Page 44 of Becoming Mila
Blake drifts a few inches closer to me, his damp shoulder touching my knee. Then, he takes me entirely by surprise and rests his temple against the side of my thigh. He gazes innocently up at me, surely unaware that my heart is now hammering in my chest. His deep brown eyes, framed by those wet lashes, are intoxicating. They draw me in, our gazes transfixed, until all the air seeps out of my lungs.
“I’m going to give myself sunburn,” I splutter, plucking my hat from his damp hair and nestling it back onto my head. I don’t even mind the sogginess – I’m just relieved to focus on anything other than the intensity of Blake’s smoldering eyes and the feeling of his resting head against my thigh. But yet I don’t shake him off.
My eyes roam the Willowbank ranch, flitting across the extensive fields much like those of the Harding Estate, until they land back on Savannah. She has lifted her hat an inch from her face and now peers out from beneath the brim with great interest. When she realizes I’ve noticed her attention, she drops it back over her face and pretends again to be asleep.
Blake’s gaze continues to bore into me, unnervingly relentless.
Ignoring the throbbing of my heartbeat, I swallow and look back down at him with forced indifference, as though cute boys resting their head practically in my lap isn’t a rarity. My fingers twitch with the overwhelming urge to touch his wet hair.
Blake’s easy smile deepens into a grin.
“What?”
He lifts his head from my thigh and says, “You’re nervous.”
“Nervous? Why would I – why would I be nervous?” I say breezily with a strained laugh, but the hitch in my voice shreds any hope of being convincing. My hand finds my cap again, anxiously pulling the bill down over my eyes. A dead giveaway that I instantly regret.
“Because. . . you hold your breath when I do this,” Blake says in a hushed, flirtatious undertone.
He rests his cheek against the side of my thigh once more, his eyes locked on mine. My breath catches in my throat again when, beneath the cool water, he skims his fingertips over my skin. Seductively and so slowly it’s torturous, he runs his hand all the way up my bare leg.
“Do I make you nervous, Mila?” he whispers.
Electricity fizzes through my veins. It’s a current of sizzling, rapid heat that radiates all through my body, working its way outward from the point of Blake’s touch. He clasps his hand around my leg, just beneath my knee, and I momentarily freeze. My heartbeat is erratic and out of sync. I part my lips to speak, but words rise in my throat only to fade into nothing.
“Do I make you hold your breath?” Blake murmurs with a teasing glint in his eye. He lifts his head from my thigh again, but his hand remains on my leg. He edges in closer and presses his hard, broad chest against me. “I love that I do.”
I can’t tear my eyes away from him – he’s so close now –
“Hello sweet, sweet Mila!”
Both Blake and I start at the sound of another voice, an abrupt reminder that we aren’t alone. Blake quickly drifts away, his touch disappearing from my body, and innocently shakes the water out of his hair. I finally tear my attention from him and twist around to find Patsy working her way toward us.
“I didn’t know you were here!” she says cheerfully, stopping at the pool’s edge.
“I was – um – I was dropping off a cake,” I blurt. “But Bailey ate it.” I grimace over at the greedy pup who’s still lying in the shade beneath the tree, overfed and snoozing, then look apologetically up at Patsy. “Sheri made it for you guys, so can you maybe. . . Can you maybe tell her that you loved it? It was an apple stack cake.”
Patsy places her hands on her hips in sync with the rolling of her eyes. “Well, first, how about you tell Sheri to drag her butt out of that ranch and join me for coffee sometime? It’s been too long!”
“Mom,” Savannah nearly growls from the loungers. Miraculously, she’s now awake again, sitting bolt upright and waving her hat in the air like an SOS sign. “Can you bring us some popsicles?”
“Treated like a butler around here, I am!” Patsy huffs, but nonetheless turns on her heels to fulfill Savannah’s request.
I fire Savannah a suspicious look. She winks, lays down, and flips her cowboy hat back over her face and resumes “sleeping” while no doubt eavesdropping on every word that is exchanged between Blake and me.
“Where’s your phone?” Blake asks, drawing my attention back to only him.
I can’t decide if I’m relieved or disappointed that the heated moment between us is gone.
“Here.” I touch my phone on the ground next to me. “Why?
“Myles! Come over here for a second!” he yells with a wild wave of his arm.
Myles, who I, quite honestly, have forgotten is in the pool, bursts from the water and runs his hands through his glistening strawberry blond hair. Curiosity draws his eyebrows together and he swims over to join us.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you think it’s a little lonely in this pool?” Blake asks.
