Page 64 of Attached At Heart
“Maybe we should head inside, Blake.”
The wind was strong, billowing around us. It ruffled Blake’s hair. He swallowed hard but shook his head. His eyes finally found mine, and I saw apprehension flash through them.
“I won’t go in the sea,” I promised. “Wewon’t go in the sea. Okay?”
He exhaled, and when his body relaxed, so did mine. “Yeah, okay.”
“If you don’t want to go inside, I wouldn’t mind dipping into this hot tub.” I walked over to the edge of it, dropping to test the steamy water with my fingers before glancing back at him. “Join me?”
I hoped he’d say yes because I didn’t want to leave him alone when he looked like he did right now, a bit like he might be sick.Although maybe rest was what he needed. Close his eyes. Take a load off his shoulders.
“Unless you wanted to lie down?” I added, desperately trying to deduce what he needed right now. “If that bed’s calling your name, you can take it.”
“No, I—” His voice was hoarse, and he clamped his mouth shut before trying again. “I don’t think I could sleep right now. I shouldn’t.” His gaze shifted back to the sea, seemingly worried I’d disappear into it if he didn’t pay close enough attention. “Because of the…jet lag, you know?” he added when he looked back at me. “The hot tub sounds really good.”
“Make sense,” I said softly. “Hot tub it is, then.”
Blake’s hooded eyes followed me as I straightened to walk back toward him, and it was at that moment that I realized how my proposition for him to join me might have come across. That realization should have made me second-guess it. All of it, all of this. But I didn’t feel that way at all.
“Should we go put on our swimsuits?” I prompted when Blake remained unmoving, unspeaking.
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t pack a suit, but I’ll wear my shorts.”
And then he turned to go change.
Blake and I had always done a good job of maintaining boundaries as friends.
But Blake and I had also always done a good job of remaining completely clothed in each other’s presence.
Until now.
I’d already downed a whole glass of wine from the complimentary bottle the hosts had left us and let the hot tub jets lull me into semi-consciousness by the time Blake emerged onto the deck in his shorts and nothing else.
As soon as I saw him, I woke the fuck up.
I was aware that Blake London was attractive. I was also aware that I’d felt attraction to him before, even if I was good at burying it. Little flutters that I brushed off as a natural bodily reaction to someone who looked like he did. A spark that burned a little brighter than the others when we teased each other and he smiled that uncommon smile at me.Mysmile.
But it didn’tmeananything. It was just a bit of chemistry that had always translated into friendship and nothing more.
But this—what I was experiencing right now—wasn’t a flutter. And it wasn’t a spark.
A fully formed flame lit inside me at the sight of him sauntering toward me with shorts riding low on his hips, the sinking sun shining a spotlight on every one of his defined muscles. He pushed a hand through his hair, trying to get the strands out of his face.
My cheeks flushed. Maybe it was the hot tub. Or the wine. Or the lack of sleep. Or, most likely, it was a combination of all of it that was making me so attuned to how fucking good Blake looked right now.
He was my husband. In most dimensions, it was considered appropriate to thirst after one’s husband, right?
Except Blake and I lived in an entirely different dimension—one where marriage was simply a means to an end. And, in reality, we were just friends who shared a last name. And I shouldn’t be looking at him like this or feeling less-than-friendly things.
“Delaney?”
“Sorry.” I snapped myself out of it with a shake of a head, and my cheeks burned hotter. “Did you say something?”
Blake’s lips tilted as he slid into the hot tub. “I asked if you wanted another glass of wine.”
And because I needed something to do other than just stare at my husband, I waved away his question. “I’ll get it.”
Butgetting itmeant I had to pass Blake to climb out of the hot tub, and my skin brushed against his beneath the water. I wasn’t even sure which part of my body had touched which part of his because I felt that little bit of contacteverywhere. There wasn’t a single cell in my body that wasn’t reverberating with heat at the moment, and while I wanted to blame the hot, steaming water, I knew I couldn’t.
