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  She pulled away from him. “I’m so rude. I didn’t offer you a drink.” She climbed up the ladder and grabbed her towel. “What do you want?”

  He pulled himself up out of the water onto the side of the pool, his muscles working with the effort. Look away from the muscles.

  “Drinks are one thing I’m not picky about.” He reached for her arm, that single touch sending a jolt of want through her body. “I can go though, if you want to hang solo?”

  The idea of him walking away sent a small panic through her chest. “No,” she said in a rush. “I mean, I’m just thirsty. I don’t want you to leave.”

  He gauged her, searching her eyes, and so she reached up, snaking her hand around the back of his neck and giving him a kiss. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

  He nodded, and she headed off. She found some berry-flavored seltzer water and some vodka and poured drinks into plastic cups. Alcohol was good. She didn’t make a habit of it mainly because of the calories and how it slowed her metabolism, but when she did indulge, it always helped calm her nerves.

  She exhaled a deep breath, recalibrating, and headed back out to the pool. He lay on the chaise lounge, his knees open to the sides, his hands behind his head, eyes closed, full lips relaxed, the sun casting a shimmer on his wet chest. She’d never seen a more beautiful and sculpted body than that one, and she’d definitely never touched one. Al ran with her, but he was skinny. He didn’t lift. David was a little pudgy, but she’d liked that. His imperfect body made her feel secure. She wanted to be the more attractive one in the couple so the men she was with wouldn’t be as likely to cheat. God knows women weren’t lined up to be with either of her exes. How would she feel about being with a man who could walk out the door and have women drool over him? Not could…would.

  He opened his eyes and held out his hand. “Thanks.”

  She sat, taking a long drink before setting her cup down. “So, you mentioned your sister is coming to town Saturday.”

  “Yeah, you’ll just miss her. She’s coming down for a few days of vacation, visit the family.”

  “Is she younger or older?”

  “Older by eleven months, but we were in the same year in school.”

  She thought about how their birthdays must fall, since his was just this past Saturday. “So how did you end up in the same grade?”

  “My mom held Shayla back from starting kindergarten on time. She said it was because Shayla was too small, but I don’t think that was it. She’d always treated Shayla and me like twins, dressing us in matching clothes she made and all that. I think she held her back because she didn’t have a clue what to do with me by myself for a year. Shayla and I were attached at the hip.” He smiled. “Shayla says it was because I cried like a baby when my mom told me Shayla was going to school and I wasn’t.”

  She couldn’t grin hard enough thinking of little four-year-old Bo crying. “Is she married?”

  “Nah, but she’s in a relationship now.”

  “Do you like the guy?”

  “He seems all right. I don’t know him all that well since they don’t live here.”

  She cradled her drink in her hand. “You miss her?” she asked, knowing the answer.

  “We talk every day, but I do miss having her here to aggravate.”

  “That sounds so nice, having a family member you’re so close with.”

  He turned toward her “You mentioned your sister already, but tell me about your parents.”

  Maya’s heart strained like it always did when she talked about her family. “My dad’s a lawyer. My mother is his paralegal. Lots of structure, lots of expectation.”

  “You didn’t want to follow in their footsteps with the law?”

  “That was my sister’s job. I didn’t want to do the same thing.”

  “How come?”

  She wiggled a little, trying to get comfortable in the chair. “My sister’s really smart.”

  “So are you.”

  She loved how he said that with such certainty. “Thank you, but Meade’s much smarter. She’s got the IQ of a genius. I mean, she can’t help it. It’s not like she asked to be the smartest person in the room. But I just…” She clenched her hand into a fist, and then shook her head. “Sorry. Never mind.”

  “What?” he asked. “Tell me.”

  “She does this thing with men—boys, I should call them. She’s this brilliant woman with every possible opportunity in her reach, but then a good-looking guy comes along and she just dissolves. She’s a feminist’s nightmare. I mean, she could be out there curing cancer or balancing the national budget, but she’s currently living in Las Vegas of all places, working at a casino dealing cards and dating some new guy who is undoubtedly living with her and taking whatever little money she has.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unleash all that on you.”

  He sat up and faced her, his feet on the ground between them. “Hey, don’t ever apologize to me for talking about something that’s important to you. Do you hear me?”

  She nodded, staring down into her cup, her heart ridiculously warmed by him.

  “Go on,” he said.

  She scratched her eyebrow, glancing at his concerned expression. She’d never had a straight guy so interested in what she had to say. It made her feel okay to continue. “It’s just really frustrating. I have to work ten times as hard as she does. I always have. So I’m over here working sixty-hour weeks for a decade to finally make VP, and Meade isn’t even trying. But mind you, she could walk out of that stupid casino today, and with very little effort have any job on the planet she wanted.” She glanced at him to make sure he still seem interested, and he did, so she kept going. “When she was in law school, one of her professors set up this special interview with the Air Force. She’d scored so high on some test that they were ready to fast-track her to work in some top-secret department. Then just before she was set to enlist, she met Rob.” She shook her head, rolling her eyes. “I just can’t understand it.”

