faucet off.

"This is better. This is much better," I said approvingly. "No more swimsuit in the bathtub and no more wearing fucking pants."

Nessa smirked. "Should I wear shorts?"

"No," I growled, taking that opportunity to untie her bottoms and flinging them out of the tub. "No shorts either."

Gripping my shoulders, she used them as leverage to reposition herself until she straddled me, our bodies pressed tightly together. Her goal was clearly to drive me up a goddamn wall because then Nessa experimented with the feeling of our slick skin rubbing beneath the water, rocking in tiny motions that made the tub threaten to overflow.

I nearly said something about what she was likely doing to my blood pressure but thought better of it at the last minute. Like hell did I need to give her a reason to stop. This was worth any sort of risk.

"Gray." My name nearly sounded broken as it rolled off her tongue. Broken like we needed to be before we could build back up to that high. "Baby."

I watched as desire danced across Nessa's face and began sculpting the smooth curves of her body with my hands. Meanwhile, Nessa squirmed until she had my cock right where she wanted it: stroking between her legs. Shit, even underwater, I could feel the slickness of her pussy that told me how badly she wanted more.

"Is this what you think about, Adler?" I groaned. "Feeling me like this?"

"Yes," she admitted. She'd reached the point where she had finished teasing, finished pretending. There was no more holding back, and every single time this happened, I loved watching her break free. "It was such a tease before, feeling you but not being able to do anything about it."

"You definitely did something when you dragged me back into the house," I said, remembering how we left the others outside in the cold and then fell together in front of the fireplace in our bedroom. "But I know it's not the same."

"Not the same." Her hand wrapped around my neck, fingers threading through my hair there. She tugged on it, getting me to look at her, at her rosy, flushed cheeks and fiery gaze. "I have the cutest little skirt I'm going to wear for you tomorrow," she whispered.

I grabbed a handful of her hair, too, needing her closer. "That's my girl."

Nessa's grin matched mine as I kissed her. Her lips eagerly parted to let me in and kiss me back with a desperation that told me it wasn't enough. The kiss was hot and deep, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't what we needed.

"Nessa," I gasped, breaking off.

She breathed the next words against my lips, and my stomach flipped. "I know."

"Make good on those dirty words, darling," I said, even though Nessa was two steps ahead of me. She'd slipped a hand between us, wrapping it around my erection. When she started stroking me—me, who had been damn near the brink of an explosion since we'd walked in here—I tugged on her bottom lip with my teeth. "Now."

Nessa chuckled as she positioned me where we both wanted and sank onto me, eyes blazing into mine the entire time. There it was, that connection that we both craved. Fuck, it was so hot. Being inside her was just as amazing as usual, but the sensual brushes of skin beneath the water every time she moved...goddamn, I didn't know how to describe it. Only that I loved every single second of what was happening.

Thank God we were here for an entire week. I was ready to fucking live in this bathtub.

I let Nessa ride me in slow waves, enjoying how her eyelashes would flutter shut occasionally before opening back up with even more passion in her gaze than before. But then she yanked on my hair for the second time tonight, and I lost it.

"This'll teach you not to be stubborn next time," I muttered, driving up into her in a way that made her mouth fall open and eyes roll back.

"I'm only stubborn for your benefit," Nessa said when she'd recovered. "I think you get off on convincing me."

"The first part of that is a fucking lie." I gave her another hard thrust. "You're stubborn because you're you, and God, I love you."

Nessa's eyes flashed at hearing those words. "And the second part?"

"Let's just say I don't mind working for what I want," I rasped. "I've made that clear from the beginning."

She dropped her forehead, rolling it over mine with an agony that I knew was from having her heart feel like it was bursting at the seams. Because that was how I felt all the goddamn time when I was with her. "You have, and I love you for it. So much, Grayson."

This was too much. She was too much—too perfect and gorgeous and smart and funny. And holy hell, fucking her like this felt like drowning in fire.

"Nessa."

"I know," she breathed for the second time as she grabbed onto the sides of the tub, picking up her pace. Water sloshing between us. It was almost urging her now, stuck moving in its own rhythm like the tides.

And then Nessa clenched around with me a gasp, her mouth hovering over mine like she wanted to kiss me but had been too paralyzed by her own orgasm. So I crashed my lips against hers and poured my own cries down her throat, shaking with how much I fucking loved her.

She kissed me back, fiercely at first, but it morphed into something lazy. Something tantalizingly relaxed. Luxurious. When her lips eventually left mine, I picked her off my lap and spun her around. I wasn't ready to get out just yet. I wanted Nessa to relax against me, which is what she did. I kissed the top of her head as she rested against my chest, snuggling in.

Time passed as we soaked. The water started to cool, but our bodies were still hot, so I barely noticed. Nessa even seemed a little warm, hooking her legs over the tub's sides to cool off as she sat. She traced patterns in the water, humming a soft tune, and with her legs spread so wide, it took everything in me not to let my hand lower between them.

But, shit. I really wanted...

"Wednesday?"

"Hm?"

I abruptly pushed Nessa forward, her legs sliding along the sides of the tub with an upheaval of water.

"Grayson!" she scolded. "What the hell? You're making a mess."

Nessa tried to push herself up to see just how much water had spilled over onto the tiles, but I grabbed her hips and held her to the water's surface.

"Grayson?" she said, a little less sure of herself. A little more curious.

"I wanted to make you come twice on the way here," I said, my voice husky and breathless in her ear. "I've made up for the one. And now..."

I turned the faucet back on and twisted it until I found the perfect temperature. And the perfect pressure. Before Nessa even realized what I was doing, I scooted both of us forward another few inches in the tub, and then—

"Oh my god, Gray." She moaned my name, wrapping her arms back around my neck and holding on. Her head fell back, her eyes closing. "I can't—it's too much—"

I grazed the shell of her ear with my teeth. "You can handle it."

Nessa made tiny, hot whimpering noises as the water pounded down on her clit, and I watched as she gave in to it, her hips rocking in the water, tits bouncing. Screw anything I'd ever said before; this was the hottest fucking thing I'd ever watched. The water lapped against Nessa's skin, and I dug my fingers in to keep them still. Keep them from wandering.

Nessa came with a cry in an alarmingly short amount of time, almost making me wonder what the hell I'd been doing wrong all these months. And then she only added to my consternation by looking up at me with glassy eyes, panting. "I don't really know if that counts as making up for before," she said. "You didn't even do any of the work."