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Chapter 2
Did I say thatout loud?
Ginny prayed that all she’d said aloud was “Hi.”
Please, please, please let that have been my inside voice I heard.
No. Not possible.
There is no way that I just said that I missed Dax, too. Right?
She waited for Dax to say something, anything, but so far the only thing out of his mouth was her name. Not that she was complaining. She could listen to him say her name on repeat for…well, for a long time and not get tired of hearing it. Especially when it held the extra rasp that it just had.
She couldn’t believe that she was actually here, in Harper’s Crossing, on Dax’s porch. And not only was Dax standing in front of her in the flesh, there was quite a lot of flesh showing and it was wet to boot. Her eyes were still locked on his, but on their way up to meet them she’d seen several droplets of water running down the hard planes of his naked chest. Her first instinct had been to lick them off his skin like ice cream that melted down the side of a cone. Thankfully, unlike her uncertainty of whether or not she’d said that she missed him out loud, she knew for a fact that there had been no licking. Her tongue was safely inside the confines of her mouth.
As much as she wanted to drop her gaze and stare at his body like he was a piece of art displayed at a museum, she knew that she couldn’t. So, she kept her stare laser focused on his eyes. Not that that was a hardship. His eyes were a light-medium brown, but not just your average, run-of-the-mill brown. Dax’s eyes were multi-colored. They were rimmed with a dark espresso color and inside they were a lighter caramel color with gold flecks scattered throughout. They were the kind of eyes that every time you looked into them you saw something new.
Right now those eyes were looking down at her like he was seeing a ghost, an aberration. He stared at her in disbelief with a heat and intensity that she felt all the way to her toes. When she’d stepped out of her car into the frigid, January-in-Illinois day she’d instantly caught a chill. Even with a jacket, scarf and gloves, the twenty-degree weather had her teeth chattering before she reached the front door.
All of her life, she’d gotten cold faster and stayed cold longer than anyone else she knew. It was a running joke with her band. They teased her that her fingers were like icicles and they loved to say that if there was even the slightest breeze she needed a parka to stay warm. Waiting on the porch had caused her body temperature to drop significantly. But now, the fire behind Dax’s golden gaze warmed her from the inside out.
She lost herself in the tingling feeling of her body being thawed internally and then heated to the point that she felt flushed. She was so captivated, so entranced by the prickly sensation running through her that she wasn’t paying attention when Capone decided to jump on her again. One second she was crouched down rubbing the bulldog’s head, hypnotized by the connection she felt in Dax’s stare, the next she was on her back with fifty pounds of pure love sprawled out on her chest as a very slobbery tongue made quick work of covering her face with enthusiastic kisses.
Her eyes automatically shut at the onslaught of wet licks, but before she knew it, Dax had yanked Capone off of her and instructed him to sit. Then, his arm quickly snaked around her back and he pulled her up on her feet.
She was brought upright with such speed and velocity that she was propelled forward from the momentum and instinctually her arms reached out and landed on a wall of muscle. When she opened her eyes, she noted immediately that her thin fingers and fair skin looked so delicate and small compared to his broad, tan, Adonis-like chest. She felt the pulsating rhythm of his heartbeat pounding beneath her palm. The sensation and the view combined to create one of the most intimate moments of her life.
Which, at twenty-two years old, was a sad truth and one of the many things she planned on changing during the next four weeks. It was one of her New Year’s resolutions.
“I’m so sorry, he’s usually much better behaved.” Dax’s voice was just as deep and gravelly as she remembered.
When he spoke, she could feel the vibration of the words against her palms and fingers. The reverberation sent a tremble running up her arms and down her spine. Dax’s arm was still wrapped around her waist and his fingers tightened on her lower back. His grasp caused another sensation—no less potent than the first—to erupt low, very low, in her belly.
“You’re cold. Come inside.”
Cold…right. She was cold.
Let’s go with that.
He shifted so that she could step past him and he didn’t drop his hand from her back until she was inside. From behind her she could hear the click of the door shutting and her nerves that she’d thought she’d managed to contain started to pop like grease in a hot frying pan.
There was an underlying tension in Dax’s voice as he said, “Sorry I didn’t invite you in sooner. I was just…surprised to see you.”
As she turned to face him she was holding out hope that her being here was a good surprise and not a bad one. Her suitcase was beside him, so she took that as a good sign. But the blank expression on his face made him unreadable which in turn increased the intensity of her nerves from grease in a frying pan to spraying like a popped fire hydrant.
“Um, I should have called, I’m sorry.” She dipped her chin motioning her head in the direction of the towel that was hanging at his waist. “I didn’t mean to interrupt…I mean…you look like you were…you look…” Hot.
No she couldn’t say that.
Breaking eye contact, her eyes dropped down, and she could feel saliva filling her mouth as she took in the girth of his broad shoulders, the planes and valleys of his washboard abs and the symmetrical lines of his hips that were only partially covered by white terrycloth. If she let her eyes go any further she’d be in trouble, so she forced herself to look back up. Her voice cracked as she continued, “It looks like you were busy.”
He glanced down then shook his head slightly. “Right, I was just in the shower. Let me go put on some clothes.”
She nodded. As much as she wanted to tell him not to do that on her account, she knew that there was a much better chance of her actually being able to hold a conversation if she wasn’t distracted by his very distracting nakedness.
“Cap.” He let a low whistle.
Capone, who was sitting beside Ginny like the good dog he was, whined and lowered down so his belly was on the floor and his legs were spread out in front and back of him.
