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“What! No, pass. I’m going to bed.” I stepped back as he put his arms on the edge of the pool.

“No, you’re not.” Brody levered himself up easily and stood. Water cascaded off his powerful body and onto the tiles. “You’re coming with me.”

“No, I’m not,” I repeated, a sudden thrill of excitement running through me.

Brody took a step in my direction.

I pointed the pepper spray at him. “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll use it.”

“Go ahead, sweetheart, but in the interest of being a gentleman, I’ve got to tell you that the nozzle is pointed toward your own face,” he said calmly.

What the hell?

I made the mistake of glancing down to check if what he’d said was true, and he lunged.

His hand closed around my wrist, and the cannister fell to the ground. In my fright, I dropped the damn taser, too.

“Got you, heathen. Time for a swim,” he said in my ear, pushing me toward the pool. His wet skin pressed on my clothes, soaking through.

“Don’t you dare,” I warned him and bucked back into him. That damn excitement thundered through me now. I was having fun; I couldn’t deny it.

“Don’t be a sore loser, baby,” Brody goaded.

Ugh. I couldn’t let him win so easily.

I considered all the ways I could distract him and could only come up with one surefire method.

“Okay, okay, down boy,” I murmured over my shoulder at him. I slid my hand behind me and down the dripping hard planes of his abdomen, then under the elastic band of his trunks.

He stilled for a second, and I closed my hand around his dick. His skin was cold, but he was hard. It seemed that the swimming pool was nowhere near cold enough to have a detrimental effect on Brody, or maybe he was too big for that. What could water do in the face of such a monster?

“You’ve got that problem again, haven’t you?” I ran my hand up and down his length, subtly changing the position of my feet so I could put weight on one of them.

“Hmm, seems so. It’s a recurring issue around you. But don’t worry, you’re going to help me with itafterour workout.”

“God, you’re so annoying,” I said sweetly and then sprang my plan into action. I stroked him another moment, lulling him into a false sense of security, and then stomped on his foot.

He let go, and I shot away. I had no idea if he’d let me go on purpose, considering my stomp on his foot hadn’t exactly been hard, but I didn’t care. For now, I was winning. I danced away from him. He followed.

“Playing dirty? I will, too, in that case. Consider this fair warning,” he said in a low tone that might have been the sexiest sound I’d ever heard.

I made a chitchat motion with my hand. “You’re all talk, Sinclair.”

He laughed and thrust a tattooed hand through his wet, dripping dark waves, pushing them off his forehead.

“I’ll do more than talk when I catch you?—”

“You’re still talking,” I pointed out and then gave out a yelp as he took off toward me.

Shit. I turned and darted around the pool as fast as I could. The only advantage I had was that I didn’t have wet feet. That had to slow him down a little, right?

It didn’t seem to. I ran away from the pool and ducked behind the row of pool furniture. Brody slowed down and stalked me along it, only the sun loungers between us.

I grabbed a cushion from one of them and chucked it at him. He dodged it effortlessly.

“I’m not doing a workout now,” I told him as firmly as I could.

But there was no way I was clawing back normality after I’d started this game. Brody’s eyes gleamed with the excitement of the chase, and I got it. I felt it, too. I wanted to win, but I wanted to get caught at the same time. Maybe I was really just fucked in the head, because I was having fun. Real, actual fun.