Stupid.

She smiled at Remi. “Don’t worry.”

The guys were coming back, wading through the shallow water, hair dripping. Tag lifted both hands to his head to sleek his hair back and the pose showed off his perfect shape, wide shoulders and chest tapering down to narrow hips. His board shorts rode so low on his hips it verged on indecent and Kyla couldn’t drag her eyes away from there. Then Tag hooked his thumbs in the wet shorts and tugged them a little higher. She blinked.

Jase grabbed Remi and wrapped her in a big wet hug that made her squeal. “Oh my god, you’re cold! You’re getting me all wet.”

He laughed and picked her up and started walking back towards his parents’ cottage. Kyla watched them go, then turned back to see Tag, Matt and Logan exchanging glances.

“There they go again,” Logan said. “Besides Mom and Dad, they’re the only ones with their own bedroom.”

“Where’d Jess go?” Scott asked.

“She took Emily and Caleb back to the cottage. Caleb needed a diaper change.”

“Better go see if she needs any help.” Scott and Michael both headed for the cottage.

“I’m hungry,” Logan said. “Let’s go find some lunch.” He and Matt started walking down the beach too. “Coming, Tag?”

“Yeah. In a minute.” He held the towel in his hands and stood next to Kyla. “How’re you feeling today?”

“Good.”

They were alone on the beach. Around the rocky point that separated the public beach from the cottages, the public beach was probably filling up with people, beach blankets and umbrellas, but here nobody else was out yet.

“You coming skiing later?” He rubbed the towel slowly over his chest.

“Sure.”

“Mom’s planning a game night tonight at our place. You’re all invited.”

Kyla nodded. “Cool. Just like old times.”

“Yeah.”

She studied him, his tanned skin gleaming in the bright sun, remembering the game nights of the past, how competitive he and his brothers were. And how competitive she was and how they’d had cut-throat games of Monopoly and Rummikub and Trivial Pursuit. She watched a drop of water slide down the side of his neck, then lower, slowly trickling down his chest. She wanted to go up on her tiptoes and lick that drop of water.

Heat suffused her body, and not from the noon sun overhead. Flashes of her dreams returned, hot glimpses of Tag naked, underneath her, on top of her. She swallowed. She lifted her gaze to his face and the heat in his eyes had her breath stalling. Tension arced between them as they stood there eyeing each other. When he looked at her mouth, her eyes went heavy-lidded and her heart began to thud.

“Oh man,” he said. He swiped the towel across his forehead, breaking the eye contact. She blinked. “Kyla.”

“What?”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Um…like what?” As if she needed to ask. She wanted to eat him up. But did it show that much?

He looked her in the eye again. “Your brothers would kill me.”

Her breath came in choppy little pants. Her insides went hot and liquid. “What am I supposed to say to that?” she said, her voice breathy. “We’re not teenagers anymore.”

“No. We’re not.” They were both remembering the last time this had happened. A long time ago. Heat built hotter between them.

She was used to going after what she wanted. She had a plan for her career and she worked to make things happen. If she wanted Tag, why couldn’t she have him?

Last time he’d tried to make a joke of it. As if he didn’t want her. This time, older, wiser, more experienced, she could tell he did. Was he really going to let their families stand in the way of what they both wanted?

“My brothers have no say in who I…” She stopped. They’d been tiptoeing around it and when it came to saying it outright, she found she couldn’t.

He smiled, that sexy lift of his wide mouth that melted her. She couldn’t breathe. Her body thrummed with sexual tension. “Think about it, Mac,” he said, his voice low and raspy. “We may not be teenagers but we’re here with our families. Every bed in both our cottages is occupied. You’re sharing a room with a three-year-old. I’m sharing a room with Matt.”

She couldn’t get air into her lungs and her heart thudded wildly against her ribs. She opened her mouth to tell him that she was very good at solving problems when she heard a little voice calling, “Auntie Kywa!”

She turned to see Emily appear on the path through the poplar trees edging the beach. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath, but she plastered on a smile and reached for her niece as she hurtled toward her. She lifted her and propped her on her hip. “What’s up, doodle bug?”

“Gwamma said to tell you we’re having lunch.”

“Okey dokey. I’m hungry.” She met Tag’s smiling eyes. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah.”

