Page 90 of Surviving in Clua


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“I’m letting you in.” His smirk as he undoes the next button triggers a rush of emotion up the back of my neck until it tingles over my scalp.

“Okay,” I bite my lip and lean back against the table behind me, watch, bemused as he undoes the rest until his shirt hangs open, his body a deep tan against its snowy whiteness

Has it really only been a week since I saw this body? The ridged muscles of his abdomen, the clearly defined and oh so edible cut to his pecs. I shift in his lap, my skin heating, my body suddenly seeming to notice how I’m straddling his thick thighs. How my dress has hitched up to accommodate the spread of my legs and the tensing of his body beneath me as he leans forward to pull his arms from his sleeves, then settles back into his seat again, scanning my face.

“This one you know.” He touches his finger to the broken clock set to the time of his enlistment into the Marines. “This one.” He touches the one below it, his eyes still on my face. “Jaynee’s graduation from med school.” His fingers move to the next and my gaze follows it. “These two for my niece and nephew.” The next. “The cancer.” His throat contracts when it reaches the cracked one in the center of his bicep. “And this is the exact date and time we hit that IED.”

I trace the biggest crack that runs through the detailed watch face he’s pointing to, then look back into his face and nod, my throat too clogged with the need to cry for him to form the words.

His smirk morphs into an understanding tilt of lips and he cups my face in his warm hands. “The new one’s for you.”

My laugh is watery. “Don’t you dare tell me you got the first time we had sex inked on your arm.”

His chuckle is rough, but real, and it warms me to the very core. “It’s the time and date I walked into the Beach Hut and found you laughing like you didn’t have a care in the world. The moment everything changed. The exact second I knew that if I was surviving, I’d be surviving in Clua.”

I’m kissing him almost before he gets his last word out. And he kisses me back. All in. His hands drop to my hips, mine lift to his face, my mouth opening to the heady sweep of his tongue, body tilting into the hardening length under his slacks and the smooth skin of his chest. An all-encompassing, full-body rushing kiss, no doubts, no secrets, and no holding back.

EPILOGUE

Kenzi

Six months later…

“I still don’t understand why I couldn’t take my own board.” Sitting cross-legged on the front of Mylo’s paddle board, I trail my fingers through the crystal-clear water as he propels us forward through the barely there swells.

This is the first time we’ve been out on the boards together in a few weeks. Between the restaurant and the Surf therapy for veterans project he’s been working on setting up, it’s been non-stop.

“Because you dawdle.” The gravel to his voice trips down my spine like it always does, shooting little fizzles of awareness over my skin.

You’d think it’d get old or it’s effect would wear off. It’s been six months since that night in the restaurant. Since he let me in like nobody ever has before. Half a year of that voice being the first thing I hear in the morning when I open my eyes and the last before I close them at night, but it still hits me in the hormones like the very first time I heard it.

I twist to look up at where he’s standing behind me on the board, back straight every muscle in his massive body pulled tight to balance. His shoulders and forearms roll with every pass of his paddle through the water, the white bandage wrapped just beneath his elbow stark against his tanned skin, a waterproof bag strapped to his back. “I didn’t realize paddle boarding was time sensitive.” I glance up into his serious face, a tickle of…somethingtaking the place of the fizzling. Something a lot like worry.

“I don’t want to miss the sunset.” He glances down at me, but his lips don’t curve up easily like they usually do when we’re out here together, he just scans my face once, then goes back to propelling us forward, toward the cove we went to the first time he took me out on a board.

He’s been like this for the last couple of weeks. Off. Quiet. Like something’s up. Something he hasn’t brought up and I haven’t asked about. His weekly therapy sessions have been helping as far as coping with his past is concerned. I’ve seen the results for myself. The nightmares have lessened, the weight he’d been carrying on those wide shoulders lifting bit by bit, day by day. Or at least it was.

I turn back and frown into the pinkening sky, the sun’s hanging low but we’ve got at least fifteen minutes before it sets and we’re already passing the spit of land that keeps this place like a little private oasis.

“Sooooo, you gonna tell me what’s in the bag?” I ask without looking back at him. He never brings a bag out with him.

“Nope.”

I roll my eyes. “What you did to your arm?”

“Still no.”

This time I do turn. I scowl too. “Seriously?”

“Patience, woman.” His lips finally tip up into a smirk that lights fire over my skin. “We’re here.” His strokes of the paddle slow as we come to the middle of the cove. “Turn around.”

I narrow my eyes. “But the sunset’s this—”

“Kenzi,” he growls out deep and low, dropping his big body down so he’s straddling the board with an ease that’s in complete contradiction to his size.

“Okay, okay, I’m turning.” I carefully maneuver myself around so I’m facing him and the spectacularly wild landscape behind him. Big Leaves and palms lit in golds and ambers and deep, burnt oranges. It’s almost prettier than the sunset about to happen behind me. “Better?”

He nods absentmindedly, chewing his lip as he checks his watch for about the fiftieth time tonight. “Almost.” His throat contracts and he drags his hand across the back of his neck when his gaze meets mine. “No.” He shakes his head, strands from the knot of hair on top of his head coming loose. “Come here.” He grabs me behind the knees to drag me closer, hanging my legs over his thighs. “Okay. Perfect.” He swallows again and checks his watch again with a slow release of breath.

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