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“You make me feel like it, anyway,” she said with a sardonic laugh.
“Sad state of affairs if you didn’t feel like you were before.”
“Most days, I go through life not feeling any particular way.” She rested her hands on his forearms and rubbed them lightly.
“I’ll call you every day and tell you, then.”
She laughed. “Some days, you’d be lying.”
“I don’t believe that.” He didn’t believe for one second that there was ever a moment when she was anything but completely desirable.
“You should,” she said. “Every now and then, I wake up with my face squashed and swollen on one side, hair in frizzy knots because I was too lazy to tie it up before bed, and bloated as hell so I wear whatever clothes don’t make me want to claw myself to death.”
“I’m sure you’re beautiful even then. You don’tstopbeing beautiful just because you’re not put together. It’s like Clay’s house. It’s a mess. Some parts of it would make you cringe if you were to see them. The paint’s peeling outside and the latticework around the foundation is all torn up, but it’s still a beautiful house. It’s just that folks would pay more attention to it if it had its makeup on.”
She giggled. “Tim, you have a knack for making even bullshit sound like poetry.”
“That’s not bullshit.” He gave her ass a little swat and moved to the deck railing.
She followed along and stared out at the ocean for a while.
He let her.
Watching the waves had always been meditative for him, and if she was finding some peace in it, he didn’t want to interrupt her.
“When I was behind the console when you were napped, I was thinking,Man, we should go somewhere, and I was wondering what the closest port was.”
“I’ll take you anywhere you want to go,” Tim said.
“I believe you. Ican’tgo, of course, but I really want to. When I travel for work, I never really get to see anything.”
“You’ve got to carve time into your schedule for yourself.”
“You must be a lot better at that than I am.”
“I suck at it, but I’ve simply gotten into the habit of it now. It used to be that I literally couldn’t get away. Either we didn’t have the cash, or I had to be there working on a boat.”
“You’ve worked hard to get to the point that you could take time off whenever you wanted, though, right?”
“Haven’t you as well?”
“I…” She furrowed her brow and for a moment just stared at the sea.
She didn’t need to answer. He already knew she thought she couldn’t.
He lifted her hair in the back and dragged his thumb along her nape. “Let me mist you with sunscreen. Wouldn’t do for you to burn the body parts I like touching so much, right?”
“At least I won’t have to worry about tan lines.”
He grabbed the spray-on sunscreen from the table and gave it a shake. “Nothing wrong with tan lines. I actually think bikini tan lines are sexy.” He had her stand with feet spread hip-width apart and made her lace her fingers behind her head.
“Sexy?Really?”
“Really.” He started misting her from the neck on down, taking special care with her breasts and ass—the places he wanted to touch most. “There’s just something about that contrast of skin in the nude, and especially when the lights are out. Draws your attention to the parts that need the most attention.”
“I somehow don’t get the feeling that you need any help figuring out where those parts are.”
He shrugged. “Maybe not. Stand just like that until it dries.”
