Page 90 of Into These Eyes
Did she?
I didn’t hear her arrive, didn’t hear a car door slam. Nothing. Which tells me she probably arrived while the mower was running. Believing I had hours before she’d be home, that glistening water was a temptation I couldn’t resist. With no two-storey houses looking into her backyard, I didn’t hesitate. I stripped off and dived into absolute bliss. Slicing through the cool water felt like inhabiting another world. A world I’d been denied for the last sixteen years.
Then there she was, and my only thought was to hide the pain permanently marked on my chest. I know if she sees it, she’ll have questions, and I’m not quite ready to deal with them yet. Because the answers I’ve always believed to be true don’t quite fit anymore. I need time to wrap my own head around how they’ve changed before I can even attempt to explain them to anyone else.
Especially her.
Whether or not she saw me before I dived into the pool, she damn well knew I was naked the moment she moved that sunbed and noticed my clothes.
I grin as I rub my hair with the towel hanging over my shoulder. I loved that she was cheeky about it. If it hadn’t been for my bloody tat, I might very well have taken her up on her suggestion to get out of the pool just to see the look on her face.
Which would no doubt have ended in disaster.
I can’t do shit like that and expect her to let me stay here. Although, she didn’t seem fazed about my obvious response to the sight of her in the kitchen the other morning. She seemed curious, fascinated even. Which left me baffled. Surely she’s no stranger to men with hard dicks falling all over themselves to get in her pants.
My hand fists in the towel, the thought of her with another man constricts my chest with jealousy. Which is insane. As muchas I want her, I can’t have her. Besides, she’s told me a few times that she’s not interested in dating.
I’ll never be good enough for her. Even if I was the last man on earth, she doesn’tneedme. There’s nothing I can offer her that she doesn’t already have. She’s completely self-sufficient, self-reliant and financially sound. What could she possibly get from me that she can’t get for herself?
Love.
The most volatile of all emotions. It can be taken away in an instant. It’s not tangible, can’t be held onto and protected. It’s always out there, vulnerable, ready to be snatched away and crushed by the very person it was entrusted to.
I should know. My story of love and hope torn apart is permanently tattooed on my skin. In my soul.
But something’s shifting. I can’t deny that.
Before I can turn further into my mind and analyse what that is, Jamie slides open the door and steps outside, her face dropping when she sees me.
“You got out,” she accuses as she walks over to the other side of the sunbed.
I can’t tell her why, so I tell her another truth instead. “Yeah. Just remembered I’d better check on dinner.”
But I don’t move. I’m too busy taking in her modest one piece. It’s a pretty jade that brings out the colour in her eyes. Unfortunately, she has a towel draped over her shoulders, hiding her breasts. Fortunately, it does nothing to hide her slender calves, or the smooth curves of her bare thighs reaching all the way up to the stretchy material between her legs.
My eyes snap to hers, and I’m relieved to find she hasn’t caught me ogling her like a desperate ex-con. Seems she’s too busy studying my torso and what she can see of my chest.
Dammit.
The way she looks just as hungry as I feel, sends a rush of blood straight to my dick.
There’s no denying we’re both checking each other out.
Before hope floods my heart and lodges there, I grab the front of the towel around my waist, reposition it, and I step around the sunbed before she sees the effect she has on me.
I don’t look back on my way to the door. Not until I’m inside and turn around to close it.
She tosses the towel on the sunbed, her back to me as she walks toward the shallow end of the pool. That one-piece she’s wearing might appear modest from the front, but from the back, it’s a goddamn sin. And she chose it, believing she’d be swimming with me.
If I thought I was hard before, my dick’s bloody throbbing now.
The straps loop around her shoulders, then disappear, leaving her back and the curve of her waist completely bare. Until the fabric covers her firm arse, almost disappearing between her cheeks as she takes another step into the water.
My heart rolls in my chest at the thought of running my hands over that taut skin, cupping and kneading that spectacular backside. Christ, I’m delusional.
She turns her head to the side, as if she knows I’m watching. I take a step backward, into the shadows. Is my need for her so palpable she can sense it from here?
I groan aloud as she bends at the waist before delicately gliding into the water, keeping her head above the surface.