  He took her hand. “That’s gotta be hard. You love her, and you want what’s best for her.”

  “I really do. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I get tired of having to be the responsible one—the one who gives my parents something they can feel okay talking about when people ask them how their girls are, but I really do want her to live better. I beg her to move back to Indy all the time. If I could just be with her more, I could help her.” She narrowed her gaze, thinking about Meade and her choices. “I’ve never said this aloud before, but sometimes I wonder if there’s not some mental illness there.” She slid her gaze to his concerned one. He didn’t give her a reaction, just his full attention. She gave a humorless smile. “Sort of like a mad scientist, you know?”

  He nodded. “I think there’s a lot of undiagnosed mental illness out there. Not that I think that about your sister. I don’t know her, of course.” He narrowed his gaze at her. “Have you ever thought that maybe she’s the fuckup because she can be?”

  Maya furrowed her brow, taking him in.

  “I mean, you’re pretty on point, Maya. You’ve got a stable job. You’re in immaculate shape. I assume you have a nice house or apartment?”

  She shrugged in concession.

  “Maybe that’s as much for her to live up to as her brainpower is for you.”

  She flinched at the idea of Meade’s poor life choices having something to do with her success. Agitated, she got up and walked to the pool, drink in hand. “Is Shayla your only sibling?”

  “No, I have a brother.”

  “Oh,” she said, a little surprised since he hadn’t mentioned him yet. “Does he have a family?”

  He followed her over there and sat next to her on the side of the pool. “Parker is ten and Kaden just turned eight.” He smiled to himself, watching his feet wade in the water.

  “Are you crazy about them?”

  “Between Shayla, my parents, and me, they’re spoiled plenty. Cindy and Dale get upset with us for giving th
em too much.”

  “Do you ever take them out?”

  “Oh, yeah. See, I’m the fun uncle who gets to take them to the monster truck rallies and the racetrack, make sure they grow up good and red.”

  She smiled. “Do you want them? Kids?”

  He set his drink down and lifted himself up, dropping down into the pool. “Get in with me,” he said.

  Her unanswered question hung between them. It was a pointless thing to ask. In fact, their whole conversation was pointless. Why were they taking such care to get to know one another? Were they both just stalling? Because she didn’t feel so much anymore that she was the cat in this cat-and-mouse game they’d been playing all week.

  Dropping into the pool and resting her elbows on the side, she opened her hands. “I’m all in.”

  He gave her a closed-mouth grin and backed away, resting against the other side of the pool. “You sure about that?”

  Her body had no clue how to process the frenzy this man incited within her. She grabbed an inner tube that floated by and pulled it over her head. “Tell me about your family. What were you all like growing up?”

  He shrugged, taking a sip of his drink, licking his lips as he swallowed. “I had a good childhood, other than the fact that we didn’t have a lot of money. I ate plenty of potato chip and tuna fish casseroles as a kid.” He winced at the memory.

  She put her hand to her mouth. “Tuna fish and potato chips in a casserole?”

  “Poor people food. We also ate a lot of rice and beans.” She had to look away, thinking of all the elaborate restaurants her family had gone to when she was growing up. “But we were pretty happy, at least when Dale and I were getting along, which was never, come to think of it.”

  “What’s your mom like?”

  “Tough. Shayla’s just like her. She’d come after our behinds with a spatula if we acted up, which was pretty much every day. We’d fall in line after a couple of whacks.” He grinned.

  “You were spanked?” Maya asked, a little mortified.

  He walked to the float and grabbed it, holding it steady. “You’ve never been spanked?”

  “No.” She cleared her throat. “What about your dad? What was he like?”

  He frowned. “That’s a story for another time, but he’s good now.”

  She wondered what was going on there, but knew better than to push. “Do you see them a lot?”

  “Every Sunday for supper.”

  She so wanted to be a fly on the wall for one of those dinners, or even better, attend one. “So who was the one who instilled all those manners in you?”

  He pointed at his chest. “I’ve got manners?”

  She pinched his arm. “You know you do. All that door opening and stuff.”

  “If my mom caught me letting a lady open her own door she’d tan my hide, even today. Made Dale and me practice all the time on her and Shayla.” He chuckled. “Shayla would stick her tongue out at me right after she said thank you.”

  She smiled. “I’m sorry I won’t meet her.”

  He nodded, looking down at the float between them, silence hanging there. He squinted at her. “Could you stay till Sunday?”

  Her stomach soured. “We can’t. Felicity has to get back for her mother’s birthday, and I’ve got a company picnic on Sunday at my boss’s house.” Her face warmed. “It’s actually sort of in honor of some big changes at the firm, one of them being my promotion. Not totally about me though, of course.”

  “But enough about you that you’ve got to be there.”

  She nodded, grossly disappointed.

  “Man, this must be a really big deal. That’s awesome.”

  She smiled, appreciating his sincerity. “Thanks.” She pulled the float off of her. “So how did you become friends with Sebastian?”

  “Through Blake. You met him the other night, right?”

  “Briefly, yes. He’s a doctor, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a proud smile that left her curious.

  “So how do you know him?”

