Текст книги "Nuts"

Автор книги: Alice Clayton

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter 14

Five whole hours was luxurious. Equally luxurious was the way those hours ended. Soft lips tracing a path across my shoulder, a deliciously callused hand pulling me back against a warm chest, and then—oh!—as Leo thrust into me from behind.

I came back to this memory over and over again while I worked in the diner, trying to concentrate on steak and eggs, when all I could think about was the way his eyes burned into mine as he fucked me on my front porch. I poured coffee, I flipped burgers, I did what I could to not think about the night before—and the fact that I’d slept with a man for the first time in my entire life. As in forty winks. Mr. Sandman.

I was deep in piecrust, not thinking about this at all, when Chad Bowman sidled up to the counter looking like he was headed out to Montauk for some boating. Pleated navy shorts, spiffy white Sperrys, and a salmon polo shirt. Not pink, not peach, not sunset or orange. Salmon, for pity’s sake. All that was missing was the knit cardigan around his shoul—And there it was. He tied it into a perfect loop around his broad shoulders and popped a pair of silver aviators onto his blond hair.

“You look like something out of a catalog,” I said, tugging on his popped collar. The. Popped. Collar. “J. Crew called, you’re wanted on page sixty-nine.”

He preened, his tan skin pinking under my praise. “As Queen Bey says, I woke up like this.” Smirking, he gave me the once-over. Then he gave me a twice-over.

I smoothed my hair automatically, straightening my apron. Could he see? Could he tell? Surely he couldn’t—

“Mmm-hmm,” he said, settling onto a stool and giving me a knowing look.

“Mmm-hmm what?” I asked, smoothing my apron again.

“Oh, you know exactly what, Little Miss Crushing on a Farmer.”

“I am not crushing on a farmer!” I snapped, loud enough that the entire diner fell silent. Which never happens. Forks hovered, mouths hung open, and every pair of eyes was on me. I’m pretty sure they were all picturing me naked.

Judging by the glint in his eye, Chad was picturing Leo naked.

A wave of embarrassment flashed over me, hot and fast. I didn’t like my business being put out there. And I was pretty sure Leo wouldn’t like his business out there either.

“Mmm-hmm.” He lifted up his menu, which shook as he laughed quietly.

“Don’t start rumors, Bowman,” I said quietly, straightening the tines of his fork to line up with the paper placemat. “It’s just . . . it’s not like that.” I looked around to see if people were still watching. And listening. . . .

Ninety-nine percent of the diner’s customers went back to their breakfasts, busily gossiping and doubtless passing it through the town’s phone tree. But one older fellow at the counter was glaring a hole into the back of Chad’s shirt.

I blinked. Surely he couldn’t have a problem with Chad?

“Pay the bigots no mind, lovey,” Chad said, turning me to face him. “That’s Herman.” He smiled and tipped his coffee toward Herman, who looked irked that attention was being volleyed back at him.

Throwing back his coffee, the man tossed a few bills onto the counter, then stormed out of the diner. Unfortunately, the door did not hit him in the judgmental ass on the way out.

“A good friend, I see.” I leaned my elbows on the counter across from Chad. Though he’d brushed it off like it was no big deal, I could see that it bothered him. “Do you get that a lot? The nasty staring ?”

I hoped that the answer was no, that most people were accepting, and only a few were assholes. Especially in this town, where half of the businesses flew rainbow flags outside.

Chad shifted on his stool. “No, that doesn’t usually happen here. That’s a big part of the reason we decided we could move back. And I can handle that crap now, but just after high school, that kind of thing would have killed me.” He smiled. “I would have panicked and said nothing, and then thought of ten great comebacks an hour later.”

His admission gave me such a new perspective on him. I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to hide that big a secret. To pretend to be something I wasn’t.

“I wish I knew then, in case you wanted someone to talk to or whatever.”

“Enough about this,” he said dismissively. “I want all the explicit details about last night!”

“Phone for you, Rox,” a voice rang out from the kitchen, and I grinned in relief.

“Gee, looks like I have to take a call.”

Chad pointed two fingers at his eyes, then at me, telling me he that knew something was up and he’d be watching me.

I grinned and grabbed the phone off the wall. “This is Roxie.”

“Hello, Roxie, this is Mrs. Oleson, from the mayor’s office.”

“Oh hello, Mrs. Oleson, how are you?”

Chad’s eyebrows went up. Mrs. Oleson had worked in the mayor’s office for as long as anyone could remember, no matter who the mayor was. She had her hand in nearly everything that happened in town. Huh. Not unlike a Mrs. Harriett Oleson from Walnut Grove. I allowed myself a few seconds of Almanzo fantasy.

