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“No, Son, I’m okay. And besides, being wet wasn’t in my plans today,” he said, smirking. He leaned down, kissed Taylor’s head, and made his way inside.
“So, what were you and my father talking about?” Derrick asked as he made his way over to her, toweling off with a fluffy white towel that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. The staff at this mansion were like stealthy ninjas, meeting the needs of their employers—both seen and unseen.
Taylor shrugged. “He was just telling me some stuff I missed,” she answered. But then she realized she was not being honest, and that was supposed to be their new thing. “Mostly he told me about his cancer,” she told him, and Derrick looked down and started drying his hair. “I’m sorry he is so sick, Derrick.”
He shrugged as if it didn’t bother him, like it was no big deal. But Taylor knew that he was feeling more than that shrug implied. Taylor tried to ignore the fact that she could read Derrick and all his nonverbal cues because she was trying not to relate to him, trying to maintain some distance between them. However, everything Simon had told her was echoing through her mind.
Derrick stood in front of Taylor, by the edge of the pool he had just climbed out of.
“What do you want to do with the rest of the day?” he asked.
Taylor turned to face him and had the most fabulous idea.
She mustered up the most earth-shattering grin she could for Derrick and said “This!” as she used the element of surprise to push Derrick back into the pool.
His face was priceless, and Taylor laughed so hard she had to sit and wipe the tears away. She felt an instant release. She felt energized as she sat in the sun, able to find humor out of the craptastic situation she was currently in.
Until Derrick tookherby surprise and pulled her by the ankles into the pool with him. It was definitely not as funny as it had been with Derrick.
“Derrick!” she shouted when she finally got to the surface, but he couldn’t hear her; he was too busy laughing. Taylor pushed her wet and heavy hair back from her face and glared at him, but he only laughed louder. Derrick closed his eyes as he laughed, and when he opened them he laughed even harder, reaching out to hold the side of the pool to keep him afloat.
“What?” Taylor demanded. “What’s so funny?”
“You … your … your …” Derrick was laughing so hard he couldn’t get a word out. He finally turned his back to Taylor and settled his laughter. “Your hair. It’s all standing up and, God, it looks like a peacock’s feathers.”
Mortified, Taylor reached up and felt her hair, which was in fact standing up about six inches off her head. She quickly dipped her head back and shook it out. When she resurfaced, Derrick was looking at her. He was smiling but no longer laughing.
“That’s better,” Derrick said, “but there is still some messed up on the side.”
Taylor reached up and tried to fix whatever it was, but she couldn’t find anything out of place. Derrick pushed away from the wall of the pool and came over to her with long strokes.
“Here,” he said when he reached her, unlooping a lock of hair that had curled up.
“Thank you,” she said and then rubbed her face in irritation. “You got water up my nose,” she complained as she glared at him.
“You started it,” he reminded her, smiling.
Taylor laughed. It felt good—the goofing around, the pranks. She felt her guard dropping by the minute. It had been years since Taylor had been able to let her guard down, and just a little chip in it sent the rest tumbling like dominos.
And Derrick being so close while her armor cracked was bad, Taylor decided, really bad. Especially seeing how his shirt clung to him when it was saturated with water. It looked like the shirt would need to be peeled from his body.
Fighting her dirty thoughts back into their locked pen, Taylor swallowed hard. “We should probably get out,” she said and made her way to the stairs.
Trudging through the water at a snail’s pace, Taylor felt like her body was trying to hold her back to where Derrick was.Calm down, hormones, Taylor thought bitterly as she reached the stairs. Her face flamed as her thoughts went back to his shirt clinging to his chest and then his lips, and how they’d felt on her in his apartment yesterday.
Focusing completely on calming herself down, Taylor missed a step of the stairs and started to fall, her head getting closer to the edge. She tried to steady herself, but the pool water wouldn’t comply and stay still, she panicked and thrashed.
Then suddenly she was upright and pressed against something hard. She looked up at Derrick, and he looked down at her. Her chest was up against his rock-hard pecs, and as her body felt the entire length of him, she noticed other things were rock hard too: his stomach, his legs, and his cock.
“You okay?” Derrick asked, his voice a whisper. He swallowed after he got the words out.
Taylor could only nod back, still gazing up at him. Her body was firmly planted, and she could not find the energy to push herself away from him. Her mind had obviously taken a siesta and released her raging hormones on the way because she could only think about staying close to him.
Derrick wasn’t pushing away either. He kept his hold tight on Taylor, despite her being safely on the ground now. Taylor knew she should tell him to let her go, but the words wouldn’t come out. Hell, she was having a hard enough time getting the air out.
Derrick was watching her intently, looking into her eyes, and Taylor stared right back. They were unmoving, and then Derrick’s eyes slipped briefly to Taylor’s lips, and his tongue came out and licks his top lip as his eyes slid quickly back up to hers.
Her mind signed off, and her body took over as she pulled Derrick’s face roughly to hers.