Page 49 of Follow Your Bliss

Holy mother of God.I hadn’t even gone into the water, and I waswet. His other hand took up the same position on the opposite hip, and he slipped his thumbs in one perfect circle on my lower back. I bit my lip and held in a whimper.

“What about you?” Jason’s gruff voice near my ear sent a fresh wave of chills across me.

“Uh…hmm?” Words were not possible, not the way his hand was slipping under my bikini’s back strap.

“What are you doing on the beach?” Both of his hands rubbed down my sides.

“Ohhh,” I murmured lustily, rolling it into anumto try and save face. “Probably just read. You?” I turned my left ear toward him.

Wait—I asked him that already.

His hands gently grasped my wrists and brought them down by my sides, releasing me but still standing close behind me. My hair whipped free in the gulf wind, and I seriously considered asking him to get my chest.

“Uh, maybe swim,” he said softly. “Go for a run. Read. I don’t know.”

I glanced over my shoulder at him. His gaze was soft, vulnerable. Smiling, I looked away and down. “Cool.”

“Okay,” he chuckled. “Cool.”

“Cool,” I repeated stupidly.

“I’m gonna cool off in the water.” He dropped the sunblock on the blanket and took off jogging toward the gulf like he couldn’t get away fast enough.

I settled into a chaise, keeping my eyes on his retreating backside. The muscles on his back moved as he raised his arms and dove low into the waves. Jason would skip straight to a Level Two boyfriend with that sexy golden retriever energy. It could get so messy with me living there, though. I’d only planned to stay a few months when I moved in, but now the thought of leaving that little slice of heaven made my stomach hurt.

The thought of not hanging out with Jason also made my stomach hurt.

And the thought of him rubbing lotion on some other woman’s back made my chest acheandmy stomach hurt.

I tapped into my phone and opened up Heather’s latest romance novel rec,To Plunder a Pirate. But my eyes stayed on Jason, and my phone went to sleep without me reading a word.

He came out of the water. From behind my sunglasses, I watched rivulets of water snake down his muscles as he got closer. My gaze tracked the hair leading from his belly button down to the generous curve of his sex in those swim shorts, and my bottom clenched thinking about it wedged between my ass cheeks this morning.

I grabbed my iPad from my bag and tapped into my working file for Mom’s dress. That would keep me cooler than reading smut. Of the designs I sent her last night, she liked the mermaid silhouette best, so now I was trying to work out the train.

“Miss me?” Jason grabbed the towel and wrapped up in it, sitting in the chaise beside me and grabbing a water from the ice chest.

“Of course,” I murmured.Don’t look at how cute his hair is wet.

He shook his hair once like a dog, and seawater sprinkled all over me.

“Hey now, let’s watch that stuff.” I yanked the corner of his towel toward me and dried my cheek.

“I’m sorry!” He blotted at the top of my head, in my ear, tickled the corner of it into my neck.

I giggled and pulled away. “Stop!”

“I didn’t want to drip on my phone.” He crumpled the towel in his lap and pulled his phone from his bag.

I raised my eyebrows. “But it’s okay to get me all wet?”

His dimples dug deeper as he shrugged at my double entendre and laid back with his phone.

But he’d completely broken my concentration with the beads of water still glistening on his skin. “What’re you looking at that’s so engaging?”

He smiled more intently at his phone, his face reddening. But he didn’t answer.

“Evasive much?” I dipped my fingertips into the melting ice chest and flicked cold droplets at his chest.

---