Up to the Challenge

she wouldn’t screw this up. His breath brushed her lips a split second before the wave slammed over them.

Lucas’s throat and eyes burned from the salt water, which was cold enough to quell the effect Sid splayed beneath him was having on his anatomy. When he could finally see again, the sight before him took his breath nearly as quickly as the wave.

A goddess had risen from the sea, her white cotton tee molded to a perfect body, revealing firm breasts that heaved up and down as she struggled to catch her breath. Wet hair draped across one shoulder while tiny drops of water clung to the tips of her long, dark lashes.

If sirens did exist, Lucas was looking at one.

And then she did something unexpected. Sid started to laugh. She laughed so hard, she snorted, which threatened to ruin the goddess thing. Until she leaned back on her elbows and threw her head back. The occasional snort could be overlooked with a body like that.

Considering what he’d been about to do, and how his body did not appreciate the interruption, Lucas didn’t see the humor in the situation.

“Why are you laughing?” Maybe the force of the water had knocked her senseless.

Sid took in a full breath, pointed at him, then fell over with laughter again.

Lucas ran a hand through his hair, checking to see if something had attached itself to his person. No clinging crabs in sight. “Have you lost your mind?” he asked, sitting up and noticing he’d be extracting sand from between the boys for quite a while. Damn it.

Laughter abating, Sid sat up and crossed her legs while shoving the hair away from her face. Caramel eyes danced as she glanced his way. “You were going to kiss me.”

That’s what she found so damn funny? He’d show her a joke.

“No, I wasn’t.”

The shit-eating grin disappeared, and her face sobered immediately. “Yes, you were.”

“Was not.” He rolled to his feet. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

He’d taken two steps when he heard the growl. She was on him before he took another, charging around to block his path. “Don’t flatter yourself, dickhead. I didn’t say I wanted you to kiss me, I said you were going to try it. You’re lucky that wave hit or I’d have kneed you in the nuts.”

“Bullshit,” Lucas said, forgetting he’d been toying with her. “You were the one all soft and sexy, laying in the sand, staring up at me with those doe eyes and licking your lips. You wanted that kiss just as much as I did.”

Sid froze, arms dropping to her sides. For once, she kept her mouth shut. If he’d known talking kissing was how to shut her up, he might have tried the tactic long before now.

Her eyes dropped and she dug a toe in the sand. When she looked up again, the goddess was back. “So you were going to kiss me?”

He tucked his hands under his pits to keep from pulling her against him. Looking out over the water, he said, “Yeah. I guess I was.” Which would have been a stupid thing to do. That wave had been sent by sailors past to save him from the call of the siren.

The siren stepped closer. “Do you still want to?”

Lucas did the wrong thing. He looked her in the eye. Those watery candy depths nearly brought him to his knees. How could a woman with a body built for sin look so damn innocent?

Somehow he found the strength to look away. As he moved around her to head back down the beach, he said, “Sorry I knocked you down like that. I’d better go.”

“What?” Sid stomped through the sand beside him. “You can’t just leave.”

“I have to.” If he didn’t get away from her now, they’d both regret it. “Get back to your run. I’ll leave you alone.”

She moved in front of him, her turn to jog backwards. “But what if I don’t want you to leave me alone?”

“Trust me. You do.”

He tried to pick up the pace to get around her but she cut him off. “No, really, I don’t.”

Stopping, Lucas rubbed a hand across his forehead. This little visit home was temporary. Every instinct in his body told him Sid was not the temporary kind of girl. Regardless of what might be hidden, or not so hidden, under her clothes, her reactions gave her away.

Sid Navarro was not the casual type. And he was in no condition to do anything but casual. Especially when not casual meant being tied to Anchor Island.

“We can’t,” he said. Not his most eloquent argument but thinking wasn’t easy with her standing there looking like the winner of a wet T-shirt contest. The blood kept draining from his brain.

“We can’t what? Kiss?” she asked. “I think we should try.”

Wait. Was this the same woman who’d sooner spit on him than kiss him?

“Since when?” he asked, curious to know what had caused this sudden change.

“Well …” she sputtered, waving her hands and pointing to the spot where they’d fallen. “You started this. You should finish what you started.”

He wasn’t the only one coming up with shitty arguments.

“You don’t even like me,” he accused. And if she did she had a funny way of showing it.

“Ha!” she squeaked. “I never said that.”

Lucas charged down the beach again. “The way you act, you don’t have to say it.”

“Then make me like you,” she said, stopping him in his tracks.

Oh, so that was it. He knew what she was doing. Another one of her damn challenges. A challenge is what had gotten him into this godforsaken situation to begin with. He wasn’t going to fall for it this time.

“You don’t think I could do it?” he asked, calling her bluff.

Sid crossed her arms, which thrust her breasts toward her chin. Lucas’s mouth went dry.

“I have my doubts.” She tapped a toe. “You’re not exactly my type. Too prissy. Too pretty. Too … what’s the word? Metrosexual?”

“Metro what? Did you just call me prissy?” Lucas bridged the distance between them in two strides. “I’ll show you prissy.”

Sid never saw the kiss coming. With little effort, Lucas swept her off her feet and slammed his mouth against hers. Stunned by the sudden contact, her brain took several seconds to realize what was happening. But once it did, instinct took over.

Her legs wound around his waist as Sid latched onto broad shoulders, determined to give as good as she was getting. Which was really freaking good. Lucas tasted of mint and heat. His lips were hot and wet and threatened to turn her brain to mush. The power humming beneath her fingertips was more arousing than any joy ride she’d ever taken.

Talk about horsepower.

Even their kiss was a competition. Sid didn’t give two shits whether she won or lost, so long as Lucas kept his lips on hers. The muscles in his shoulders bunched and flexed every time he pulled her closer. Higher. Tighter.

Sid shoved her hands into his damp hair, tightening her legs around Lucas’s narrow hips. Solid abs pressed against her core, drawing a sound from her throat Sid had never made before. Her breasts ached, pressed against his broad chest.

As much as she loved the feeling of soaring off the ground, she wished he’d put her down somewhere so their hands could be free to explore. But then he thrust his tongue deeper and any thought of logistics disappeared.

If she’d known calling Lucas prissy would garner this kind of reaction, she would have done it years ago. Just when she thought her body couldn’t get any hotter, Lucas slid his hands down to her ass and she bucked like a speedboat bouncing over a rolling wave.

As if desperate to hold on, her hands fisted in his hair as she scattered tiny bites along his bottom lip. The reality of kissing Lucas was better than all her fantasies combined. He tasted better. Smelled better. And good God did he feel better. Without thinking, Sid said the words running through her mind.

“I want you so bad,” came out on a harsh breath.