“Roxie, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here. What can I do you for, Mrs. Oleson?”

“I’m in a bit of a pickle, dear, and I’m hoping you can help me out.”

“I’ll do what I can. What’s up?” I replied, confused but intrigued.

“Well, you know I always bring cakes to the ladies’ luncheon, and this year I’ve just totally overextended myself. Linda and Evelyn were positively raving over the walnut cake they had at the diner last week, and I wondered—”

“You want a walnut cake too?” I finished.

“Actually, I’d need four. And maybe . . . do you have something different you could make? They’ve already had the walnut cake, so I thought maybe we could surprise them with something new,” she said, her voice getting quiet and sneaky. “Eleanor made her famous sponge cake last week, and I need to step it up a notch or two.”

“Something new,” I repeated, glancing over at the barren cake display case with worry. Not about how I was going to bake more—but because I wanted to do it. “When do you need these?”

“Tomorrow?” she asked hesitantly.

Yikes. I looked again at the display case. This morning it had held eight cakes, each sliced in eighths, individually for sale. Now there were only crumbs.

Did I want to do this? Could I do this was a better question, adding another thing to my already packed schedule.

“What did you have in mind?” I asked, decision made, grabbing the yellow order pad out of Maxine’s apron pocket as she passed by. She frowned, eyeing me from under the beehive hairdo that held a—

“I need this too,” I chirped, plucking the pen from the hairspray-stiffened swirl. She cracked me on the ass with a dish towel in complaint.

“Carrot?” I parroted back to Mrs. Oleson, my mind immediately racing. “Traditional? With nuts?” I was giddy at the thought of shopping at Leo’s for the ingredients. Mmm, I could do a cream cheese frosting. I’d seen tubs of it at Maxwell Farm from the dairy next door. What else could I pick up there? Oooo, maybe he’d pick me up. Maybe he’d finish what he started that day in the silo—

Shit, I was on the phone. “Pick them up tomorrow morning,” I instructed Mrs. Oleson, flustered.

As I hung up the phone, the Scott family walked in. Mom, Dad, and two kids, with the point-five bun in the oven and ready to pop out.

“Have a seat anywhere that’s open,” I called, leaning over the counter to see if there was a booth or table free. There was one in the back, and Mrs. Scott was able to waddle uncomfortably over and sit down.

“Looks like someone is making a name for herself in this town,” Chad said over his menu.

“I don’t even know why you’re pretending to look at this—you always get the same thing. Tuna melt, potato salad, cherry Coke.” I rolled my eyes, smacking the top of his head lightly with his menu.

“She knows her customers’ orders, she’s becoming famous for her sweet treats, she’s emphatically not crushing on a farmer—what a summer Roxie Callahan’s having,” Chad said.

I smacked him again, not trying to hide my smile.

After sending his order to the kitchen, I started rifling through one of the old cookbooks my mother kept behind the counter. An old Betty Crocker from the fifties was chock-full of American classics: sponge, angel, devil, coconut, pound . . . And then came the mother lode: the European Dessert section. Tiramisu, Black Forest, Pavlova, and Irish Mousse. I was about to read the recipe for the boozy take on mousse pie when Mr. Scott approached the counter.

“God, I haven’t seen that in twenty years!” he exclaimed, pointing to the picture of an Apple Amber pie. According to the recipe, it was a whiskeyed-up meringue pie. Fresh farmyard apples sweetened with cider, sugar, and lemons, blanketed with rich, brown meringue piled high.

As Mr. Scott leaned closer to stare at the cookbook, he looked like he was about to drool. “Are you making this?” he asked hopefully.

“I don’t know—maybe. I’ve never made it before.” But I could, easily, and the regulars would love it. Hmmm. Apples weren’t in season yet, but peaches would be soon. I mentally started converting the recipe from apples to peaches: maybe less cinnamon, a splash of bourbon. Did Leo have peach trees? Hmmm, sweet, luscious peaches. And sweet, luscious Leo.

Zombie Pickle Class. A phrase never before uttered in the history of phrase uttering, let alone printed on a sign. But there it was in the diner’s front window, propped up by a ten-gallon plastic pickle tub. Which was high art apparently, according to Chad. “It’s ironic, it’s homey, it’s perfection!” he’d said when he’d dropped it off earlier that day and strong-armed me into letting him put it in.

