Good Lord, he was built. The kind of built that came from fighting the waves for sport. He still had a good foot on her, but he’d filled out—everywhere. Defined pecs, rippling abs, trim hips, which barely held up his indecently low board shorts, and the kind of legs that were made for tangling in post-sex sheets.
Maybe it was the sexy tattoo on his calf, his very muscular calf—a nautical knot intertwined with a coat of arms. Maybe it was the way his lips curled up into thatGotchagrin. Or maybe it was the way he carried himself, as if saying the world could try its best, but in the end he’d still be standing. Whatever it was, she couldn’t look away.
“I see you haven’t gotten over your peeking habit,” he said laughing, loud and husky.
Her belly warmed, the same way it used to when she’d wake up early, just to sit on the shoreline and pretend to read the latest bestseller, when in actuality she’d been watching him. Board shorts or wetsuit unzipped and hanging from his hips—she couldn’t get enough. One day, he’d caught her gawking.
“So you do know I exist?” he’d teased and she’d felt herself blush.
“Just watching the sea otters.”
He wasn’t having it. “You can either sneak peeks all summer or agree to that date I keep asking you about,” he’d said with enough teen-boy swagger to leave her speechless.
“I have to work at the bread shop today.” And every day. Side by side with the other Bianchi women. Most times that was exactly where she wanted to be, tucked safely at her nonna’s side. But there were times, like this, when she wished the summer was hers, to read, watch the otters, or flirt with cute boys. But her nonna had rescued Teagan from a chaotic and uncertain situation, so Teagan spent her life trying to repay Nonna, even if it meant working through the summer and after school.
“Then I guess I’ll be coming by to pick up my mom’s order.” He winked. “And Tee, be ready for me to ask you out again. We could go windsurfing.”
“The answer will still be no.”
“Until it’s yes.”
She swallowed hard and began sweating in uncomfortable places. There was a reason she was staring down sixteen and had never been kissed. Well, two reasons. First, Teagan was about as smooth as a bed of nails when it came to the opposite sex. She was shy and awkward, often disappearing behind the covers of a book rather than making eye contact.
And second, “My nonna said I’m not allowed to date until I’m sixteen.” She closed her eyes and groaned at how lame that sounded.
“Then I guess I’ll have to just keep asking until you turn sixteen.”
No boy had ever been that persistent, and she’d never felt the thrill of a crush. But she had a crush all right—a Romeo-meets-Juliet kind of crush that had flutters tickling her stomach every time he stopped by the shop or went out of his way to say hi to her around town.
He was turning to walk off when she found herself leaping to her feet and walking toward him. “Wait,” she called out because, with him, she wanted to be bold. To pretend, just for the summer, that she was the kind of girl who said yes to dates with the boy next door. “You should ask me again.”
He lifted a brow. “About the windsurfing or the date?”
“Neither. I mean the second one.” She closed her eyes. “Actually, I can’t say yes to the second one either.”
“I’m getting mixed signals here,” he teased.
She groaned with embarrassment. “I guess I don’t know what I want.”
“Good thing that I do.”
“And what’s that?” she whispered.
“You.” He sounded so sincere that her heart melted into a puddle of goo. “So I guess the question is, what do you want, Tee?”
“To say yes to the date, but I can’t.”
He approached her, eating up the distance between them until he was so close she could smell the sunshine in his hair and the salt on his skin. “Then what can you say yes to?”
“Hanging out with a new friend.”
He reached out and tucked a piece of windblown hair behind her ear. “And where will we go on this non-date?”
“Maybe for a walk. On the beach.” She closed her eyes, because here came the hard part. “At midnight.”
That surprised him, which was okay because she’d surprised herself. Teagan liked rules and guidelines—they made the world easier to navigate. She’d never lied to her nonna, never broken a rule, and certainly never snuck out. At midnight. To meet a boy.
“You going to climb down that trellis?”