  “I know Blake through Chase, who I’ve known for a while. I handle all the pools at all the properties he owns and manages around 30A and PCB.”

  “How does Blake know Chase?”

  His brow furrowed, his mouth set in an O like he was trying to choose his words wisely. She had just been teasing him, acting like she was quizzing him, but now she was curious.

  “Blake used to do work for Chase.”

  “Medical work?”

  He squinted, thinking. “Not particularly. He’s multi-talented. He can fix damn near anything.”

  “And Desiree and Ashe?” she asked.

  “Friends of Sebastian’s.”

  “And Cassidy and Seanna?”

  He had to think about it. “Through Sebastian? Or maybe Blake. One or both of them knew Cassidy through the bakery she owns, Seaside Sweets. Seanna just came around last fall. She’s Cassidy’s niece.”

  She smiled, taking his hand and threading her fingers through. “You’ve got a really unique group of friends.”

  He pulled her closer to him. “You don’t have to tell me that. I’m sure you’ve got your own interesting group of friends back home.”

  She did have friends in Indy, people she’d called friends for more than a decade. But she only saw each of those people once every six months or so, probably less than that if she was being honest with herself. Most of her friends had husbands and kids now. Their lives had taken different paths. She hadn’t had a tight-knit group like the circle of friends here since she was in high school. She was too busy.

  “I mostly hang out with people from work.” She realized how it sounded as she said it. She had a life outside of work, she just couldn’t seem to figure out what that life consisted of at the moment.

  “So you know Sebastian from high school?” he asked.

  She huffed a laugh. “Yeah. This is funny. I totally had a crush on him.”

  Bo frowned. “On Sebastian?”

  “Let’s just say my gaydar wasn’t fine-tuned back then. It didn’t last long. I figured it out after I asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance, and he wanted to shop for matching outfits together.”

  He looked up at the sky in thought, holding their clasped hands out to each side, pulling her in closer to him. “I guess Sebastian’s a pretty good-looking guy, now that I think about it.”

  “I think he looks like Brad Goreski without the glasses.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  She shook her head. Of course Bo wouldn’t know who that was. He backed her up, trapping her with his hands on the edge of the pool on either side of her. Her heart skittered with his close proximity to her, their bodies already half-naked in their swimsuits. She twitched a little nervously. “I think you look a little like Channing Tatum,” he pulled away, eyebrow raised as she ran her thumb along his shoulder, “but sort of with the swagger of Mark Wahlberg.” She bit her lip and met his gaze.

  He slid his hands over her hips and up her waist. “Well, I’ll try to keep up. But don’t expect to see me dancing like either one of them anytime soon.” He lifted her and set her on the side of the pool, water sliding down her legs as he ran his hands from her knees up her thighs.

  Want on a level she had never experienced before surged through her core as his hands drew closer to her center. He teased her, moving them from her knees, up her thighs, and back to her knees, each time getting a little closer. He spread her legs apart and moved in close to her, easing his hands around to her back as he traced kisses on her belly. She arched instinctively, leaning back, giving him an open canvas to work on.

  She rested on her elbows while he trailed kisses down her thighs, nibbling at her skin, and then soothing the spots with his tongue. She’d never done anything like this. These moments were reserved for bedrooms with lights out, not broad daylight out in the open. And God knew a man had never evoked intrigue and arousal inside of her like this one.

  He worked his way back up to her stomach
and nipped at her bathing suit bottom. He curled both fingers inside the straps on her hips and tugged on it. She lifted each side so he could get the bottoms off, and glanced around, feeling more exposed than she ever had.

  He looked up at her. “Nobody can see here. That’s an eight-foot privacy fence.”

  He was right. Unless someone came back there, they were safe, but that wasn’t the issue. She put her fingertips to her temple. “I know. It’s just that I’ve never done this outside.”

  “You want to go inside?” he asked.

  She would die if Sebastian came home to her locked away in his guest bedroom with Bo. Did she think it was better for him to find them in his pool?

  She closed her legs, pressing her knuckle against her forehead. “I’m not chickening out, I promise.”

  He frowned, looking a little concerned, or maybe hurt. “I’m sorry if I came on too strong.”

  “No!” she said, grabbing his shoulders. “You have not come on strong enough, believe me. I’m glad we’re to this point. I just feel a little exposed out here in the sun and all. And Felicity may be home soon.”

  He stepped away from her and took her hands. “Come here. Hop down.”

  She slid into the pool and pulled her bottoms back up. Taking her into his arms, he just held her there, rocking back and forth a little. She closed her eyes, resting her cheek on his shoulder, letting their wet bodies meld together.

  “I want to be with you, Maya,” he said, his tone low and genuine. “But I don’t want you to be any kind of uncomfortable when that happens, okay?”

  She squeezed him tighter to her, threatening to give away how much she cared about him. “I’m not uncomfortable with you at all. I promise.”

  He pulled away from her. “Why don’t we both get showers, and then we’ll go get something to eat in PCB. And after that, if you’re up for it, we can go back to my house.”

  She smiled. “I’ll definitely be up for it.”

  Chapter Eleven