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Why the admission tickled the life out of him, Luke couldn’t say. But it did. It sure as hell did.
“Each night,” she tacked on with a haughty sniff.
“Holy shit. You’re a beast.” His gaze licked over her left bicep, which was pumping hard next to his right. “Just look at those guns.”
“Would you stop talking?”
Luke did not stop talking.
But he did stop teasing her. Because teasing Andy was beginning to feel a lot like flirting. And he shouldnotbe flirting with her. Not when she had a heart-on for Kyle.
Nope, what he should be doing was teaching. That was the deal.
So for the next half hour — as they cut a wide arc around the surf zone — Luke kept up a constant stream of chatter about everything from wave anatomy and swell reports to basic surfing etiquette and lingo. How much of this Andy took in as she paddled quietly beside him, Luke wasn’t entirely certain, but he did note his ramblings seemed to have the effect of relaxing her more and more.
To the point where, when he slowed to a stop in a calm section of sea just outside the early morning surfers already zipping about, she looked surprised.
“Break time,” he announced as he slid off his board.
“Wait. What are you doing?”
“What does it look like? I’m cooling off.” He dipped underwater, then came up with a grin. “You should do the same.”
“Uh-uh.” She rested her head on the board. “I’m good right her—”
He swept a spray of water at her face.
“You j-jerk,” she sputtered, wiping the droplets from her mouth. “Ugh, it’s so salty.”
“It’s the Pacific,” he said, chuckling.
“It tastes terrible.”
“You’re not supposed to drink it.”
She rolled her eyes.
He closed in.
The eyes widened. “Don’t you dare,” she warned, holding up a hand.
Treading nearer, he sighed. “What are you so afraid of?”
“Gee, let me think. How ’bout the great big fish below me that could eat me?”
“You still worried about the M.I.G.S.’s?”
“Yes!”
“Well, don’t. If a man in a gray suit decides to crash our party, I’ll take care of it.” One arm resting on his board, Luke lifted the other in a quick jab.
She blinked at him like he was daft. “Are you crazy? That will never work.”
“Actually, it has. Guy surfing in Bodega Bay fought off a G-Dub by socking it in the face. Another surfer in Bell’s Beach, Australia did the same thing. Then there was that incident at the WSL event in South Africa with Mick Fan—”
“Dude!That issonot helping,” Andy cut in. “And what about that surfer who had her arm bitten off, huh?”
Luke planted a hand on the top edge of Andy’s board, drawing her gaze. “Bethany Hamilton got right back out in the water a month later. Because she wasn’t about to let fear keep her from doing something she loved. Something she wasmeantto do.”
