Page 57 of Forever & Always You
Austin looks sideways at me. His voice is soft, gorgeous, addictive. “Do you want us to be dating?”
“I don’t really care what we call it, just as long as we’resomethingand I haven’t deluded myself entirely,” I babble, feeling the heat blazing over my skin. I have no idea what we are right now.
“I don’t think we’re dating,” Austin says, placing his hand on my bare thigh and sending shockwaves through my body. “Dating is figuring out whether you actually like someone or not, right? But I’vealwaysliked you, Gabby, so .?.?. We’resomething.”
I nod in a distracted daze. “Okay.Something. Good. Also, I’m going to need you to retract your hand from my thigh.”
Austin’s smile stretches into a devious smirk as he runs his hand higher, his fingertips trailing over my inner thigh and brushing the frayed hem on my jean shorts. “You don’t like this?”
I grab his hand, nearly crushing his fingers beneath my tensed grip. “Austin Pierce, stop trying to seduce me.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s working.” I throw my head back into the headrest and groan out loud. I’m really starting to hate how easily the merethoughtof Austin turns me on, let alone when he touches me. “You think we’ll find a sand dune large enough to disappear behind for five minutes?”
“Can’t. Allergic to the beachgrass.”
“Damn allergies,” I mutter.
When we arrive at the beach, Zach and Claire are already there with Lily in tow, gathering lawn chairs out of their car. They were the only application for her, so they were able to take her home last night after Fiona from the shelter did some home checks.
“Lily!” I call, and the miniature poodle’s tiny head pops up in response to her name and she pulls hopelessly on her leash to run to me. “Hi, baby!”
“She’s stronger than she looks!” Claire says with a giggle as she gets dragged over.
I drop to my knees and fuss Lily, even accepting her vulture-breath kisses, and Austin scratches behind her ears. I like this arrangement—I now get to see Lily any time I want without having had to adopt her myself. Now that I think about it, I have an aunt in Virginia who is dog crazy .?.?. Maybe I should give her a call and see how she feels about adopting a nice Labrador named Teddy.
“How was your first night with her?” I ask, straightening up as a grumpy Zach approaches with a lawn chair tucked undereach arm.
“I rolled over in the middle of the night to give my fiancée a nice kiss on the cheek, only to open my eyes and realize I was kissing a fucking poodle. So, not that great,” Zach mutters, and Lily circles his feet, winding the leash around his legs.
My brows lift in surprise. “You let her in the bed?”
“I had no say in the matter.”
“She was whimpering,” Claire explains, sheepishly batting her eyelashes at Zach.
“If she can play fetch, she might just redeem herself,” he says, and as much as he acts like he detests poor Lily, it is clear in the gentle, thoughtful way he untangles her leash from around his legs that he secretly cares for her.
Claire scoops Lily up into her arms and follows Zach over to the beach, and as I set off in their tracks, Austin nudges his elbow into my ribs with a grin and says, “Lilylovesfetching balls.”
It’s the perfect day for the beach. Sunday, with clear skies but mild temperatures and a cool breeze, so it’s pretty packed. We find a quiet spot further along the golden sand—far, far away from any beachgrass—and set up chairs, a parasol and a cooler full of sodas.
“C’mon then, Zach, throw a ball for Lily,” Austin prompts, getting comfortable in a chair and watching in amusement from behind his sunglasses. Half the buttons on his shirt are open, revealing his tanned, trimmed chest, and I fight the urge to salivate. “Look at her. She’s dying to play.”
I sink down into the warm sand next to Austin’s chair, leaning back on my hands and stretching out my bare legs to catch a tan as Claire unclips Lily’s leash. Zach grabs a ball, hurls it out of sight down the beach—he was a football quarterback in high school, so still has a mean throw even a decade later—and breaks out into a joyful grin when Lily goes bounding after it. He andClaire cheer as the tiny poodle makes her return, ball in her mouth.
“This was a good idea,” I muse, watching Claire throw the ball this time—though not nearly as far—and then suddenly bolt upright. “Oh! Can you pass over my bag?”
Austin reaches for the backpack I filled before we left his house, but doesn’t hand it over. He searches inside until he finds a bottle of sunscreen, then holds it up suggestively. “Looking for this?”
“I don’t want to burn my noseagain.”
“Then stay still.”
He sits forward on the edge of the lawn chair and lathers a small amount of sunscreen in his hands. I whip off my sunglasses and tilt my chin up, my admiring gaze locked on his. Gently, he brushes his fingertips over my cheeks, my forehead, my nose, massaging the sunscreen into my skin. It makes my heart soar.
I don’tneedAustin to look after me, but it means a lot that hewantsto. My father was always the one who looked after me, and although I’m now twenty-four and independent and apparently a grown-up, sometimes I still crave that feeling of being young and protected.
