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They settled into the sound of the waves, the wind, and Petunia’s little snuffles. Luke searched his mind for something to say and came up blank. Talking to Hannah had been so easy in the past, and he hated that it felt a little bit hard today.
“Do you like to swim?” he asked, glancing over at her.
She took the opportunity to hand him the piglet. “Can you hold her for a second?”
“Sure.”
Hannah rewarded him with a smile, and he barely had Petunia securely in his arms before she reached down to her waist and started to peel up her tank top. Luke stared, his mouth turning drier and drier with every inch of her swimming suit that got revealed.
In the end, Hannah shook out her hair and draped her shirt over the massive bag Missy had carried down to their spot. “I’m not a huge swimmer,” she said. “I do want to soak up the sun though.” She scooted forward in her chair and leaned back, sighing as she tipped her head heavenward. “Ah.”
Luke had no idea what to say. Her swimming suit barely revealed more than the tank top had, but somehow it felt more intimate. He wasn’t even wearing a shirt, and the sun suddenly felt ten times as close to his skin as it had a moment ago.
He finally tore his gaze from her and found Connor and Missy still floating in the water a bit to his left now, the waves pushing them from their original position.
“Would you tell me a story?” Hannah asked.
“What kind of story?” Luke asked.
“Well, if we’re going to go to dinner tonight, I have a specific one in mind.”
Luke whipped his attention back to her. She wasn’t looking at him, though her voice had carried a certain coyness he hadn’t missed. “Dinner?”
She turned her head toward him and reached up to adjust her hat. “I broke up with Chuck,” she said. She looked like a fashion model with those big glasses, the straight, dark hair, and the pretty pink lips.
He licked his, thinking about kissing her already. “When?” he asked.
She indicated to the world behind her. “Just now.” She drew in a breath, and her nerves hit him across the couple of feet between him. “I saw you, and I…I don’t know, Luke.” She looked away from him, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from her.
His muscles tensed, and he needed her to continue.
“I feel something with you that I haven’t felt with anyone else before.” She lifted her closest shoulder in a sexy mini-shrug. “I want to know what it is. I want to grab onto it and explore it. I want toseeit, and feel it, and taste it.”
Her eyes met his again, and Luke could feel the exact same thing coursing through him. He swallowed, not quite sure if he should say he felt that way too.
“So.” She drew in a big breath and pushed it out. “That’s my story for you. I’m hoping you’ll be comfortable enough with me to tell me what happened that…why you went to prison.”
Luke’s defenses and barriers flew into place. He pulled his gaze from hers, icy fingers spreading through his body to his blood vessels and veins. Of course she’d want to know that. People were always curious about how and why someone went to jail.
Just tell her the truth.
The thought came to his mind unbidden, and Luke seized onto it. “You might not like the story.” His voice came out ragged, and he cleared the emotion from his throat. “What if you don’t like it?”
She reached over and touched his forearm. Lightning struck him with the prick of her fingernails, and he sucked in a breath. His eyes moved to the point of contact as his chest and stomach vibrated.
“Yeah,” she said. “Feels like something, right?”
“Definitely,” he murmured.
“If I don’t like it, Luke, I’ll work through it,” she said. “Just like you’ve had to.”
He looked at her again, really looking past the lenses and past the pretty face and past anything on the exterior. “You’re incredible,” he said.
A smile curved that mouth, and that only made him want to kiss her more. “Start talking, cowboy.” She reached up and tapped the brim of his hat, then leaned back in her chair and let her hand fall back toward his.
He threaded his fingers through hers, marveling that he felt so comfortable and so charged with her touch. He hadn’t had a girlfriend for a long, long time. He wasn’t even sure he’d ever had a woman he’d classify as his girlfriend, and he suddenly felt very out of his league.
Hannah dated a lot, and she probably had a very strict set of things she liked about a man.
