Total pages in book: 16
Estimated words: 15337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 77(@200wpm)___ 61(@250wpm)___ 51(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 15337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 77(@200wpm)___ 61(@250wpm)___ 51(@300wpm)
There were obvious flaws in his plan. Still, I couldn’t help but saying what I felt in my heart.
“Okay.”
“Do you have a bathing suit?”
“I do not.”
“I’ll bring you one. And sunblock for your pale ass. See you in… well… you have no way to tell time. So you’ll see me when you see me.”
I never rushed to get myself together so fast in my life, pulling my halfway clean hair into a ponytail, giving all the important bits a quick wash, then did something I hadn’t done in months.
I shaved.
I’d just barely managed to finish when I heard Caleb knocking on the front door to the tune of Mambo No.5.
And, damnit, a huge smile tugged at my lips.
“There she is. What? You’re not bringing your breastplate to the beach?” he asked.
“Depends on if it goes with my bathing suit or not,” I told him, nodding toward the bag in his hand.
“Go on and get dressed. I’ll wait here,” he offered, shuffling his feet, looking uncomfortable.
Shrugging it off, I closed the door, then quickly stripped out of my clothes before reaching for the suit.
“Of course it’s a bikini,” I grumbled.
But, well, it wasn’t like there were magazines and billboards and social media full of perfect bodies for Caleb to compare me against anymore.
Shrugging, I jumped into the red bathing suit, but went ahead and slipped my tee back on over it, then grabbed a weapon, before making my way outside.
“You have a SUV?” I asked. “With a trailer? And a boat?”
“I know, right?” he asked, looking pleased with himself. “It’s electric. And with the solar… I just had to forego some luxuries to let it power up enough. Dude had every kind of toy imaginable. We have floats and noodles and pedal boats too. Lots of fun for us today. Ready?” he asked, opening my door for me.
And there was Toddy. Lounging on the center console. With a freaking sailor hat on.
I glanced into the backseat, seeing all the things he promised, plus coolers, towels, and an umbrella. But also, something I hadn’t been expecting since he really never talked about them.
Weapons.
And a lot of them.
Nice ones, too.
Much better than my makeshift duct tape ones.
Interesting.
Caleb, it seemed, was full of surprises.
Not more than twenty minutes later, we were pulling right up to the beach. No fees. No lines. No nothing. But a long stretch of pristine sand, and gently crashing waves.
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” Caleb agreed, looking a little awestruck himself before becoming his animated self, rushing out, grabbing all the things we might need from the back and piling it all into the boat before demanding I get out and help him back up to the boat launch.
A tense half hour or so later, we were in the boat on the water, both our eyes scanning the shoreline just in case.
“Okay. I’m gonna drop the anchor and we are going to strip to our bathing suits, and jump in.”
More excited than I anticipated, I had no objections as Caleb got to it.
Toddy stretched out on a bench and soaked up the sun.
“Okay. We’re ready,” Caleb said, reaching for his shirt.
I was not.
Ready, that is.
For him without his shirt again.
And the way my mind raced right back to that rooftop with the feel of him beneath me.
But then my gaze moved instead to his back, seeing a tattoo there that was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“Come on, Catie with a C and ie, we are burning daylight,” he told me.
I don’t think I’d ever been quite as self-conscious as I was right then as I pulled off my tee and stood there in a tiny slip of a bikini that was leaving next to nothing to the imagination.
Caleb’s gaze went from the discarded tee to me.
Was I imagining it, or did his gaze heat?
Did it roam all over me?
It had to. Because each inch he looked at warmed, flushed, starting a chain reaction that didn’t stop until the need was thrumming through my system once again.
But then my hand was seized in Caleb’s surprisingly large and calloused one.
How had I missed that before?
I guess I’d been so distracted by the spectacle he put out first that I hadn’t looked closer.
“Ready?” he asked as he pulled me to the edge of the boat, his gaze sliding over to me, his childlike excitement so contagious that, for a moment, I forgot all about the desire.
“Yes,” I said, beaming at him.
“One, two,” he started, then pulled me with him as he jumped before three.
The water was the cool I’d been craving for weeks, making goosebumps pebble up on my skin as I surfaced laughing and looking at Caleb who was smiling back at me.
“This was a really good idea,” I told him.
“I know, right? I’m full of them. Don’t let my Sexiest Man Alive good looks fool you. I actually have something other than rocks knocking around up here,” he said, tapping his forehead before going back under the water and swimming away from me.