AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m going swimming,” he announced. He stood, stripped off his chambray shirt and shucked his denims down to his drawers while her eyes rounded in shock. Then he sprinted for the water.
He swam twenty laps in the cold water, then ten more for good measure. When he emerged with his wet drawers leaving nothing to the imagination, he threw himself facedown beside her. “Good thing I’m not naked, Winifred, because you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Not a ghost,” she said in a shaky voice. “Just a man with...with...”
He sat up, spraying water droplets onto her yellow blouse. “All men have them,” he quipped. “I bet even Dr. Bassoon has—”
“Oh, no,” she interrupted. “I mean, he has never—”
“Never undressed in front of you?” He rolled away from her stricken face.
“He has never gone swimming with me.”
“We are not swimming,” he said, trying not to laugh. “I am the one swimming. You are supposed to be resting.”
Her breath hissed in. The long silence that followed made him uneasy. Then he heard a choked sound. “Just you wait and see,” she murmured.
He heard the soft plop of her shoes dropping onto the sand, then a swish and out of the corner of his eye he caught a blur of white petticoat. No. She wouldn’t dare.
He bolted upright.
Too late. Her clothes lay in a heap beside him and when he looked up there she was, striding away toward the river in nothing but her lace-trimmed drawers and camisole. Oh, hell. He should chase her down and tackle her before she reached the water. On second thought he should ready a towel and wait until she came out of the river and rub her down before she took a chill. Damn, what a choice.
She thrashed about in the chest-high water, upended her body so her rump poked up above the surface, and splashed happily in a big circle. Her hair came unpinned and floated about her shoulders. When she grew tired, she dog-paddled toward him.
As she emerged, her wet camisole stuck to her breasts and Zane caught his breath. He shouldn’t look at her. But he couldn’t not look at her.
Her drawers clung to her hips, revealing her clearly defined waist, the curve of her buttocks and—oh, God—the triangle of dark hair at the apex of her thighs.
He snatched up the larger of the two bath towels and advanced toward her with long strides. “Here.” He wrapped her up tightly and immediately turned his back.
“Oh, that w-was just w-wonderful!” Her teeth were chattering and Zane swore again.
“Strip and dry off,” he ordered.
“Y-yes. I am r-rather cold. But it w-was worth it.”
“Was it?” he bit out. “You are the most foolhardy, most headstrong woman I’ve ever known.” He kept talking with his back to her until he was sure she had disappeared behind a huckleberry bush. When he turned, he noticed her wet garments still lay on the ground beside him.
He also noticed that his entire frame was shaking.
Her voice came from behind the shrubbery. “Hand me my skirt and shirtwaist, would you, Zane? And my petticoat.”
He balled them up and tossed them over the bush.
When she emerged, her smile sent an arrow of fire up his spine. Even clothed as she now was, he couldn’t look at her. He knew damn well she had nothing on underneath.
He tried not to watch her as she settled beside him and grabbed her shoes and stockings. Then her hand stilled.
“You won’t mind if I don’t put my stockings back on, will you? I feel so...well, exposed.”
He laughed. She eyed him slantwise and that just made it worse.
“Well,” she huffed. “I’ll just wring out my—”
“Don’t,” he managed to choke out. “I’ll spread them out on the bushes and they’ll be dry in ten minutes.”
Another mistake. He picked up her soft lacy drawers and camisole and squeezed the water out, trying to keep himself from squashing them into his hands and burying his face in them to inhale her scent. With a cavalier gesture he flung each small piece of erotic temptation over the huckleberry bush. He found he was breathing much too hard.
When he returned to her side, she was digging in the wicker picnic basket. She looked up at him and smiled.
“Breast or thigh?”
“Winifred,” he said in a strangled voice. He’d had all he could take. He dropped to her side, lifted the basket away and pulled her into his arms.
