Page 126 of Under the Waves

Stop saying things like that, Jasper Ridge. My heart cannot take any more of it.

“What are you smiling at?” He mused, flicking the shower on and checking the temperature of the water.

“You,” I blushed, hiding my face in my hands as he chuckled.

“Me?Are you feeding my enormous ego right now, Wellsy?”

I shook my head, a mess of rosy cheeks and grinning teeth. He spoke those words like he couldn’t believe he was worth smiling for, but he was. He was worth every smile that left my lips; they all belonged to him, anyway. Every single one. Even if he didn’t know it, every single one of them was for him.

He was my only reason.

“But I haven’t done anything?”

I shook my head again, this time walking closer to where he stood leaning against the glass of the shower door with his legs and arms both crossed and that small, adorable dip of his brows. My palms reached up to cup both of his cheeks as I whispered, “you’ve done everything.”

He nodded slowly, letting my words sink in.

“You speechless now, Ridge?” I laughed, needing to do something to make my mind forget about the small, lazy circles he was drawing with his thumb on the curve of my spine. “How many girls have left you speechless?”

“Only one,” he answered immediately, snapping out of the haze.

I read the unsaid words floating between us.

Only you.

Except, what if it wasn’t?

Mm?

Didn’t think of that, did you?

What if he was talking about Miya?

Or some other random girl, huh?

You didn’t seriously think it was you…right?

What a joke.

“It’s you,” he murmured, “stop overthinking it. It’s always been you. Now get in the shower before I carry you in there.”

I stayed put, completely still, challenging him.

“Poppy…”

I smiled at him, unmoving. “Jasper.”

“I warned you,” he said as he leapt at me, bundling my body into his chest in one smooth motion.

“Jasper Easton Ridge put me down this instant!” I yelped, playfully whacking his chest with my fists as he stepped us both into the shower. The hot spray of the water danced around us as droplets of steam coated the glass. “We still have our clothes on!”

“You’re such a chicken, Wellsy,” he laughed.

“I hate you sometimes,” I grumbled, nestling my face into the crook of his neck, to which he just smiled widely.

“So, what I’m hearing is that you, by default, love me most of the time?”

“You’re impossible!”