Page 15 of Holding Out

“No,” said Becca.“Is hetallerthan Jake?”

“I know, right?”Alia said.“That first picnic you and I came to, Sam was so skinny you could have snapped him like a toothpick.”

“I love it,” Becca said.“It’s probably my favorite thing about these picnics.Seeing the kids grow up, and change.”She sighed.Seeing the families warmed her heart—and also set off a wave of longing.She wanted a family, too, someday.If she could ever do some growing up and changing of her own, and stop exclusively dating self-involved pricks.

“Not the hunky servicemen?”Alia teased.

“That, too,” Becca said, grinning.

She couldn’t help it, her eyes sought one in particular, not for the first time that day.

She’d been tryingnotto watch Griff all afternoon, but wherever he went, she knew where he was.Chatting with Jake, throwing his head back as he roared with laughter or listening intently as Jake told a story.Tossing a football back and forth with Sam, thick biceps and triceps appearing where his T-shirt rode up his sculpted arm.

Nate came over with a fussy Robbie in his arms.

“I think this dude desperately needs a nap,” he said.

“I got it,” Becca said.“You guys go get some food.”

Alia and Nate shot Becca looks of gratitude, but then Alia, ever the big sister, said, “What about you?”

“I’ll jiggle him till he passes out and then—can I put him in the stroller?”

“Perfect,” Alia said, sounding relieved.“Thankyou.I can’t even express how much having you here this weekend is helping.I feel eighty percent more like an actual human being.”

Becca did what she’d said she would, bouncing and jiggling Robbie against her shoulder until he melted into a puddle of baby sleep.Then she found where Nate and Alia had parked the stroller under a tree and settled him in.He stirred and for a moment she thought he was going to wake and spoil her plan, but he sighed heavily and relaxed his fat little body into the curve of the bucket seat.

She looked up and her eye caught Griff, leaning against a tree not too far away, watching the Frisbee game, a half-smile on his face.She knew she should look away, but she couldn’t take her eyes off his broad chest and narrow hips, the way his jeans outlined his solid thighs, the scruff clinging to his jawline.

It didn’t make any sense.If anything, his rejection of her the other night should have made himlessappealing.She didn’t want to be the kind of woman who wanted a guy just because he didn’t want her.But the truth was, that might have been part of it.

What had he said?

What kind of idiot would turn down the chance to be a girl’s first time?

But then he had.

She knew what he’d meant.He’d meant,What kind of guy would turn down the chance to be the firstfor the woman he’s dating.He hadn’t meant guys should be lining up to take V-cards from random women in need of deflowering.

He wasn’tJondalar.

He didn’t have the giant schlong of wonder and he wouldn’t ride her the way the stallion had ridden the mare as Ayla watched—

Okay, enough withTheValley of Horses.One reason she was still a virgin was because she harbored these unrealistic fantasies around sex.She had to let them go, along with her childish expectations that her own Westley was going to rush in and give her life meaning.New Becca was a realist, and she would make things happen for herself.

She couldn’t quite forget, though, that something hot had flared in Griff’s eyes when she’d thrown down her gauntlet.Fine.I’ll find someone else.

She hadn’treallymeant it.She wasn’t on some kind of mission.She’d just had that impulsive and probably ill-advised idea that Griff could pocket her V-card and simplify her dating life.When she’d said she’d find someone else, she’d mostly just been needling Griff because she was, well, a tiny bit hurt that he hadn’t found the proposition appealing.

But Griff hadn’t liked that.His eyes had told her so, clearly.

7

Griff watched as Becca wound her way toward him at the food table.She heaped her plate with egg salad, macaroni salad, green salad, corn on the cob, buttered bread—

Any woman who could eat like that had to have a good appetite in other arenas, too.

See, this was the thing.Ever since she’d made him think about what she had and hadn’t done with that curvy body of hers, he’d been seeing her in a whole new and extremely inconvenient light.

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