Page 36 of Summer with the Single Dad

“No problem. I hope you settle in easily. Come down and visit us at the pub.”

“I will. Thank you.” She saw Clint to the door and just as she closed it and turned around, Bennett came bounding down the stairs, all handsome and slightly out of breath. He certainly took her breath away when he smiled at her like he was at that moment.

“All ready for you,” he said, taking the last step and reaching for her suitcase. “If you’ll follow me.”

With a belly loaded with butterflies, she grabbed a tote and followed him up the stairs. It was impossible not to stare at his butt. It was a great butt in those jeans—and probably out of them as well—and it was right at eye level. How could she not?

Heat rushed into her cheeks and she glanced away as best she could, only to fall victim to her stupid libido and zero in once again on the back pockets and how perfectly rounded they were.

He probably didn’t even have to work to get a butt like that. It was probably just good genes, and good jeans. Meanwhile, women had to bust their ass—literally—at the gym with squats, lunges, deadlifts, donkey kicks, and glute bridges to get peach halves like Bennett had.

She was glaring at his butt by the time they reached the upstairs.

It wasn’t fair.

“Something wrong?” Bennett asked. “You’ve got a really pissed off look on your face.”

Crap.

She dropped her scowl and looked up at him. He was on the top stair and she was three below that, so she really had to look up to reach his eyes. Otherwise, now she’d be face-to-face with his crotch, which was also fairly impressive, even in jeans. As a doctor, she could just tell. She could.

“Uh … uh, no. Just thinking about something entirely unrelated to anything.”

“Entirely unrelated to anything, huh? Well, I’m curious to know what that is. If it’s unrelated to anything.” His smirk was sixteen different kinds of sexy and it made her pulse pound through her carotid. Could he see it throbbing like a frog’s vocal sac in her neck? Was it that obvious? It felt like it was obvious. Like they could hear it down at the pub over the bass of the music.

He stepped back so she could reach the top of the stairs too. “Just thinking about how I was looking forward to relaxing on the beach today, only to get there and find it covered with naked bodies.”

He snorted. “You went to Little Bay? I could have told you that. You go there at your own risk.”

“Well, I didn’t know I was going to go there until I got there. And when I got there, I was very distracted and unable to relax.”

“Aren’t you a doctor? Shouldn’t the naked human body be boring to you by now?”

She followed him down the hall toward the last door on the right. “I’m a human first. And as a doctor, usually when I see a person, they’re in a dressing gown, or draped for surgery. So I only see the part of them I have to cut open. I see more of people’s insides than their outsides. And a lot of those outsides today were—”

“Very wrinkly and hairy?”

“The human body is beautiful in all its forms.”

He opened the bedroom door with a snicker. “Sure, it is. Then why didn’t you stay?”

She glared at him as he rolled her suitcase into a big bedroom with a peaked, vaulted ceiling, a king-sized bed, and a huge window with a gorgeous view of the sound.

“I decided I didn’t want to lie on the beach. So, I went and did a wine tasting instead.”

“I emptied the dresser. So feel free to put your clothes in there. Same with the nightstands. There are towels in the bathroom along with shampoo and body wash you’re welcome to use. The sheets are fresh and clean.”

“Thank you. Your … your bedroom is lovely.”

His full, distracting lips pursed, like he was doing his very best to hide a smug smile. Then he nodded. “Who’d you meet at the winery?”

His abrupt pivot back to the first topic jarred her. “Uh, Naomi? She seemed nice. I got a private tasting with her.” Then the guilt of her abrupt departure slammed back into her brain and a sad, sinking feeling formed in her belly.

“Whoa, what just happened? You were happy a second ago, smiling and joking about wrinkly, naked old people. Then your face dropped into the biggest frown I’ve ever seen—except for when I tell Aya she can’t have any more ice cream.”

Justine shook her head. “It’s nothing. I’m going to go grab another tote.”

She left his room and made haste down to the living room. She knew he was behind her even though his footsteps didn’t thunder down the stairs and he never said a word. She didn’t acknowledge him when she picked up another tote and passed him in the living room on her way to the stairs. He followed her and they reconvened back in his bedroom.

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