Page 89 of Gorgeous

“They were on the island!” she exclaims in a hurry, thinking it would upset me. “Right in front of the stairs.” Her face is flushed from embarrassment.

I throw the truck in drive and follow behind Mason and Hayes. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve all watched them at some point. They aren’t discreet with their sex life.”

Breck nods, her face still pink. “Do you like public sex?” she asks with a hint of curiosity.

“No,” I tell her honestly. “I don’t. No one gets to see what’s mine.”

My answer seems to put her at ease, her shoulders loosening as she leans back against the seat. “Good, because I get stage fright.”

Her simple and honest answer puts a stupid grin on my face. “So you’re saying you aren’t able to come on demand?”

She frowns. “Can you come on demand?”

No, but I would be willing to try it with her. “I’m afraid not, but if you blow on me the right way and talk dirty, I might get really close to it.”

Her face turns crimson again and the tips of her ears match. I’ve embarrassed her. “Don’t be embarrassed. I like it when you talk dirty.” I reach over and grab her hand, interlacing our fingers. “No one has ever talked to me that way. I like it.”

That admission has her meeting my eyes with a hint of a smile. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” I tell the girl who I lied to every weekend about why I was at the Farmers’ Market. For fifty-two weeks, I traveled into town and made up this bullshit excuse that we were out of jam. And every week, I would come home and put yet another jar of jam in the jam-packed cabinet.

Breck turns on the radio, filling the cab with soft country music. I try hard not to grin. “You like country?”

She shrugs her dainty shoulders, kicking her foot up on the dash. I cut her a look, and she glances back, raising her foot higher with a devilish grin. “I like classic country. None of the new pop country everyone seems to be coming out with.”

My foot slips off the gas. She likes the classics? She is never getting away from me now. The guys like to talk shit about my taste in music, which is eclectic really, but there’s something about driving that makes me want to blast the sounds of the south. Call me a good ole boy if you must, but a southerner I will always be. It reminds me of home, my dad taking me and my brother down old back roads, teaching us to drive with Willie Nelson blaring through the speakers. It was a time when I felt free and careless. Nothing could touch me in that truck.

Until it did.

Until I drove away from the only family that had ever loved me. I killed their son. Their true son. I let them down. I let Drew down, the best friend I ever had.

“Cade?”

The concern in Breck’s voice pulls me back from the thoughts of my parents. I swallow, clearing any emotion from my throat before turning and answering her. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

Her hand moves underneath mine, and it occurs to me that I was probably squeezing the hell out of it. “Did I hurt you? I uh …” I stroke the soft skin of her arm, giving her hand a break. “I zoned out for a moment. I’m sorry.”

Gray eyes blink back at me, measuring my words thoughtfully. When she seems satisfied, she undoes her seatbelt and slides to the middle of the bench. I tap the brake. “What are you doing? Put your seatbelt on.” I’m not joking around. The last thing my soul can handle is scraping her off the road after she’s flown through the windshield.

“I am. Hold your horses.”

Hold my horses? I give her a look. I am not amused.

“Five. Four.” I count down, tapping the brake, and it dawns on her I’m fucking serious.

She scrambles, locking her buckle together before I can get to three. “There. Nice and secure. Are you happy now?”

No. Because now I’m distracted as fuck with her curvy body next to me. Just thinking about yesterday in the gym has me rock hard.

“I didn’t realize The Foundation owned a lake house,” she says, changing the subject, easing the tension in my jeans.

“We don’t. It’s Theo’s. Well, I guess it’s Theo and Anniston’s.” Breck smiles, waiting for me to continue. “After he quit professional baseball, he sold his apartment in Atlanta and bought the lake house.”

“Why?” she asks.

“Because he has more money than he knows what to do with?” I say, taking a guess. “I don’t know why he bought it, but the place is huge with five bedrooms and a separate apartment atop the boathouse. It easily sleeps all—” The reasoning hits me all at once. It sleepsallof us. Us. Not just him and Anniston. We’ve been coming here once a month for a year now. Fishing. Boating. Skiing. Grilling. We’ve had some really great times over the course of the year. As a matter of fact, it’s my favorite place to go. The serenity, the calm amongst the chaos.

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