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“I love kissing you, too,” she told him, her voice still more than a little breathless from his kisses, her self-control hanging on only by the barest thread. “But we should probably focus on clamming…for now.”
“Yes. Right.” But he didn't stop looking at her mouth for several long beats, until he finally said, as if he was trying to remind himself, “I brought you here to teach you how to clam. I have to warn you, though, I want to kiss you again so badly that I can hardly think of anything else. So I may not be the best teacher.”
She would bet he had plenty of other things he could teach her.
Ohmygod. Stop it.
The problem was that she’d never enjoyed kissing anyone as much as she enjoyed kissing Quinn...and all she could think about was doing it again. And again. And again. Especially when he was still looking at her as if he wanted to devour every inch of her, head to toe.
Clearly, this wasn’t just an adventure in clamming; it was an adventure in reeling in temptation as well.
Both of them looked out at the bay for a few moments, and she knew he was trying to clear his head just like she was.
Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “Clams burrow under the sand.” He squinted as he visually inspected the sand. “We’re looking for spit marks.”
“Spit marks?”
“Yeah, that’s what we call them. If you fling excess water onto the sand, the drops of water make marks.” He curled his fingers so his fingertips touched his thumb, then flung them open. “We’re looking for steamers, or soft-shell clams, and when they burrow into the wet sand, their siphon spurts water and makes the mark.”
“Sounds like we have to really look carefully,” Shelley said as she worked to focus on his instruction and not how sexy he looked as he gave it, “because if you splash in one of these little pools of water, then you can create those marks, and you’d be digging for nothing.”
“You’re a quick study, aren’t you?” He grinned at her, making her feel all swoony again...and hot everywhere she was dying for him to kiss, to touch. “My siblings and I had a good time playing that prank to death. Let’s see if we can find some marks.”
“How many brothers do you have?” she asked as they moved at a snail’s pace farther away from the beach.
“Three brothers, and you just met my only sister, Sierra. I don’t know how good a look you got at the rest of my family in the restaurant, but my oldest brother, Trent, was the one in the white dress shirt at the table. He’s an attorney and lives in New York. My younger brother Derek was sitting closest to the bar. He’s a custom builder and stonemason and lives in Boston. Ethan’s my youngest brother. He lives on the island and runs a fishery. He’s usually easy to spot because he always looks like he’s just come off a boat and can’t wait to get right back out on the water.”
Shelley had taken only a quick glance at the table when she was talking with Sierra, but she’d seen three handsome men, all very similar in looks, though none were as striking to her as Quinn.
“Do you all get along?”
“Most of the time. We tease each other a lot, but just out of love, you know. And we’re all protective of Sierra.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, but she could tell by his smile that his relationship with his siblings was everything. “What about you? Do you have brothers or sisters?”
“No. It’s just me. I used to wish I had brothers or sisters, but wishing doesn’t get us very far, does it?”
“I don’t know about that. I think we usually are able to accomplish our goals because they’re based on really strong wishes, don’t you? I can’t imagine it was easy to get your café started. Did that start as a dream, or did you stumble upon it?”
He rubbed his chin again, and Shelley realized that was something he did when he was either thinking or listening intently. She liked that he was interested in her life.
“My coffee shop wasn’t really a wish or a dream. I’m not much of a planner, actually.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “But you planned a solo honeymoon.”
“True, but that was just flight and hotel arrangements. I didn’t plan a single minute of the week I’m going to be here.” A week that suddenly felt way too short. “I think life is more fun when you follow your heart, so that’s how I live mine. It’s even how I stumbled into my coffee business. Don’t laugh, but the reason I moved to Maryland was because I fell in love with a bungalow on Waring Creek. I’d taken a weekend road trip to go to a Renaissance festival and got horrifically lost trying to find the small town it was supposed to be in. Anyway, I found this bungalow for sale, and it was a steal. Since it felt like the right place for me at the time, I took a chance, used the money I’d saved from working during and after college, and bought it.”
