I tilted back her head, and for the first time didn’t check out the looks of the woman I was about to put my mouth on. Plugging her nose, I pulled her jaw down, then sealed my mouth over hers, breathing for us both. I counted out the breaths and laid my hand on her chest, checking again for that precious heartbeat.

“Come on, Little Bird.”

The seconds slowed to small measures of infinity before she sputtered, water spewing from her mouth. I rolled her to the side as she forced out the rest with coughing heaves, her slight body convulsing.

All of the adrenaline abandoned me, leaving only exhaustion. She hadn’t died. She was alive. I hadn’t failed. When she finished, I brought her to her back, watching the rise and fall of her chest like it was going to stop any second. I leaned over her as she took a shaky breath.

Damn, her face was as perfect up close as I’d thought. Small, delicate features on top of plump, parted lips. I’d seen her as I ran down the beach, but I figured she’d be a Monet—pretty from afar, but a mess up close—like most of the girls today. I was wrong.

She was beautiful, and not in the fake, made-up way. “Hey, are you okay?” I asked.

“Thank you,” she whispered in a sweet southern accent as her eyes opened wide in shock. Words failed me. Green. Holy shit, her eyes were huge and the clearest shade of pale green I’d ever seen, with a ring of forest green on the edges. My heart skipped and then began to pound. I ran my barbell across my teeth, speechless for the first time since…ever and reminded myself that I did not believe in love at first sight, or that insane voice in my head that clearly said, “Mine.” Her eyes widened. “Mr. California?”

What? A smile broke out across my face. “Not exactly. I’m from Colorado. Luckily they teach mouth-to-mouth there, too.”

She gasped, leaning on her elbows. “Mouth to— I have a boyfriend!”

Indignant. She was offended? “And…he would take objection to me saving your life?”

She blinked several times, her lips parting. Keep your thoughts off her lips. “N-n-no. He just wouldn’t take kindly to someone else’s mouth on mine.” Her chest heaved as she sat up, and her eyes glazed.

I yanked the nearest beach towel to us, not caring that it belonged to Masters, wherever the hell he was, and wrapped it around her, then cupped her face with one of my hands, strangely tender. I was not a tender kind of guy. Hell, no. I was a no-effort, easy-lay, forget-’em-before-morning guy. “Well, next time I’ll make sure to ask him first, okay?”

She nodded, drawing her knees to her chest. “You saved me.”

“You were drowning.”

A shadow fell on us. The idiot was here. “Hey, man, that was so cool how you—” I turned as I stood, my fist taking my momentum into his jaw. He blinked as he stumbled until his ass hit the sand. “She’s fine!” he called over to the small group that had gathered.

“Jerk,” she muttered, wincing, and raised a hand to the back of her head.

“Are you okay?”

Her nose scrunched. “I think I hit my head on the pier.”

I brushed her hand and hair away to see the swelling goose egg. “You need to get checked out. Let me get you to the doctor, okay?”

She shook her head, her hand hovering above her heart. “No, no doctors.”

She muttered something that sounded like, “My parents will kill me.” She looked too old to care what her parents thought, but with that sweet-as-honey southern accent, I bet she was raised pretty old-fashioned. The opposite of my fend-for-yourself upbringing.

“Do you want to call your boyfriend?”

She grimaced. “Will wouldn’t understand. God, it was silly of me to come here.”

“Who are you here with?”

“My friend Morgan, but she’s out on the WaveRunner…”

We both scanned the coastline, but I didn’t see anyone.

She shrank in on herself, becoming even smaller, if that was possible. She was already fucking tiny, over a head shorter than I was, but rounded in every place I worshipped on a woman. She was…well, damn, she was as perfect in her body as her face.

Her cough dragged my horny mind out of her pants. What the hell was wrong with me? The girl almost drowned five minutes ago. “You need a doctor, just to check you out. I’ve heard too many stories of people who drown hours later from the fluid in their lungs.”

She rested her hand on her chest, her forehead wrinkled like she was thinking, before she nodded. “Okay, I’ll get Morgan’s keys and find an urgent care.”

My mouth dropped. “You’re not going to drive yourself. I’ll take you…” I wanted to pull some Jedi mind shit to get her to say her name.

“Paisley,” she answered. Jackpot. “And I don’t get in cars with strangers.”

I grinned. “I’m Jagger, and since I’ve had my mouth on yours, I’d hardly call us strangers.” A pretty blush crept over her face. She was enchanting. Enchanting? Just start spouting poetry and shit while you’re at it.

“I guess if you were going to kill me, you would have left me to drown, not pulled me to shore.” A devilish gleam sparked in her eyes. “But you did kiss me without consent.” Damn. That smile. Killer.

“I promise, Paisley”—I called her by name just so I could feel it curl around my tongue—“if I kiss you, you’ll know it.” Her smile faltered, and something intangible passed between us. I cleared my throat. “Let’s get you to the doctor.”