Holy hell, this was crazy. What had gotten her suddenly so hot and horny, dreaming about sex when she was asleep, thinking about it when she was awake and practically ready to jump Tag right there on the beach? She pondered this as she carried a chattering Emily back to the cottage. It must be all pent up inside her or something, another effect of working too much. She needed to do something about it. But geez, even if she wanted to take care of things herself, privacy was a definite issue, as Tag had so accurately pointed out. Damn.

* * *

Tag walked back to his parents’ cottage along the beach rather than follow Kyla and take the shortcut through the fence between the two properties. Jesus. He swiped perspiration from his brow that had nothing to do with the sun.

When she’d looked at him like that, with hungry, hot eyes, blood had rushed to his groin and his heart had pounded in his ears. If Emily hadn’t shown up just then, he and Kyla would be rolling around in the sand.

He kicked the sand. What the hell was going on? Yeah, years ago he and Kyla had had a little heat happening, but he hadn’t let anything come of it, although it had come pretty close that one night. So why after all this time was the heat even…hotter?

She was sexy as hell, that was why. As a teenager she’d changed from skinny kid with braces who tagged along with them and got in their way to a real girl with breasts and the sweetest ass, soft lips, silky dark hair and sultry brown eyes…he closed his eyes briefly as he headed up the path to the cottage. Now she was even hotter, a woman with the sexiest smile he’d ever seen, intelligence gleaming in those dark eyes along with lust.

There was no way they could do anything. That would be just crazy. Her brothers would kill him. Wouldn’t they?

Waterskiing would take his mind off that.

* * *

But when Kyla showed up on the dock in a tiny little black bikini, waterskiing did not distract him from thinking about sex. And Kyla. And sex with Kyla. Holy hell. His gaze tracked down her body, from the round curves revealed in the V of the little halter top, to a bikini bottom that was so small he couldn’t help but wonder about what was beneath it and the wax job she must have recently had, ’cause, whoa.

He swallowed, grateful for the sunglasses that shielded his eyes and the baggy board shorts he wore as he turned to the wheel of the boat.

She covered up with a life jacket when it was her turn to ski.

“You still remember how?” Scott asked her, throwing the tow rope out. She grabbed it.

“I hope so! It’s been awhile.”

She struggled a little to get up on the skis, finding her balance, but once she got going, she was fine. Tag was driving so he could only glance at her over his shoulder, leaving the others to spot her if she went down. She skied sedately in a straight line behind the boat for a while, then released the rope and sank into the water. They turned around and went back to get her.

When it was his turn, he couldn’t resist showing off a little, skiing on one slalom ski, back and forth across the wake of the boat, turning backwards, spinning. He grinned, enjoying the speed, the use of his muscles, the adrenaline rush of it.

Then Kyla rode with Emily on the big inner tube, Emily’s screams of excitement audible over the motor of the boat, Jessica watching anxiously, Scott laughing.

After an afternoon out on the lake, they all retreated to their cottages to shower and change and eat and then reconvened in the Heller dining room around a big oak table to play Trivial Pursuit.

Since there were so many of them, they formed teams of two, with one team of three, and Remi and Kyla ended up on a team. Jase folded his arms across his chest and regarded them glumly. “A teacher and a lawyer on the same team,” he said. “How is that fair? We don’t have a hope.”

Tag gave him an elbow in the ribs. “Give yourself a little credit. We’re not stupid.”

Tag watched Remi share a glance with Kyla, then look back at Jase. “No, you’re not,” Remi said and Tag had the feeling she’d told Jase that before. Jase had always had that idea ever since that witch of a middle school teacher had told him that. Yeah, he’d struggled in school with his ADHD, but it didn’t mean he was stupid.

The game began and soon turned into a cutthroat competition between Remi and Kyla and Jase and Tag.

“Science,” Tag said when Remi and Kyla’s piece landed on a green square. “What is the largest mammal that ever lived?”

Kyla grinned. “The blue whale.”

“Damn.”

Remi pumped a fist as she collected a little wedge and put it in their circle.

“Roll again.”

Kyla rolled the dice and moved.

“Entertainment.” Remi glanced at Kyla.

“What is Radar O’Reilly’s favorite drink?”