Though I tried to insist that teaching him and Logan hardly constituted a “class,” he’d insisted more. So here I was, surrounded by cutting boards, cucumbers, garlic, and a few dozen jars, waiting for my first class to start. The diner was quiet, the front lights turned down and jukebox off, just the faint hum of the fridges audible in the kitchen.

I yawned, leaning on the countertop. I’d only managed about three hours of sleep the night before, and it’d been a long day. One of the line cooks had called in sick, so I’d worked both the breakfast and the lunch shifts on the grill. My back creaked, my shoulders ached, my finger was burned by a sauté pan.

But I was also surprisingly . . . exhilarated. I’d worked a hard day, did everything I needed to do, put out fires—literally, and made sure every single person who came through the door enjoyed the hell out of their lunch. I’d made a new version of tomato soup today. I’d slow roasted the tomatoes with basil and a bit of chervil before pureeing them, rather than using the standard canned. I’d used crème fraîche instead of half-and-half. Then I added brioche croutons, tossed with gruyère and black pepper. Did we sell out of that soup before 11 a.m.? Possibly. Did we get way more take-out orders for soup than we’d had since I’d been home?

Yes! Tons of take-out orders!

Along with the exhilaration, I also felt a sense of . . . comfort? Belonging? That would seem a perfectly natural reaction, since it was my hometown—yet I’d almost never felt it before. And along with the exhilaration and the comfort of belonging, add one dash of . . . butterflies?

No, that’s not it.

A heart murmur?

Pretty sure you’re healthy, cardiacwise.

Indigestion?

With your cast-iron stomach? Hardly.

So what is it?

Hopefulness? Joy? Intrigue?

Indigestion. That’s it. Too many croutons.

Croutons are giving you butterflies?

Mmm-hmm.

I pondered this while I held a cucumber in my hand. Which naturally brought up other thoughts. Thoughts I didn’t have time to explore, because the owner of the cucumber I wished I was holding came through the front door, his eyes searching for mine. Cue the butterfly croutons.

When Leo saw what I was holding, his face broke into a movie star grin.

In that instant, all of the air left the room. In that instant, all I was aware of was his face and those eyes and that grin . . . and a quickly warming cucumber. In that instant plus one second . . . I realized I was in deep trouble.

Because this guy was incredible.

Because this guy was real and sweet and kind, and he knew about the kinds of things that could wiggle through every chink in my armor and into my heretofore unbreakable heart.

Food.

Orgasms.

Food.

Sweet.

Food.

Strong.

Orgasms.

Oh boy.

And funny.

Caring.

Kind.

Not afraid to get his hands dirty.

Not afraid to talk dirty.

And the surprise of all surprises: I already missed him in my bed.

“Hey, Sugar Snap,” he said. “What kind of plans do you have for that cucumber?”

Officially, I came up with a clever comeback. Officially, I offered some witty banter to keep things light and flirty. Officially, I shot down every butterfly crouton that was fluttering around inside me.

But unofficially? The feeling of being somebody’s Sugar Snap made me grin widely. Nothing witty came from my mouth; it was too busy smiling. And then the smiling became a kiss, then two, then three. Because I nearly vaulted over the counter, ran to Leo like a fool in a Nicholas Sparks film, and threw myself into his strong arms, kissing him as if someone had threatened to take his mouth away from me.

His arms enveloped me, his surprised chuckle quickly muffled by my face. Which he covered in equally urgent kisses, his lips pressing against my forehead, my cheekbones, the tip of my nose, and finally my mouth again. Lifting me right out of my clogs, he set me on top of the counter, coaxed my legs apart with no resistance from me, and stood between them. I wrapped my legs around him, crossing them high on his back as he let his head tip forward, resting on my breasts, his hands digging into my hips, hard.

“You drive me crazy, Sugar Snap,” he groaned.

“Call me that again, and I’m canceling pickle class.” I ran my hands through his hair and kneaded his scalp, getting a satisfied moan in response.

“Sugar Snap? That’s what brought this on?” he asked, and I tilted his head up toward mine.

“That’s it. Class is canceled.” I was about to tell him to lock the door and ravage me up against the Fryalator when I heard a slow clapping, à la every movie from the eighties.

“Well done. Will all classes begin this way?”

Chad and Logan stood just inside the door, wearing enormous grins and bearing cucumbers.

I slumped down against Leo’s chest, breathing in his heady scent, and breathing out my frustration at being interrupted. When I looked up again, Logan made a decidedly ungentlemanly—okay, totally juvenile—gesture with a cucumber, and I snorted in spite of myself. The moment broken, Leo helped me down off the counter, and I faced my peanut gallery.

