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“Dad?” Chris stood at the window with his face tipped toward the sky.
Declan was familiar with his son’s all-too-innocent tone. Declan was about to get hit with a request. Probably one he wouldn’t be keen on fulfilling.
“Can we get in the hot tub tonight? You promised we could look at the stars one night. Please? Ineverget to see stars in the city.”
“Uh—” He hedged, turning his attention to Natalie, who was sitting on the sofa with a paperback. There was no reason he had to be here with her while she was reading. She could easily restock the fire, and she didn’t need attention. But there was something he enjoyed about the three of them being in the same room.
“Natalie can come.” Chris turned to her. “You have a bathing suit, don’t you?”
His mind whirled with images of the gorgeous woman in very little. One piece, two piece. Oh fuck, a bikini. He shifted in the chair, subtly adjusting himself.
“I sure do.” Her eyes sparkled as a smile pulled at her lips. “The hot tub was one of the reasons I chose this place. Although I wanted to get out there on a snowy night. The hot with the cold seems like magic.”
He hated snow. Yet the way she smiled at the idea of a snowy night in the hot tub had him rethinking the lifelong grudge he held against winter in New York. He wanted to make it happen for her. With him. Especially if they were alone. When he could touch her, run his hands over every curve of the body he’d been covertly studying for days. Kiss her full lips before sliding her bathing suit off and sinking into all she had to offer.
“Declan?” Her voice jarred him back to the present.
He swallowed. “Huh?”
“She asked if it was okay for her to come out with us.” Chris frowned. “Aren’t you paying attention?”
Declan cleared his throat. “Yeah, no, it’s fine with me.”
Once they were all in the hot tub, it was anything but fine. The bikini was white. But it wasn’t nearly as distracting as the woman wearing it. Because her wet skin and her infectious smile were pure and utter torture.
11
“Right there.You see those three stars in a row?” Natalie pointed to the sky.
Chris’s dark hair bounced as he nodded, wearing a huge grin. “The big bright ones.”
“That’s Orion’s belt.” She pointed to another well-known constellation. “And that one over there is the Big Dipper. See how it looks like a big scoopy spoon-type thing?”
Chris tilted his head, squinting in the direction she pointed. “Oh! Yes, I see it! Fist bump.”
Natalie pounded his hand, smiling at his excitement, but when her gaze locked on Declan’s, her smile faded. Since the minute she’d come down the stairs, he was extra broody. His scowl had deepened, and there was definitely more huffing than normal. But she constantly felt his eyes on her. Even now, his gaze felt like a burn.
Or maybe like a caress.
Trailing along her neck, down her shoulder, across her breasts. She shivered, and at her reaction, he shifted and looked away. But Natalie couldn’t pull her attention from the broad shoulders that rested above the water. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, pulling her focus there, then on to the scruff of his almost-but-not-quite beard.
As if pulled by the same invisible force she was compelled by, he fixated on her again, his eyes meeting hers before dropping to her lips. Slowly he raked his gaze back up. And the burn was back.
He was more intense tonight than he’d been in the days since they’d met. It flipped her stomach and stole her breath, and she wanted to lean into it and run away all at the same time.
“What’s that one, Natalie?”
She turned back to Chris and the stars, pointing out a few more constellations and explaining the stories behind them. Finally, Declan stood up, droplets of water running down the tight skin of his torso.
She might have teased him about his strict diet, but holy heck, had it paid off. What would it feel like to have all that taut muscle pressed against her? How would his lips feel running along her skin? She longed for the tickle of his scruff against her neck, her stomach, her inner thigh.
She squeezed her thighs together to stop the pressure.
“Come on, Chris. Time for bed, bud.”
Startled again from her fantasy, she shook her head and blinked, inspecting the stormy woods. It wasn’t fair that he could be so unaffected, dealing with his son’s schedule and remembering his bedtime routine, while she was so distracted she’d forgotten where she was.
“Aw, not fair, Dad.”
