Page 99 of Cinderella Is Faking It

“I never swam in the ocean before.” Her words were a quiet admission by my ear.

“Never?”

She shook her head. “Tried many times, but never made it further than up to my belly button.”

I reached up and pulled her around to face me. I held her steady by the waist, but her fingernails still dug deep into my forearms, her lips trembling as she looked down at the chasm of dark water between us. “How are you feeling?”

“Very close to having a panic attack.” She hiccupped a nervous laugh. “Please don’t let go.”

“I won’t.”

“How are you so calm right now?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly because I didn’t fully comprehend how her brain kept trying to convince her that the worst-case scenario was always the most likely one. “I don’t worry as much.”

“I worry all the time. I can’t eat food beyond the expiration date, hate going into basements, don’t do heights. I even break down in tears at the dentist.” Her breath stuttered. “Ironic, isn’t it? The girl with the mermaid story can’t even go in the ocean.”

“You’re already in the ocean,” I said.

“I am,” she breathed, brows crinkling, eyes locked to the water. We stayed like this, bobbing in place, the current pushing us closer to shore, then pulling us back again, until her grasp on my arms eased up and she blinked and looked up, finding my eyes. “You’re a very patient man, August Beckett.”

“Hmmm…” I’d been called many things, but patient wasn’t one of them. A cynical part of me wanted to claim that I was just working a long con, but a more integral part that was growing louder by the day was very aware of the fact that I wanted to be there for every newfirstin her life, no matter how long she took to work up to them. “Only when I want to be.”

“I think you’re nicer than you want to admit.”

“Blondie, I’m not nice.”

“Agree to disagree.” She slid her hands up my arms and pulled herself closer by my shoulders, legs mingling between mine. “Good thing I have a soft spot for nice boys with private libraries.” She smiled and leaned in for a kiss and before our lips could meet, I snatched her bottom lip between my teeth and bit down at the same time as grabbing her ass and squeezing hard. She let out a high-pitched squeal, eyes widening.

“Call me nice boy one more time,” I warned, voice dropped to gravel as I maneuvered us closer to the shore to where I could stand but she couldn’t.

“I mean…” Her chest trembled against mine. “You already know that all of that works for me. That means you’re literally trying to prove that you aren’t nice by providing me with a good time.”

Two precise tugs and the strings of her bikini top came loose. I pulled it off her and balled it in my fist. Del gasped and immediately pushed herself against me, eyes darting left and right. Her soft curves pressed against my chest, and heat that had nothing to do with the summer sun simmered beneath my skin. “How about now?” I asked and pushed my hand into the tight space between our bodies. My thumb brushing over her nipple, playing with it, flicking it, rolling it under my finger, I watched her face tighten.

“This is a private beach, right?” she asked, voice shaking.

“Theoretically,” I said and pulled my hand back, “but plenty of people pass by, running, walking their dogs…”

“Beck.”

As soon as my name was over her lips, I pulled on the strings of her bikini bottoms and yanked them off her. She squealed and tried to hold onto them by clenching her thighs, but I already had them in my fist. “Still think I’m a nice boy?”

“This isn’t funny,” she breathed.

“I know. What was it? Get arrested? Get photographed or filmed? All the nature going everywhere?” I quoted her anxieties over public sex as we finally reached a spot in the water where she could stand. I angled her so at least her back was to the shore.

“Beck.”

“Put your hands together.” I pulled them from my shoulders. After shooting a quick look to the empty beach behind her, she folded her hands in front of her chest, and I tied them together with the strings of her bikini top, securing the fabric triangles over her fingers. “Do you want to guess why I’m so patient with you, Blondie?” I picked her up by the waist and, with no way to use her hands for support, she immediately wrapped her legs around my middle as I started walking towards the beach. “I’ll give you a hint: It’s not because I’m nice.”

“Because youlike-like me?”

“Like-like you? Sweetheart, this isn’t 7th grade.”

She tensed when we got far enough out of the water for me to be carrying her full weight, water dripping from her naked body. “I’m patient with you because you keep pushing your own boundaries and it’s brave and it’s fucking breathtaking.”

“I don’t,” she laughed, but her breath hitched when I laid her down on her back at the very edge of where the ocean leapt at the shore. Her shoulders rested on soft, warm sand while waves nipped at her feet. She wriggled her head in the sand. “You’re giving me too much credit.”