“It happens. But I can usually distract them.”
One side of her generous mouth quirked. “With flirting.”
He’d picked a sharp one, all right. Good thing he found intelligence sexy in a woman. “Or by playing dumb and changing the subject.”
She exhaled slowly. “So that’s your story.”
“Yeah. That’s my story.”
The bare outlines of it, anyway. Again, if she wanted to know, if their relationship went somewhere, he’d tell her the rest someday. The details. But right now, neither of them had time for it, and he didn’t have the wherewithal.
Still, he’d told her more than he’d told anyone in the past six months. Maybe longer.
It felt…exposed.
But Tess was still holding his hand tight in hers and watching him with such softness in those hazel eyes. Not pity, but sympathy. Affection.
“Thank you for telling me.” Her voice was as sweet as a strawberry lemonade cupcake, as certain as the sunrise. “Sometime soon, we’ll have to discuss how you could possibly think tennis is the only thing you do well, because that’s just stunningly inaccurate. Not now, though. Your lessons must be starting soon.”
Then she leaned over, gently cupped his cheek with her free hand, and kissed him.
Such warmth. Her lips courted his with a sweet nuzzle, and even that light pressure jolted him like a clap of thunder. Her fruity scent, something like apricots or peaches, filled his lungs, and he was dizzy with the promise of her.
She pulled back for a moment. “Is this okay?”
In answer, he let go of her hand and slid both arms around her. She filled them. She filled him, when he’d been empty for what seemed like years.
When he lowered his mouth to hers, he supported her neck with one hand. The other he slid around to her back, smoothing it up her spine while he teased her lips open with his tongue.
God, she was minty and sweet, and she pressed close to him with a low murmur in her throat as the tip of her tongue touched his. Her fingers traced the line of his collarbone, the swell of his shoulder, and every spot she touched bloomed with heat.
The kiss grew hotter. Wetter. And when he worked his way beneath that floating hem and found her bare back, stroking the soft flesh there, she clutched at his arm and gasped into his mouth.
Her nails dug into his skin, and it felt like a benediction. A victory, the likes of which he hadn’t known for years.
He tore his mouth from hers, keeping eye contact as he slid his hand around to her front, still under her cover-up. His thumb stroked the side of her breast in a sweeping arc as he waited for permission. For a sign he wasn’t taking more than she was offering.
She rested both palms on his chest, but not in refusal. In exploration. They slid up and over his shoulders, down his arms. Then she covered his hand with hers and moved it over her breast. Positioned it so he was cupping the heavy, warm weight of her, her tight nipple pressing into his palm through the swimsuit.
Suddenly, not enough oxygen was making its way into his lungs.
“Tess…” He licked his lips. “Älskling, I can’t—”
Voices. In the distance, but too close to continue.
He dipped his head for one last taste of her, for one last feel of her plush lips parting for him. Open. Vulnerable. Exquisitely soft. And then he slid his hand out from under her cover-up and straightened it around her suit.
But he couldn’t stop entirely without making sure she understood what he wanted from her. Not just sex and bodies and careless pleasure, easily dismissed. More than that.
How much more, he didn’t yet know. But he couldn’t wait to find out.
So he brushed his lips across her temple, where fine threads of her dark hair had dried in the sun. Then across her eyelids, that fragile skin traced by tiny blue veins. Then her cheeks, velvety and hot. Finally, he rubbed his nose lightly against hers and hoped she grasped what he was attempting to communicate.
She rested quiescent beneath his attention, her fingers curled once more against his chest as her mouth curved in a soft, private smile.
“We have company.” He whispered the words into her ear, his nose nuzzling the plump lobe. “And you’re right. I need to get prepared for my early lesson. I should go.”
When he began to pull away, though, she laid a hand on his arm. “Wait.”
