“No tub at your brother’s place?”
“Yes, but it’s usually filled with the twins’ bath toys. And the hot water only goes so far.”
“Gran has a big old claw-foot thing in the middle of her peach orchard.”
Arabella turned slightly toward him and felt the thrum of water pound against her side. She arched slightly, relishing the massage. “What does she grow in it?”
“Bubbles?” His eyes smiled. “She takes baths in it. Heats the hot water in a big old barrel on wheels with a propane burner that my grandfather rigged up when I was still a kid. Sort of like those things that people use these days to fry a turkey. Only a helluva lot bigger.”
She bent her elbow on the coping and propped her head on her fingertips. “Have to admit, I have a hard time envisioning that.”
His chuckle was low and deep and as much a physical pleasure as the hot, bubbling water was. “Wish I had a hard time envisioning it,” he said. “Accidentally discovered her using it once when I was a teenager. Couldn’t bring myself to visit her again for a few years. Love my grandmother. Did not want to see her lolling around in a bathtub in the middle of a peach orchard.”
She laughed softly and sank deeper in the water again. Her ponytail dragged in the water, floating like a coiled rope between them. “Your grandmother’s amazing.”
“Always has been. Just took me getting old enough to appreciate it.”
“Is your mom like her? I know you said she’d rather your grandmother move to Houston, but—” She broke off. He was already shaking his head.
“Mom is nothing like her mom. But that’s okay.” He shrugged. “I’m nothing like my dad. Doesn’t mean there’s a lack of love because of it.”
“Preferred selling insurance over teaching math, hmm?”
“I didn’t sell insurance.” He lowered his arms into the water and his fingers toyed with her ponytail. “I was working on becoming an actuary.”
She twisted a little more, centering the waterjet against a fresh ache. “Doesn’t that entail like all math?”
“Math. Statistics.” He suddenly rotated until his legs floated straight out toward the middle of the hot tub and his arms were stretched out, hands cupping the coping as he faced her.
“Not so different than your dad, then.”
He ducked his chin in the water almost to his nose and in the dim light, his green eyes looked dark above the water. She could still see the laughter in them, though. Especially since the arm’s-length distance between them had somehow been reduced by half.
He lifted his chin. “I hated it. Spent all that time studying actuarial science in school and went straight into the field, only to detest every minute of it. The second I could afford to, I got out of it.”
“What’d you really want to do? Be a pilot?”
He bent his arms, pulling himself closer to the edge.
Closer to her.
Still floating. But closer.
“Not necessarily.”
“And now you’re here. Hotel Trainee Cross.”
“So are you, Hotel Trainee Fortune. At least it offers a lot of variety.” His expression shifted and she couldn’t help wondering if he even realized it. “Expectations are straightforward,” he said flatly. “Honest day’s wage for an honest day’s work. Nobody trying to make you into something you’re not.”
“Plus an illicit hot tub session now and then.”
His face lightened again just as she’d hoped, and his hands inched closer to her shoulders. “Illicit.” His deep drawl gave the word an added nuance.
She sucked in a breath that was too redolent of chlorine to be particularly helpful. She turned until her spine was in front of the jet again and suddenly found Jay floating directly in front of her, his hands on either side of her shoulders.
“That’s a great word.” His gaze roved over her face, seeming to rest on her mouth. He drifted closer. “Evocative,” he murmured, just loud enough to be heard over the bubbles and jets.
“I...like words.” She moistened her lips that, impossibly, felt dry despite the water all around them.
“They have a power,” he agreed. He ducked his chin in the water again and closed the distance even more.
She felt him kiss the point of her shoulder and then the curve of her neck. Her head fell back, resting against the tile. She watched him from beneath her lashes. “Who else have you snuck in here like this?”
A quick line came and went between his dark eyebrows as if the question surprised him. “Only you.”
She wanted to believe him more than she wanted her next breath. The jetted water seemed to be pushing her spine away from the wall until her legs floated upward and glanced against his. Lightly. Tantalizingly.
He let go of the wall with one hand and lowered it to the seat beside her.
Then he kissed the point of her collarbone and her head fell back a little more, only this time the tiled wall wasn’t behind her. It was just swirling water that seemed to bear her torso upward toward his.
Or maybe that was his hand, now splayed flat against the small of her back beneath the tank-length top of her swimsuit. They were both floating now, anchored only by his one hand on the edge of the pool.
His legs slid against hers and she trembled when her abdomen brushed against the hard barrier of his chest. His head dipped again into the water and she felt his mouth brush her skin right at the deepest V of her halter top. He raised his head again. “Yes or no?”
She realized his hand was at the tie behind her neck. “Yes, please,” she exhaled the words.
His lips curved and she felt a faint tug. Then the jaunty blue-and-white stripe started to float away from her shoulders. She was in no danger of losing the top altogether. The tie merely held
