Page 33 of Late to Love

“Tell me you don’t like it.”

Biting the inside of my cheek, I admit, “Not sure I can say that, Darcy.”

She shivers even as she beams. “Thought so.”

I frown. “You’re cold.”

She tries to protest, but I stand and pull her up. “Let’s get you to your car so you can warm up.”

She laughs. “Anthony, it’s easily eighty-five degrees. I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe, but the fireworks are over, anyway.”

She glances up at the sky, her lips swollen, her dark hair gloriously disheveled. “Fine. Walk me to my car?”

I hear the question in her voice, but I ignore it. We went too far as it is. I don’t want her regretting anything.

We get ready, pulling on clothes and packing away the towel, before she digs in her bag for a flashlight. It’s dim, but it’s all we need to see our way through the dunes and back to the street.

When we get to her beat-up Camry, she pops the trunk and digs into yet another tote, producing dry clothes.

She looks at me, bemused. “What? You don’t have a change of clothes in your trunk?”

“Of course not.”

“Anthony, we live at the beach. It’s summer. How do younothave a change of clothes in your trunk?”

“Because I’m forty-one,” I answer.

She rolls her eyes. “Your age has nothing to do with it.” After a beat, she glances down at my crotch and back. “Clearly.”

I chuckle. “Okay, you. How are you changing your clothes?”

“In my back seat,” she says, winking at me. “You wanna stand guard?”

After a few minutes—minutes in which I behave myself and don’t stare at her while she’s in various stages of undress—she emerges in a fresh T-shirt and shorts. No bra.

My mouth instantly waters. “Darcy.”

She shakes from side to side, sending her luscious breasts bouncing and swinging. “You like?”

I wipe a hand down my face. What I’d give to have those tits around my face. “I’m trying really hard to be good here.”

She presses herself against me, soft and warm. “I’m trying really hard to understand why.”

Me, too. I take in her upturned, sunburned nose and see the beginnings of beard burn forming around her mouth. I can’t help the smirk that forms, knowing that anyone who sees her tomorrow will know she’s been up to something.

“Be good,” I admonish, popping a kiss onto her forehead and walking away before anything else can happen.

Chapter15

Darcy

PLEASE EXPLAIN TO me why I’ve spent the entire weekendnotchasing after Mr. Hall like a woman obsessed. I should, right? The man let me ride him like a fucking horse until I came, for God’s sake. But I didn’t. Instead of attempting to glue myself to his side like a barnacle, I spent Saturday at the hardware store, sorting through what felt like a billion pounds of paperwork and showing Dad, yet again, how to use the accounting software. I swear, the man’s learned incompetence is going to send me to an early grave.

“You’re better at it,” he’d protested.

“Yeah, well, it’s your store, Dad,” I reminded him.

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