Page 24 of Embraced at Seaside
Chapter Ten
JANA AWOKE TO someone banging on her front door at five thirty in the morning. She clutched her blanket, heart pounding, and tried to coax her sleepy brain into functioning.
The banging stopped and she grabbed her phone. She’d missed three calls fromDO NOT RESPOND!
Come on, Hunter. What now?
Without reading the texts she went to the front door and peeked outside. Sure enough, Hunter was standing there in a pair of low-slung jeans and a sweatshirt, with the hood pulled over his head. She yanked the door open.
“What are you doing here this early, and why do you look like a gangster?”
His eyes roved over her clingy tank top and panties. “Do you always answer the door nearly naked?”
“Only to strange men who knock before sunrise. What do you want, Hunter? To drive me insane again and leave me high and dry? Because that’s not really romantic.” She turned and walked toward the kitchen.
He grabbed her arm and spun her around. “I tried to text you, but you didn’t respond.”
“Most guys wait until morning to text, so…” He smelled like cologne again, and now that she was more awake, she realized he’d shaved, too. She reached up and touched his cheek without thinking. The muscles in his jaw tensed against her palm. “I like you clean-shaven almost as much as I like your scruffy bad-boy look.”
The edge of his mouth tipped up as he stepped in closer, backing her against the wall. “Glad you approve.”
Her heart nearly stopped. Oil and water had never felt so good.
“Go get some clothes on before I finish what we started last night.” He stepped back, leaving her hot and bothered…again.
She was too confused to even try to comprehend what game he was playing. “Clothes?”
“Yeah, you know, the things that cover up that beautiful body?” He took her hand and pointed her in the direction of her bedroom, then gave her bottom a pat. “Go on or we’ll miss the sunrise.”
“Sunrise?” she mumbled as she walked toward her bedroom wondering what he had up his sleeve.
They drove to the beach in silence, save for the low hum of the truck engine. Hunter looked over at her every minute or so, but he didn’t say a word, just rolled his eyes over her face like he, too, was trying to figure out what they were doing. He parked at Indian Neck Beach and came around to her side of the truck as she was getting out.
“I was going to open your door for you.” He reached for her hand and she stared at it for a beat.
“Why? What’s going on?” She let him take her hand and help her out, then watched as he pulled a cooler from behind the cab of the truck and tossed a blanket over his shoulder.Wow. You came prepared and everything.
“We’re watching the sunrise. I hear it’s romantic.” He took her hand and led her to the dunes, where they toed off their shoes and walked barefoot across the cool sand. Hunter wasn’t exactly being warm, but she could see he was trying to bridge the gap between them.
Jana liked the feel of his hand laced with hers, but this whole scenario confused the heck out of her. “Hunter,whyare we watching the sunrise?”
As they crested the hill, ribbons of blues and purples spread across the horizon, reflecting off the water with slivers of light.
“Wow.” She stood for a moment, soaking it in. “It’s so beautiful.”
Hunter looked up from where he was spreading a blanket on the sand. He knelt on the blanket and opened the cooler. “Almost as beautiful as you.”
He patted the seat beside him. He sounded so sincere that she was having a hard time reconciling his efforts with the man she knew. Or rather, with the parts of the man she knew within the confines of their relationship. She knew Hunter said nice things to people all the time, but the two of them didn’t compliment each other in that way. They told each other they were hot or sexy, but only during sex.
She sank to the blanket beside him, and Hunter handed her a to-go cup of coffee that he must have had in a carrier inside the cooler, and then he handed her a napkin and a paper plate.
“What is all this?” she asked, as he set a banana-nut muffin on the plate, then set one beside it for himself. “Hunter? You brought my favorite muffin?”
He held up his to-go cup and smiled. “Here’s to romance, pretty girl.”
“You did all of this because I dared you to learn how to be romantic?” Warmth spread through her with the realization. “No one has ever done something like this for me before.”
“Maybe you didn’t challenge them in the right way.” He took a sip of his coffee and lifted it toward her, as if he were toasting.
