Page 70 of The Au Pair Affair

His deep chuckle inspired a raw tug between her thighs andshe almost—almost—blew off skinny dipping, so she could turn around, run to Burgess, leap into his arms and agree to be his girlfriend. He’d reward her so well for committing, but her mind and gut weren’t fully convinced yet that being someone’s girlfriend was the right thing to do at this precarious stage in her life. Her heart was another story, but she’d ignore that traitor for now.

Tallulah stopped a few feet from the water and took a deep breath. She looked back to find Burgess pacing in the headlights of his truck, arms crossed. Wouldn’t the man meant to be with her forever... want to take these adventures, too? Would he really remain on the shore?

This moment is for you. Be in the moment.

Before she could think too hard about the water temperature, Tallulah set aside the worry for another time and dropped the towel, walking straight into the pond. “Oh. Oh God,” she gasped, even as she plowed forward. “Oh God. Oh God. I just have to get my shoulders under. That’s when it’ll stop feeling like death.”

She kept going, focusing on the rush of adrenaline, the shock to her system. Her pulse raced a million miles an hour, a sort of giddiness steeling up the walls of her throat and gluing her back teeth together. She embraced the feeling of freedom and mischief and simply being out in the open, living, breathing the night air and leaving fear to wither on the shore alone.

Fully submerged now, she turned over onto her back and let herself float in the moonlight, imagining herself from above, looking peaceful, free of the constraints of trauma. What Brett had done to her. In that moment, she didn’t feel like a hypocrite who made promises and didn’t keep them. She felt more awake than she had in a long time.

Tallulah let herself sink beneath the surface, the water muffling everything except the heartbeat in her ears, and rejoiced inthe simple fact that it was working. That she was alive to jump into a pond or watch a baseball game. Dance and learn and travel.

She wouldn’t take that for granted anymore.

A few moments later, Tallulah surfaced and looked over at the bank to find Burgess waiting there, his arms crossed over her towel. While his stance was casual, something told her he was preparing to jump in and save her at a moment’s notice. This man. Whatever shape their relationship ended up taking, he’d joined her on these first steps to finding her sense of adventure again. Based on the way her heart kicked into triple time at the sight of him, so regal and large and reassuring and supportive in the moonlight, Tallulah started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he was one of the destinations on her journey.

Was he the right one, though?

Every fluttering nerve ending in her body seemed to believe so. The organ caged inside of her ribs, as well, and how it knocked louder and faster as she swam in his direction was telling. So telling.

“You look like a mermaid out there,” he said, gruffly, then seemed to decide his statement sounded ridiculous, looking down and toeing the earth with his boot.

“Do you believe in mermaids, Burgess?”

“I believe I’vewatchedTheLittle Mermaidfour hundred times.” He shivered. “The real thing, though? No. You?”

She made a considering sound. “Ninety-five percent of the ocean hasn’t been explored. I think that’s a lot of room for secrets.” Slowly, Tallulah started to swim back to the shore, enjoying every ripple of water against her bare skin. “But more than anything, I think they were designed so that men had women to blame for shipwrecks or bad luck at sea. Surely these accidents couldn’t be a man’s doing. Itmustbe a fish woman.”

A corner of his mouth jumped. “Some explorer refused to pull over and ask for directions. That’s what really happened.”

“Bingo.” Tallulah’s feet found the bottom on the pond, but she didn’t stand. “That being said, I do find the idea of mermaids very romantic. These beautiful creatures appearing to sailors.” She dragged her fingertips through the water in front of her. “Enchanting them so thoroughly they go totally off course.”

Burgess blew out a slow breath. “Right about now, I can commiserate.”

“Would I cause you to crash your ship, Burgess?”

“Into a million pieces.”

“Mmmm.” It wasn’t lost on Tallulah that his admission excited her even more than skinny dipping. More than... anything in recent memory. “Are you going to be a gentleman and close your eyes while I get out of the water?”

“Yes,” he said with conviction, but his chest was beginning to rise and fall.

“What would you be willing to do for a peek?”

“Fuck it,” he muttered, like a sailor accepting that he’d been tempted into steering his vessel toward the rocks.“Anything.”

That guttural confession caused an electric current to move through Tallulah. “If you had to pick something of mine to look at,” she murmured. “What would it be?”

“You mean, which part of you?”

Tallulah nodded.

Several charged seconds ticked by. “You realize that’s an impossible choice.”

She started whistling theJeopardytheme song.

He dragged a hand down his face. “Jesus Christ.”

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