She willed her racing pulse to slow. “And how do we test that?” But she already knew the answer.
His lips hovered above hers, his breath tickling her skin. She closed her eyes and tipped her chin up slightly.
Then, suddenly, she was pulled to her feet.
“Yep. You passed.”
She swallowed, still trying to get her bearings. “Are you sure?”
“Yep. I could definitely tell.” He plucked a leaf off the back of her shirt. “We should probably go inside and see if the dog treats are ready.”
Stunned and confused, Emily followed Patrick into the house. Why hadn’t he kissed her? Wasn’t that what he was going to do? Had she wanted him to? Yes, she decided. So, what happened?
He checked the biscuits.
Maybe he was only trying to gauge her reaction. Or perhaps he overthought it, and worried it was too soon to make a move like that. They hadn’t known each other very long. She breathed into her hand and tried to smell her breath.
Patrick’s loud laugh pulled her from her thoughts. “It wasn’t you.” He laughed again.
He’d caught her checking her breath. How embarrassing.
“The last test was actually whether you wanted to go slowly or not.” He stepped toward her.
“Oh. I failed that one then.” She looked up at him, drinking in the lingering amusement on his face.
With another chuckle, he stepped closer, took her face in his strong hands, and gently, carefully pressed his lips to hers. Everything faded, and it was just the two of them and the soft hum of the radio. It was as if his touch had pressed the pause button on her thoughts, and all she could manage was the sensation of him. All her questions about herself were answered at once. She didn’t need to know anything more because, right now, this was enough.
He pulled back, fondness in his eyes. “You passed another test.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Are you irresistible? The answer is yes.”
The oven timer went off.
Patrick cleared his throat. “Yeah, it was definitely your ex’s fault,” he said under his breath.
TWENTY-FOUR
“Is that a leaf in your hair?” Will asked from the sofa when Emily walked into the beach house at around 3:30 that afternoon.
Blair, Rocko, Sienna, and Tyson looked on curiously. A baseball game played on TV.
“Maybe,” she said, self-consciously pawing at the back of her head.
Will propped his feet on the coffee table next to a half-eaten bowl of chips. “You were gone a long time.”
“There was a lot to get done.”
“Did you have fun?” Blair asked, blowing on a bright-pink nail she was painting. “By the smile on your face when you came in, it looks like you did.”
“Yeah, I enjoyed it.” Emily licked her lips, feeling as if she had an invisible banner above her head that gave away the fact that she’d not exactly been doing storm cleanup the whole time. Patrick’s lips floated into her mind and she blinked them away.
Open beer bottles littered the table, and baseball highlights flashed across the TV until an update on the efforts in town came on.
Sienna unsuccessfully scrolled her phone. “Ugh. I’ve had no service all morning.”
Rocko pointed at the TV. “They just said the lines were down, and they’re working on it.” Then he started telling a story about a hurricane he’d been in back in Virginia.
