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She sensed him moving until he was close, she could almost feel the chill coming off his wet skin.
“Lilah?” His voice was uncharacteristically hesitant and she flinched when his big hands dropped to her slender shoulders. “Are you crying?”
“No.”
“Turn around.”
“No.”
“Lilah, c’mon, turn around.” His hands cupped the balls of her shoulders and exerted gentle pressure in an attempt to coax her into turning around.
She resisted at first—but he was insistent. Bowing to the inevitable, Lilah swiped at the humiliating tears with the backs of her hands, and turned to face him. She folded her arms defiantly over her chest and lifted her chin to glare at him mutely.
He sighed, the sound soft and long-suffering, and lifted a hand to thumb away the residual moisture on her cheeks.
“I’m tired.” An excuse? A plea? A prayer?
Lilah wasn’t sure what she hoped to achieve with those two words, but they sounded small and weak and she hated that she’d felt coerced into offering them.
She continued speaking, the words tumbling from her lips in a humiliated rush as she confessed, “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone in my life before.”
“You don’t have to be alone, Lilah. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. You have me. We’re in this together. We could be, should be, a team.”
His eyes bore into hers, his face was etched with strain, jaw clenched and lips pressed into a grim line.
She watched him through a shimmer of tears, taking in those beautiful, taut features, before her gaze dropped all the way to his long, sun browned bare feet, which were planted shoulder length apart. Her eyes trailed up over the tanned columns of his muscular shins and calves, lightly dusted with dark hair, even further up over those beautiful, hard, well-muscled thighs. He wore light gray swim trunks that ended mid-thigh, which—though it must have been quite loose when dry—clung to him like a second skin and her eyes snagged at exactly the wrong spot.
But who could blame her? The shorts lovingly molded the substantial bulge at his groin, leaving very little to the imagination. Her face went hot and her breathing sped up, as her eyes refused to obey her brain’s frantic demands that they move on.
He shifted, his thumbs hooking into the waistband of his shorts and dragging the wet fabric down a fraction.
“If you’re that interested in the goodies, all you have to do is say so, Lilah. I’m happy to show you mine if you’ll show me yours.” The line was smooth as silk and, delivered as it was in that raspy voice, it immediately beaded her nipples and sent a flood of warmth to pool in her groin.
As the distraction they were clearly meant to be, his words proved effective, and her eyes jerked upward, but they didn’t miss a single detail on their hurried journey up toward his face. The deep V of his Adonis belt, those rock-hard abs, the trail of hair on his flat stomach leading up to—and sprinkling over—his well-defined pecs. The water beading on that beautiful chest and his tight nipples. Those big, elegantly-fingered hands, veined and capable at the end of long, strong gorgeous arms, leading up to broad shoulders.
The grimness had fled from his face to be replaced by the smug confidence of a man who knew exactly how appealing he was to look at. Those stern features, so perfectly sculpted, had always possessed the power to leave her breathless. His beard was coming in. Stubble darkening his chiseled, indented jaw.
She was a shaky mass of nerves by the time she met his brooding stare.
“K-keep your pants on, Romeo. I’m not interested in your goodies,” she said, grateful for the subject change, but hating how the quiver in her voice made a liar of her.
His lip curled—a smirking imitation of a smile—and he made a snorting sound of disbelief.
“Suuure you’re not, cupcake.”
Since their engagement, he’d taken to calling called her sweetheart—or leannan which meant sweetheart or darling in Gaelic—on the odd occasion, but never cupcake. She had no idea where this new nickname—which he had been using on and off since the wedding—stemmed from. And she didn’t know if she liked it. She wasn’t sure if he meant it fondly or if it was deprecating. Something told her it was the latter.
She refused to respond to his words and turned away from him to glare down at her suitcase.
He chuckled—the sound deep and mocking—and headed to the bathroom. He turned toward the showers—out of sight from the bedroom—and left the sliding door between the two rooms open. Moments later his wet swim shorts came sailing into view, landing on the tiled bathroom floor with a splat. She heard the shower go on a second later, but her stare remained transfixed on the wet mound of fabric sitting in a puddle on the bathroom floor.
