Page 77 of Beauty and the Bayou

The woman had decided to spend time on the bayou, so she’d looked up what it was like to live down here.She’d missed a few things, but when she’d found the mosquito stats she hadn’t run back to Virginia.She’d bought mosquito netting.And hung the damned thing herself, the first time anyway.He was sure she would have figured out how to get the bat out of her room if he hadn’t been there, too.

She might not be a bayou girl.She might seem like the last person who could live down here.The lifestyle here was laid-back and take-it-as-it-comes.Perfectionists and planners weren’t really nurtured here.There was simply too much that was unpredictable about living on the bayou, or honestly, life in general.But she’d handle whatever came up.He really liked that.

And in the middle of all of this wild-and-weird stuff she was encountering down here, she was reaching out and linking her pinky with his, helping him handle his stuff, too.

Fuck, he wanted her.

He might have grabbed the back of her pants and kept her from going over the edge of the dock that first day, but he felt like he’d been the one dangling over the edge off the dock—metaphorically—for the past few months and she was now the one with the firm grip onhim.

She glanced up at him as he set down his saw.He took a step toward her, reached for the bottle of sunscreen she had resting on top of a stack of wood to his right, and then reached for the bottom of his shirt, stripped it up his body and over his head.He squirted a little lotion into his palm and began rubbing it over his lower abs.

His neck, back, and shoulders were a lot more at risk of sunburn than his abs, but that wasn’t really the point here.

Juliet started to set her saw down as well but missed the edge of the board where she was trying to put it.Because her eyes were riveted on his hand.Exactly as he’d intended.The saw tipped and fell to the grass.She jumped to the side so that it would miss her toe and in doing so, she knocked into the sawhorse holding the board she’d been working on.The board flew up, just the way she’d said it could the first day—he wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it himself—along with the metal ruler she’d been using to measure.The ruler glanced off her safety goggles making her flinch, then freeze.

It all happened within seconds, of course, but it was quite a chain of events.And he’d be a liar if he said that he didn’t feel a little smug about causing it.He liked having an effect on her.She sure as hell had one on him.

Sawyer watched her squeeze her eyes shut and take a deep breath, then she set down the pencil she was holding, picked up the board that had fallen, set the saw on top of it.And returned to measuring as if nothing had happened.

Sawyer grinned and moved around the end of the board she was marking and then up close to her.Close enough she could easily smell the sunscreen.

“What are you doing?”she asked, without looking up.But she had stopped measuring.And maybe breathing.

“Remembering how to be the old Sawyer.”

“Oh.”She looked up at him.Kind of.

She looked at his pecs anyway.And his shoulders.And abs.And arms.And back to his pecs.And down at his abs again.

“And what does that mean exactly?”she asked.

“It means getting some sun, getting a little sweaty, flirting with a gorgeous woman I want badly.And having some fun.”He paused.Then held out the bottle of sunscreen.“Help me put this on?”

Juliet wet her lips and her eyes finally made it back to meet his.“Smear lotion all over your naked chest and back with my bare hands?”

Heat arced through him.“Yeah.”

“That does sound like fun.”

He gave her a slow smile.“I’m happy to run my hands over your bare body in return.”

She held up her arms.“Long sleeves.”

“We can fix that.”God, he wanted to fix that.

“I think I need to be very careful to keep all of my safety stuff on when you’re around, as evidenced by the fact that I literally could have put a metal ruler in my eye a minute ago without the safety goggles.”

“I might need to take sharp objects away,” he agreed.Then he popped the top of the lotion bottle.Because he needed her hands on him.Now.

She pulled her work gloves off, turned her hands palm up, cupping them slightly, and held them out.

Sawyer squeezed lotion into them, then watched as she rubbed her hands together, her eyes again running over his torso.

“You okay?”

“Just trying to decide where to start.”

He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrists, tugging her forward.She tripped over the board on the grass and her hands ended up splayed on his chest.

---