Scorched

Expecting him to turn around, I waited a second, but realized that he was…goodness, he was giving me time to get the dress off, and that was…that was sweet. Oh wow, that really was actually kind of sweet. Fingers trembling, I gripped the dress and tugged it over my head. I scanned the water, finding him swimming under it. Heart pounding, I dropped the dress within easy reach and had just reached the first step in the pool, water licking at my ankles, when Tanner’s head broke the surface.

I froze.

He’d made his way to where he could stand, bringing his chest out of the water. Sunlight glinted off his glistening skin, but it was the way he stared at me that tugged my breath right out of my chest.

His gaze was like a physical touch, and my body hummed in response. “Andy,” he murmured, voice deep and low. “I have a secret to admit.”

Feeling breathless and foolish, I resisted the urge to fold my arms across my stomach. “Is it an interesting secret?”

“Oh yeah.” His lips curled slowly. “Kyler actually invited me to go with them today.”

My brows rose. “He did?”

Tanner nodded. “I told him no. I’d rather spend the day with you.”

Chapter 8

Tanner

Snow could have started falling out of the sky, and I wouldn’t be able to pull my gaze away from Andrea. The glimpse I’d gotten of those curves the night before had been just a sweet hint and had in no way prepared me for this.

Andrea wasn’t just beautiful. She was stunning—fucking breathtaking.

Curves in all the right places. Soft where a man wanted his woman soft. Her breasts were full, swelling over the cups of her top, and her waist curved in and flared out sweetly at her hips. Her body reminded me of those old-school pinup models I’d been obsessed with in high school. She was a fucking goddess, and didn’t even know. Lust pounded in me, like I was under a jackhammer. I was so still, my body so hard that taking a breath required effort I couldn’t spare. Every muscle in my body was rigid with need, with the desire to cross the distance between us and sweep her into my arms, and to feel her softness against my body.

Fuck me, I had it bad for her.

Her hands fluttered to her sides and then to the water lapping at her thighs. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

The quiet question blasted through me. “I can’t look away.”

Andrea’s cheeks pinked under the sun. “That’s weird.”

“Oh no, being able to look away would be weird. No. Not just weird,” I decided. “It would be fucking sacrilegious.”

Her lips parted and then she smiled, and fuck if it didn’t feel like I’d just won something. As she glided past me, I ground my teeth until my jaw ached, denying the urge to reach out and just…fuck, just touch her.

I watched her slip under the water, my starving gaze following her as she swam to the other side. When she broke the surface of the clear water and glanced over her shoulder at me, my heart thundered in my chest.

Like she was some kind of siren, her look alone lured me across the pool. I ended up next to her, both our arms resting on the ledge of the pool, our feet not touching the bottom.

The sun dipped behind a dark cloud, and Andrea looked up, her forehead scrunched. “Do you think it’s going to storm?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t look away, which told me I was bordering on being a creeper at that point. “I saw that they were calling for some storms this week. It’s August. Expected.”

Her legs floated, brushing mine. The mere touch, the slight glide of her skin against mine, packed a hell of a punch. “I just hope they’re not caught out in the rain or something. I know they’re talking about going hiking again on Thursday or Friday.”

“You’re not going to go with them again?”

She shook her head and laughed. A curl fell forward, sticking to her cheek. “No.”

“Me neither.” I reached over, scooping up the curl and tucking it back behind her ear.

Her eyes shot to mine, the brown hue warm. There was a multitude of questions in her gaze. Silence stretched out as we studied each other, and I’d have cut off a finger to know what she was thinking in that moment. I knew what I was thinking. A whole lot of want. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to see if her eyes darkened when she felt pleasure. I wanted to know what her expression looked like when she came. And I wanted to know what my name sounded like when she screamed it. Then she looked away, ducking her chin. The connection was broken.

Man, I needed to get control of my head. And my cock. Especially my cock, because if she looked down between us, there’d be no hiding how aroused I was, and that put the dic in “fucking ridiculous.”

Searching for something to take my mind off the hard-on of a lifetime, I cleared my throat. “So what makes you volunteer at a hotline like that?”

She tilted her head to the side. “I…I don’t know. I guess…” Trailing off, she sighed. Several seconds passed while it seemed like she searched for the right thing to say. “Those people, you know, they’re just like you and me. They’ve hit a rough patch in their lives and most of them just want someone to talk to—someone to listen to them. Actually hear them. I can do that.”

Instinct told me there was more to it. “Still has to be hard.”

“It can be,” she said quietly, squinting as the sun peeked out. “I’ve had a couple of calls where the people wanted to talk, and you think it’s going to be a normal call, but then you realize that they’ve already taken pills or something like that. Those…those are hard,” she admitted. “We really don’t know what happens to them. If the police got there soon enough—if they are even alive right now. If they tried again or if they found someone else to hear them. So, yeah, that part is hard, but their world? Those people calling? Their world is a lot harder than whatever I deal with when I answer those phones.”