Less than Perfect

Epilogue {part three}

Epilogue

One Month Later

Part Three

"I'LL CARRY YOU HOME TONIGHT," Jules sang loudly—and to Skye's dismay, obnoxiously—as he scurried up behind her, wrapping his strong, wet arms around her waist and pulling her into his bare, also drenched chest. She squealed from the sudden cold of the water against her skin, squirming in his captivity, but it didn't seem to faze him. "What do you say?" he purred in her ear, as if she wasn't struggling against him. "May I?"

Skye scoffed, but gave up struggling for a moment. "Take me home? You better not," she retorted, smacking his arm once before trying to pry it away from her body. He only chuckled and held on tighter, pressing her tightly against him, and provoking a fiery frenzy to overwhelm her body in response to their intimate proximity. "Jules," she gasped when she felt his arms moving down, unable to stop herself, "what are you doing?"

He chuckled deeply in her ear. "I'm going to carry you home," he said, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. "To this home—the beach home. Our home for the night."

Suddenly his hands were under her legs, scooping her up so that he could carry her bridal style, and she let out a high pitched squeal from the quick movement. "Jules!" she exclaimed around an uncontrollable fit of laughter, hating herself for giving in to him so easily (like she so often did). After all, she'd been trying to run away from him and his soaking wet body, not into it. "What are you doing? You're drenched! You can't go inside yet."

He laughed at this, a long, hearty laugh, and hurried up the beach house's porch steps, ignoring her weak pleading that he'd set her down. "Hate to break it to you, baby, but you are also drenched. And it really doesn't matter. We've got plenty of clothes inside."

Sighing, her own personal way up caving (yet again), Skye finally let herself relax in his secure arms, pressing her face into his chest. "Fine," she mumbled, and ran her fingers along the smooth, fit contours of his chest, "you win. But you really didn't have to push me into the water back there. I only did it to you because you were teasing me. And you deserved it."

Swinging the screen door open and squeezing in the doorway before it closed again, he pulled out his own key from the pocket of his dripping jeans and unlocked the front door. "You're right," he said, chuckling, "I didn't. But I wanted to. I mean—what kind of guy would I be if I'd just let you push me around like that?"

"A nice one," she offered, turning her head to look at his face, or at least what she could see of it from her angle.

"Maybe," he said, and nudged the door open with his foot, stepped over the threshold. "But even nice guys have their mischievous side, too. And besides—don't act like you didn't like it. You were having fun."

"It's the principle," she argued. "Whether I liked it or not doesn't matter."

He stopped, looked down at her, brows raised. "Really."

"Really," she said, smiling.

"You're ridiculous," he muttered, shaking his head. "But I still love you all the same." Then he kissed her, a small, quick peck of the lips on her forehead.

"Good." Now it was her turn to grin. "Because if you didn't, we'd have a serious issue here."

Grinning playfully, he carefully set her down and tossed the dripping wet t-shirt he'd been carrying towards a towel rack beside the door. "Lucky us," he said, and ran a hand through his wet, darkened golden ringlets. "Looks like we've got nothing to worry about."