“You boys ready to pickle?”

They were in fact ready to pickle. And pickle we did. They were surprisingly good students, once they got all the jokes about pickle size out of their systems. They paid close attention, they followed directions, and within about ninety minutes we had several jars ready for the fridge. It was fun, and I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed teaching people how to do things like this.

Leo kept close to me most of the night, refusing to answer Chad’s unsubtle questions about what was going on with us, changing the subject smoothly each time. It was frustrating for Chad, amusing for me, and it kept the evening focused on the food. I did wonder how far things would have gone if Chad and Logan hadn’t shown up . . . but no matter. I was enjoying the evening with three gorgeous men, and I might get to see one of them naked very soon. Zombie Pickle Class was a total success.

Zombie Pickle Class was also noticed by several passersby. How could you not stop to read a sign like that? Though the door was locked, that didn’t stop people from peering inside. Interesting . . .

“We should make more! I want enough to last the entire winter,” Logan proclaimed as he labeled his jar of hamburger dills.

“These are fridge pickles, so they’ll only be good for a few months. If you want pickles that will keep longer, that’s a whole different ball of brine. You have to cook them a bit, same as making jelly or jam.”

“Yes! Let’s make jam too!” Chad chimed in enthusiastically.

“Okay, everyone settle,” I said as Leo smothered a laugh. “We can definitely make jam, but not tonight.” I smiled at their eagerness as I scooped up a few jars of my own concoction—baby cucumbers in a zesty brine of spicy peppers and the tiniest drizzle of honey—and headed for the fridge.

“How about next week? Same time, same place?” Logan asked, and I nodded in agreement.

“Blackberries just came in, and by next week we’ll have raspberries too,” Leo said.

Mmm. I did love raspberry jam.

“Do you know how to make apple butter?” Chad asked as he cleaned up his station. “My nana used to make it every October, and I ate half a loaf of bread every day after school just for that apple butter. Can we make that?”

“No can do—sorry.”

“Why in the world not?” Then his eyes lit up with a wicked gleam. “What if I put on my old letterman jacket?”

Logan’s head popped around the fridge. “Let him wear the jacket, Rox. It’s hot as hell.”

“Oh, I remember. But apple butter making is in the fall.”

“So?” Chad asked, and Logan gave me an inquiring look.

“I won’t be here in the fall,” I said quietly, feeling Leo’s stare on the back of my head. It’s funny how a gaze can be physically felt from across the room. “I’m leaving once my mom gets back from her Amazing Race, remember?”

A silence fell on the kitchen, all the good humor of the evening seeming to fall away.

“Besides, the Jam Lady is going to kill me as it is, teaching you guys how to make jam. I can’t take away her apple butter clients too—she’d never let me hear the end of it.”

“You won’t be here to hear her. That’s kind of the end of it,” Logan muttered.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, zombies, class is over. Next time jam, same time, same place,” I said, forcing my voice to stay light and bright.

Chad nodded, pulling me against him in a quick hug. “Tonight was fun—thanks for the pickles.” He dropped a quick kiss on my forehead before ushering Logan and their jars out the door.

Leaving me with Leo, who dropped his gaze when I turned around. “I’ll get a broom, help you get this place cleaned up,” he said, moving toward the utility closet.

There was nothing I could say to ease the sudden tension, because I was leaving. This . . . thing . . . was just for the summer. So he got the broom and I wiped the counters, and within a few minutes we began to chat about what other fruits might be ready soon for jam. Light and bright.

Light and bright means no expectations. No demands on time, no hard feelings, and certainly no tears. Which is why when he left with just a quick kiss on my forehead, I didn’t feel a suspicious prickle inside my eyelids, or notice that my chin wobbled at all.

I locked up, drove home, and didn’t sleep. Because officially, it was just a fling. And a fling made no demands on where he spent his nights.

Light and bright.

Chapter 15

I couldn’t believe the Fourth of July was almost here. It seemed like I’d barely arrived, but the bunting going up around town said the summer was half gone.

I swear to God this town kept the bunting business in business more than any other small town in the country. If it was a holiday, you can bet your sweet apple pie that Bailey Falls was dragging out the red, white, and blue and lashing it to anything that would stand still. Quaint. Homey. Pretty great, actually.

Finished at the diner for the day, I drove my big old American car down the middle of good old American Main Street, and thought about fucking my good old American farmer while holding two sparklers. Now that’s how I’d like to celebrate our country’s founding.

