Page 1 of Give & Take

Chapter 1

Raphael

There’s an extremely attractive backside in front of me.

It belongs to the woman I’m standing behind in the concession line at the Redbeard Cove beach, where I’m waiting to buy curly fries for my slightly testy and extremely pregnant sister and her bestie. Also pregnant. I don’t argue with pregnant women. It’s best to do their bidding to keep them happy so they don’t eat your head.

This backside though—it’s a very welcome change in scenery. It’s round and lush and covered only nominally with a white bikini bottom. I can’t tell if it’s the butt itself or the way it’s dusted in sand, but it does something to me.

Then I realize I’m blatantly staring at a woman’s ass, like I’m at a fine art gallery made for me.

“Shit.” I look away, rubbing my jaw.

I don’t objectify women, as a rule. I’ve slapped my teenaged brothers upside the head for less. But my sodacup was slippery with condensation, and I nearly dropped it taking a sip, and while my eyes were on their way back up I did a double take, because damn. Who wouldn’t?

Probably lots of people. Me.

I sigh, training my eyes on the beach to keep my gaze respectful. It’s crowded today, looking more like where I come from in California than the small-town little curve of sand up the coast of British Columbia, three hours from the closest big city by road and ferry.

But the woman in front of me shifts and I catch the scent of pineapple and coconut, laced with…peaches? Do they make peach shampoo?

“No,” the woman says into her phone. The clip of that word is surprisingly firm. She knows herself. She’s assertive.

Damn, just what I love in a woman.

Just like that, my eyes pivot back to her. And because she’s facing forward, straight to her sexy, sand-dusted ass I go. It’s a gorgeous?—

The backside disappears, replaced with a deeply sexy, ever-so-slightly padded stomach.

I look up. The woman’s eyes are on me. She’s short. 5’3 or even 5’2, I’d guess, so she has to look way up to glare at me.

There’s a brief beat where I can tell she’s surprised at my appearance. She maybe evenlikesmy appearance. But it’s gone a second later when she says, “Like what you see?”

I snap my gaze up at the icy tone.

Only instead of being my usual charming self, all I can say when I see her face is “Whoopsies.”

Whoopsies. Yeah, that’s what I said, and I’m glad, because it’s a helluva lot better than what’s flying through my brain in lit-up lights: “Holy shit.”

I don’t get stunned by women. I don’t even get nervous around women. Just fifteen minutes ago I met a girl over by my car when I picked up her sunhat that had blown across the parking lot. She handed me her number. I might have given her my prizewinning smile, but I didn’t ask for her number.

But this one in front of me? She isn’t a girl. This is a Woman. CapitalW.

She’s late thirties maybe, or early forties. Her deep brown hair falls in loose waves around a tanned face, dusted all over in freckles. But her eyes. Jesus, her eyes. Poets have written about less. They’re…ethereal. Hazel edging on green, ringed in gold. Thick, dark lashes. Tiny lines at the corners that tell me she at least knows how to smile, even if she’s a million miles from it right now. Her lips aren’t curved up, they’re pursed, those breathtaking eyes narrowed into a death glare.

Her mouth falls open, revealing a soft, wet, pinkness inside that does something to me.

I can’t help it, my lips curl up in a smile. And I don’t miss the faint blush that comes to her cheeks in response, before her jaw tenses.

She whips around, muttering, “Unbelievable.”

I bask in that peachy shampoo scent. And the fact I flustered her. She might hate my guts on sight, but she wasn’t immune to at least some part of my charm.

I feel my sister’s glare as if she was standing right next to me instead of back down the beach.

Okay, so maybe she was just thrown by my boyish good looks. Shit, does she think I’m just a boy? Was she flustered because a younger man—a twenty-six year old man—was the one ogling her?

Fuck. Suddenly I need her to know just how grown I am.

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