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“Good,” I breathe.
“What was that?”
I shake my head, swallowing hard. “Good band,” I say, nodding at her shirt.
“You’ve heard of Death Cab for Cutie?”
No, but it will be my favorite band by the end of the day.
“Is there a guy in the world who hasn’t?”
She snorts. “I think so.”
Her eyes trace a long line across my arms, and I flex them instinctively.
“Well,” she says, her voice a little husky. “Have a good time in the pool.”
“I’d be having a better time if you’d join me.”
She does my favorite thing. She smiles. It’s so big and genuine that it reaches her eyes.
“Slow down, Mr. Muscles.”
I snort.
“Just shopping around another nickname. It’s… accurate,” she says, drawing her eyes down me again. “But I think I’d cringe to death using it more than once.”
“A smart girl like you? You’ll figure it out, Pru.”
Another smile flutters across her lips and then she’s gone. I watch Prudence as she disappears inside the house. I’m burning up, and it wouldn’t surprise me if steam billows in my wake as I move through the water.
I leave the pool and slide onto one of the loungers, threading my hands behind my head as I watch. She’ll appear. And within a few minutes, she does. Prudence appears in the window, takes one long look at me as I spread out in the sun, and then pulls the curtains once again.
It’s going to be a long, hot summer but at least I know exactly where I’ll cool off.
four
prudence
I can’t cool down.I’m deep inside the library where the A/C blasts, but it feels like I’m rolling around on asphalt, baking in the summer sun. Things that shouldn’t be wet… are.
I can barely think straight let alone breathe as I wheel the metal cart filled with books to be reshelved through the stacks. It should be empty by now, but somehow, I have more books than what I left with, picking up discarded tomes as I move listlessly down the rows.
I can’t focus on anything. The books are melting into one incoherent, indecipherable blob of muted colors as I push the cart mechanically. I don’t even know if I’m in the right section. Is this the right cart? What’s my name again?
I pause, fanning myself as I close my eyes and see the one image that has been seared into my mind’s eye. The one image that is giving me heat stroke or something like it.
Shirtless Silas. Wet hair, wet skin, and a dimpled, megawatt smile aimed directly at me. That was the last thing I expected when I wandered up the driveway, but I can’t say I’m disappointed. Not at all. That man is unbelievably sexy. Inked up. Muscles from head to toe. He’s so ripped that I bet he could curl me with his toes.
Or make mine curl.
Oh, lord.
Stop, stop,stop!
I’ve never had these sorts of fantasies about a man before. When mine play out in my head, they’re with some mishmash of a person. A little of this. A little of that. Tall, dark, and generic.
Silas destroys every dream man my subconscious has ever cooked up. He’s everything I never knew I wanted. I thought I’d fall for some bookish guy I met in the stacks of the library. Never thought I’d fantasize about an inked-up bad boytakingme in the stacks.
