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“I remember.”
“I told you I’d know exactly what to do if you jumped me.”
“Evidenced by what you’re doing right now, you mean?” That made him blush, which made her laugh.
But then she sobered. “I won’t tease. What’s your deep, dark truth?”
This was harder to tell her than anything else had been. It probably would have been easier if they weren’t both half-naked. He wished he could stop blushing for god’s sake. “I’ve never—ah—”
“Hunter Garrity.”
“What?”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re a virgin?”
If her voice had carried any amount of mockery, he would have denied it. But it didn’t, and he didn’t.
“Yes,” he said.
“I figured.”
“Hey!”
She didn’t smile. Her cheeks appeared extra pink in the firelight now. “No—I meant . . . I am, too.”
“You are?”
She nodded.
He couldn’t stop staring at her. “But . . . you’re so . . . so—”
“If you say slutty, I am going to punch you in the crotch again.”
“Confident!” he said. “I was going to say confident.”
“Look, just because I like what I look like doesn’t mean I sleep around.”
Now he couldn’t tell if he was offending her or if she was just yanking his chain. “No one said you were sleeping around.”
“Ah, I seem to recall a little comment about my inability to say no.”
Okay, maybe he had said that. He put his cheek against hers and whispered into her ear. “I apologize. Forgive me?”
Her fingers raked through his hair again, and she shifted closer to him, pulling the blanket higher to block out the stars. “Not yet. You’ll just have to make it up to me.”
And Hunter realized that maybe a little distraction wasn’t out of line after all.
Hunter awoke at dawn and found himself alone in the blankets. The fire was banked, the water far down the beach at low tide.
No Kate.
He sat straight up. His heart went from zero to sixty.
But then he breathed. She was in the jeep, wearing the spare jeans and bright pink T-shirt Bill had brought, fiddling with her cell phone.
Hunter rubbed a hand over his face, wishing he had access to a bar of soap and a razor. He made do with a swig of water from one of the bottles, pulled his jeans on under the blanket, and headed over to the car in bare feet.
Whatever had changed overnight had him wanting to pull her into his arms and keep her safe forever.
