Page 39 of Impulsive Saint
After, they’d gone back to the motel and taken showers. Tyler had found them a cool local restaurant to try for dinner. They’d talked half the night and then gone back to the motel and gone to bed. They’d ended up spending an entire day in Oklahoma City, exploring and climbing and just enjoying themselves. She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever felt so relaxed, so free, or had so much fun.
It had been one of the best days of her life.
Now here they were, another day on the road behind them, and Tyler had gone out of his way to find them a motel with an attached bar that just happened to be hosting a karaoke night. She’d gotten up and done a horrible rendition of Blondie’sOne Way or Another. She was a truly terrible singer but that was what had made it so much fun. Dancing around, singing at the top of her lungs, laughing as Tyler cringed and she tried to coax him up onto the stage. Eventually she’d succeeded and now he was up there putting her vocals to shame with his little country music number. He grinned and winked at the crowd and every woman in the place sighed with longing, including her.
He was amazing. That was all there was to it. Now that he’d decided to help her, there was nothing he wouldn’t do to check items off her list.
Except for skinny-dipping.
He’d vetoed that one as soon as she’d seen the pool on the way to the bar and grinned mischievously. How he had known exactly what she was thinking was a little scary. He had learned her expressions, her moods, and picked up on the tiniest shifts in her thoughts. It was unnerving, especially because nobody in her life had ever really paid enough attention to her to be able to discern those kinds of things.
She’d taken one look at the pool. He’d taken one look at her. Then, he’d shaken his head and said quite simply, no. Then he’d proceeded to drag her into the bar where they’d eaten horrible fried foods, had a couple of beers and sang their hearts out.
Only, she couldn’t shake the idea of checking skinny-dipping off her bucket list.
Ashtyn chewed her bottom lip as she watched Tyler up on the stage. He wasn’t watching her. His attention was on a group of four women, likely in their forties, who were shaking dollar bills at him like he was a stripper. He was grinning and clearly trying not to laugh as he kept up the words to the song. The women were fawning all over him, distracting him, and considering he’d all but threatened that he wouldn’t be letting her out of his sight during this trip, she figured this was the only chance she would get.
Slowly and quietly, she slipped out of her chair and then out the side door of the bar. The night was cool with a crisp wind that was refreshing after the heat of the bar. Ashtyn would have liked to stop and enjoy it, maybe even just go for a stroll and take in the big, starlit sky above her, but she knew time wasn’t on her side. Hurriedly now, she slipped down the small hallway that divided the bar from the back of the motel. She rounded two more corners before she was in front of the small swimming pool and she could feel her heart hammering with excitement and trepidation as she glanced around to make sure nobody was in the area.
She knew that if someone happened to be looking out the window of their room, they’d be able to see her but this wasn’t exactly that kind of motel. As far as she could see most of the rooms around the pool were dark. A few had dim yellow light leaking out past the thick drapes that covered their windows but she figured most people had no interest in anything that wasn’t happening in their own room tonight.
Before she could second-guess herself, she toed off her boots and then her socks. Next she dropped her jacket to the ground and then she unbuttoned her jeans and shimmied out of them. Her shirt joined the heap on the ground just beneath the metal overhang that shielded the pool deck. Down to only her bra and panties, she did another quick look around and took a deep breath for courage.
She could do this. She could. Nobody was even around. Nobody would see her and nobody would know.
Reaching behind her she unclasped her bra and then shoved her panties to the ground. She stepped out of them and immediately raced for the pool. Without pausing for a second she jumped in, the cold water shocking her naked skin and making her gasp as she bobbed back to the surface.
“Oh my God.” She shivered even as her body began to adjust to the temperature of the water. She kicked her feet, treading water, and grinned up at the night sky. “Oh my God.”
She’d done it. She’d really done it. She was naked in a swimming pool in the middle of nowhere all by herself.
She tipped her head back and squealed with delight. She kicked back a little, letting her legs slide almost to the surface, as if she was going to lay out on top of the water before remembering she wasn’t wearing a swimsuit and needed to stay beneath the water to shield whatever was left of her modesty. She was still grinning when she heard a sound that had her jerking back to attention and her eyes darting towards the shadows beneath the patio.
“You should come with a warning label.”
Her heart leapt into her throat and she nearly forgot to tread water, almost going under before she caught herself. The voice came from the darkness but she knew it was Tyler before he even stepped from the shadows. He was frowning but there was something playful in his eyes too as he shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
And oh God, what had he seen? Everything? She swallowed hard and forced her chin up.
“How long have you been lurking in the shadows like a creeper?”
He snorted, “I wasn’t lurking. I saw you sneak out of the bar and I was coming after you but then…”
When he hesitated, she raised an eyebrow, “But then you saw me undressing and decided to stay and watch the show?”
“Couldn’t help myself.” Tyler’s lips tilted into a sly smile. “It was a hell of a show.”
Despite the cool night air and the even colder water, she felt her cheeks flame red. She was embarrassed to think that he’d seen her completely naked, sure, but there was something else too. The heat flamed through her veins and pooled low in her belly, all because of that twinkle in his eyes and that smile on his face.
He’d watched her undress. He’d seen her naked. And he was teasing her.
She smirked, “What would it say?”
“Huh?”
“My warning label. You said I needed one, so what would it say?”
His grin widened and he stepped towards the edge of the pool, “You know, if you’d asked me that the first day I met you, I’d have said it was definitelyhandle with care.”
