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The door now open, Dad stepped back and let the twins in. Mom followed behind them and I slowly made my way inside after her. I was hot, sticky and ready for a shower followed by a date with my pillow. My mind was already starting to shut down with jet lag and all I could think about was the lukewarm shower washing away all the grime that felt caked into my skin.
“We’re here,” Mom called as she set her overnight bag down on the couch in the living room.
“Yeah, Mom, we’re aware.” I yawned as I passed her on my way toward one of the many guest rooms.
This condo took up the entire top level of the complex and had six bedrooms, all with their own bathrooms, as well as a large kitchen and dining room; not to mention the theater-size living room with the sixty-five inch 4K television that took up the majority of one wall. It wasn’t the space that had sold the place to Aunt Emmie, though. It was the view from the balcony—or rather, balconies. The sun setting over the Gulf was priceless.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Lucy,” Mom told me with a note in her voice that had me pausing and turning to look at her.
“Then who? The twins are already in their room.” I glanced behind her at Dad, who was pulling our luggage inside.
“We have company joining us,” Mom informed me, her brown gaze going around the room as she tried to avoid meeting my eyes. “It was last minute.”
“Oh. Okay.” I was too tired to try to figure out what was up with her, so I turned back toward the bedrooms.
Four took up the west wing and two others were on the east wing. Mom and Dad always took one of the masters on the east wing, and because I knew how ‘affectionate’ they still tended to be, I was happy to have that kind of distance between their room and my own.
Hearing the twins excitedly talking about going down to the beach to play from behind one of the closed bedroom doors, I smiled to myself and took the one across the hall and to the right of theirs. I loved this bedroom. The bed was huge and the perfect combination of soft and firm, but the view from the bedroom’s private balcony was what had caught my attention the first time we had spent a week there. At night, when the moon was out, it glowed off the Gulf. The sight was always breathtaking and had always brought me a kind of peace that had been lacking in my life for too long now.
I was so distracted by the thought of bed and the view I would be taking full advantage of when I was less tired, that it took me a moment to realize the shower was already running. I paused halfway into the bedroom and looked around. There was a suitcase already on the ottoman at the end of the king-sized bed.
Groaning because I didn’t want to fight with whoever was joining us on our family vacation, but I didn’t want to give up my favorite room either, I marched the rest of the way to the closed bathroom door and knocked. When no one answered and the water continued to run, I opened the door a few inches and stuck my head inside. The room was full of steam from the shower so I couldn’t see much of anything. “Hello?”
No one answered so I stepped farther into the bathroom. “Hello?” I called out again.
The bathroom was large with a walk-in shower that had the most beautiful stained glass I’d ever seen, offering some privacy in case someone walked in on you. The shower head was the kind that rained down on you from the middle of the shower with several other heads that had the kind of power to release the tension in your shoulders and lower back.
When I still didn’t get an answer, I blew out a huff and knocked on the stained glass shower door. “Hey! This is my room. You’re going to have to switch.”
The water was instantly shut off and less than a full second later the door opened. The head that popped out of the shower was one that I hadn’t been expecting. Shocked, I jumped back a step, my heart already racing while my body responded to the sight of Harris completely naked and dripping wet.
Holy hell, he was the sexiest guy I’d ever seen.
“Hey, sweetness. Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.” He reached for the towel hanging on the wall beside the shower and wrapped it around his narrow waist before stepping out.
I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. Even with his lower body covered I was reacting to him in the only way my body knew how. I was going up in flames and I was just standing there gawking at him. He hadn’t touched me, hadn’t kissed me, hadn’t even said one sexy thing to me. Yet I was ready to have a repeat of what had happened Monday morning, and this time I wanted to take my time exploring every inch of his body.
With my body going into hyper-drive in the sexual department, my brain was trying to make sense of his presence there. What the hell? No one had said he was joining us. He hadn’t called or texted me once in the last week. I’d thought for sure he had given up on us, yet here he was.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” I choked out through a very dry throat. Every drop of moisture had flowed south and was now soaking through my panties.
He shrugged his wide shoulders and my gaze followed several drops of water as they trailed down his abdomen—fuck, I wanted to lick his six pack—and disappeared into the towel. “You’re here, that means I’m here too.”
Stupidly, my heart turned to mush at his answer. Damn it. I wrapped my arms around my middle and tried to glare at him but knew it fell short. “You’re in my room,” I told him, trying to keep my voice firm, but it shook with the need I was trying so fucking hard to suppress.
Dark brows arched over aquamarine eyes. “Really? This is usually the room I use when I come with my parents.” He grinned and took a few steps in my direction. I was so caught up in watching more droplets trailing downward that I didn’t think to move away. The next thing I knew he was right in front of me, his large hands lifting to finger one of the many curls that had escaped from the knot I’d pulled my hair into. “How pissed do you think your dad would be if we shared?”
My next breath escaped on a sigh full of all the need that was quickly raising my body temperature. “He’d probably kill you,” I murmured.
“Figured.” He dropped a kiss to my forehead and then stepped back. I just stood there, trembling with the desire only he could produce in me. “Okay, I’ll grab my things and take the room next door. But you have to share the balcony with me at night. I’m not giving up that view, sweetness.”
I couldn’t make my voice work so kept my mouth shut as I stood there watching him move around. I was still standing there when he went into the bedroom and pulled on boxers and a T-shirt. A million different things flashed through my head but only a few stuck out the most.
Harris was in Panama City.
For me.
He hadn’t given up.