I pondered this while waving to familiar faces along the main drag. People I used to know and had come to know again, new people I’d met since coming home. With some I knew names; mostly I knew orders. Hey look, Scrambled with Rye Toast is coming out of the hardware store with cable ties. Wonder if he’s planning on using those on Miss Steel-Cut Oats with Nonfat Milk and Hold the Raisins. I just bet she liked her raisins held . . .

The thermometer on the bank said it was near ninety degrees, and I was glad of the breeze coming through my window. Turning on the radio, I head the strains of “Mysterious Ways” and snickered at the thought that Achtung Baby was being played on an oldies station. My mother would flip out if she knew that. Where was she right now? Brazil? Italy? Minnesota? Wherever she was, I hope she was enjoying herself.

As I drove home I saw a few teenage girls walking into the woods behind the high school, carrying towels and a beach ball. And I suddenly knew exactly where I wanted to spend my afternoon. And whom I wanted to spend it with.

I sped back to the house, stopping only to send a text to Leo.

Can you play hooky today?

He texted back right away, and I snorted out loud.

Will you be naked? I can only consider naked hooky requests.

It’s very possible. Come on, come and play with me.

Isn’t that a line from The Shining?

You should take me pretty seriously then, right? Also, don’t pay attention to that ax behind my back.

You’re lucky I like dangerous women. When?

Now. Drop your hoe and grab your swim trunks. I’ll be there in fifteen.

Swim trunks? Now I’m intrigued.

Intrigued enough to play hooky?

Make it twenty and bring snacks and you’ve got me.

Done.

Also naked. Remember the naked.

I’ll do my best.

I threw on a bikini, making sure to double knot the strings. Because, Leo. I grabbed a cooler, threw in ice, beer, the sandwiches I’d made at the diner that were originally going to be my dinner, and then grabbed my mom’s old CD boom box. It was big, square, covered in knobs and switches and dials, and exactly the kind of thing you want for playing hooky at the old swimming hole.

Every town in the Catskills either had a swimming hole or was within a few miles of one. There were so many creeks, streams, ponds, and small lakes—if there was water, we’d swim in it. It was how you survived the hot summers when you were a kid, and where you learned how to French kiss when you were a teenager.

There were multiple great places to swim around Bailey Falls, but The Tube was my favorite. Close to the edge of the Bryant Mountain House hotel property there was a small spring and pond that fed the larger lake on the hotel’s grounds. Clear cold water, rocky bottom, and lots of outcroppings if you were feeling daring and wanted to jump. It was a cool respite on a hot day, and it was exactly where I wanted to take Leo today.

When I pulled up to the big stone barn, it occurred to me that I still didn’t know where Leo lived. He’d said he didn’t use the main house, as it was used for tours and tended to be the domain of his mother when she visited. Which I gathered was rarely. So where did he sleep at night? There were guest houses that he’d converted into dormlike quarters for the summer interns in the apprentice program, but I doubted he stayed there.

But before I could think too long on it, there he was. Taller than the rest of the group, his sandy blond hair shining in the sun, getting lighter by the day.

He waved good-bye to the group he was chatting with, then jogged over to my Jeep.

“So mysterious,” he said, sidling up to the window. Looking left and right (to make sure no one was looking?), he leaned his head in to kiss me once, twice, three times. “Where are we going, Sugar Snap?”

My toes pointed involuntarily and the engine revved, a consequence of being called by my nickname. Chuckling, he backed away, hands held up in an I give gesture.

“Get in,” I said. “And buckle up.”

“So this is where you brought all of the boys to have your wicked way with them in your younger days.”

We’d turned off the main road into the woods, onto a dirt path barely large enough for my Wagoneer to fit down without snapping off a few branches here and there. I was pleased to see no other cars here when I parked, and I led him a few hundred yards or so to the clearing above the clearest, and coldest, swimming hole for miles.

Starting as an underground spring, the water forced its way up through the rock underneath, creating this beautiful little pool ringed with huge craggy boulders, some rough and pointed, some flat like giant platters. The pool was somewhat oblong, more like a tube than a circle, hence the name. Since it was smaller than some of the other swimming haunts near town, it usually wasn’t as crowded.

And today, we had it all to ourselves.

As we admired it from above, what he’d said finally registered. His eyes were full of fun and mischief as he gazed down at me, waiting expectantly for my answer.

“I never brought boys here, mister. Not for wicked ways or any ways.” I punctuated my statement with a smack on his buns.

“Oh, I find that hard to believe,” he teased, returning the buns smack. “Come on, you can tell me. Teenage Roxie, with her legendary culinary skills, must have made a helluva picnic to tempt the boys out to skinny dip.”

I thought about it for a moment. How perfect that version could have been. Snapping a red-and-white checkered tablecloth onto the grass and wildflowers. Sitting with The Chad Bowman crisscross applesauce while we ate tiny sandwiches and talked about . . . whatever we would have discussed.

It was hard to put myself in an imaginary memory with my former A-number-one crush, when I had my current A number one here in the flesh.

“That wasn’t me,” I explained, pulling him close and tucking his hands around my lower back. He slid his palms into my back pockets like they did in every eighties music video on MTV. Back in the day when MTV actually ran videos. “I was shy. A people watcher who kept to myself. I didn’t turn into a brazen hussy until after I left Bailey Falls.”

I nipped his chin with my teeth, earning two firm bum squeezes. “And speaking of brazen hussy, I’m down with creating some wannabe superhorny teenage memories right here and now. Interested?”

A deep, searing kiss was the answer. Interested.

We climbed carefully down the rocky path. He was all chivalrous with his “Oh, let me help you down” hands that landed and lingered on my backside. Or the casual lean-in that brushed against the side of my boob, which I didn’t immediately lean away from.

We just couldn’t keep our hands off each other. And I was quickly becoming addicted to that comfortable sweetness mixed with steadily growing passion. It was going to be hard to cut myself off cold turkey at the end of the summer.

I leaned into his shoulder to smell the summer on his skin.

Wella, wella, wella, huh.

I was addicted to all things Leo. Right now, as we picked our way down across the rocky shale, I settled on his fingers. Tan, strong, and all man. Not the manicured, pristine, hand-creamed-to-hell fingers that most of the guys in Los Angeles had. These were callused and hardworking, and of the earth.

And at the moment, they were toying with the hem of my shorts. The frayed bits that dangled against my legs were a particular favorite of his. He wound them around his index finger as we walked, and the contact points became little fiery spots that sent tingles up my spine and down my shorts.

And lately, his hands had been coming into contact more often. For obvious reasons, sure, but it was more. When he wasn’t playing grab ass or boobie graze, there’d be the lightest brush here. The softest touch there. It felt like he was unaware that he was doing it too, like the zing he got from making contact surprised him just as much as it did me.

We carried on until finally we cleared the trees, where the stillness reined in our silliness.

“This is perfect,” he said, pulling me in front of him to rest his head on my shoulder.

A dragonfly bounced along the water, sending tiny ripples through the blue, inviting water. We had the place all to ourselves. Suddenly seized by inspiration, I smiled. Brazen hussy reporting for duty.

I turned within his arms, blinking innocently up at him. “Stay,” I instructed with my index finger in the center of his chest. Curiosity shone in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to ask what I was doing, but he didn’t, letting me run the show.

I kicked off my flips, sending them sailing under a nearby tree. My thin white tank was next, sliding over my head. Leo’s eyes narrowed as he took in my barely there bikini, red and white polka dots that tried, almost unsuccessfully, to cover my sudden inspiration. Slipping out of my shorts to expose another part of barely there, I was delighted when his face changed from expectation to deep satisfaction.

I turned away toward the water, peered over my shoulder with a secret smile, and saw Leo standing stock-still, answering my smile broadly. His hands fisted at his sides as he watched me tug at the string on my bikini top, exposing myself to God, country, and dragonflies. I let the tiny triangles slide down my heated skin into the gravel and dirt, and his breath caught. He took a tiny step forward before catching himself. He was letting me do this at my pace, and looked like he was enjoying every single second of it.

I took a step toward the water. I heard him take a step behind me. When my toes hit the water, I almost jumped out of my skin. I’d figured it would be warmish given the time of year, but this was downright nippy—and visibly nipply.

I moved deeper into the water, the coolness slipping up over my shins, my knees, halfway up my thigh—then I stopped and took another look back at Leo. It was like a game of Red Light, Green Light. For every step I took into the water, he stepped further down the rocks. When I stopped, he stopped. When I turned this last time, letting him sneak a peek at what the trees were already familiar with, he stopped so short he had to pinwheel his arms to keep from falling. Jesus, if tits could do this to a grown man, what would happen when I . . .

I took hold of the strings on either hip and tugged.

I’d seen Leo move quickly before, but he was about to break the land and sea record for getting naked and into the water. Jeans and boxers were gone together in a tangle as he hopped on one foot while he toed off his boots simultaneously.