Page 50 of Inevitable
He was silent for a moment and I held my breath.
“Go swim,” Brock insisted as the guys arrived at our spot. “We’ll give you some time before we start getting things ready to go on the grill.”
I looked at the men gratefully.
All of them were dressed in swim trunks and a T-shirt.
A few female heads had turned admiring glances their way when the four of them had jogged down to the beach.
I was used to that.
The four of them together were a breathtaking sight to some women.
There wasn’t a single one of them that didn’t have a ripped body and handsome faces that drew female eyes wherever they went.
Seth was the only blonde, and he had a few scars that nobody seemed to notice except him.
I suppose they were all stunningly gorgeous, but I’d never seen them as anything other than sometimes annoying but beloved younger brother figures.
I adored every one of them, but they fussed a little too much about my safety sometimes.
I indulged them because I knew they only did it because they considered me a close friend.
Honestly, I was grateful that they’d cared enough to insist that I check in every day from Lania.
If they hadn’t, it may have taken longer for them to realize that I was missing.
I took a deep breath and lifted my sundress over my head.
Honestly, I wasn’t all that brave about revealing my older and plumper body to Colin.
He’d seen me when I was a lot thinner, and at one of the few times in my life when I’d actually looked decent in a bikini.
I was nervous, but I was determined to bring this man out of his shell.
I folded my sundress and dropped it onto the blanket.
There was no way I was stuffing my body into a bikini anymore. The modest one-piece was revealing enough for the forty-five-year-old and heavier me.
It felt weird for me to be self-conscious. I’d accepted who I was and how I looked a long time ago. As long as I was healthy, my fuller body had never really bothered me. I did have PCOS and being at a low weight just wasn’t sustainable for me. I liked food far too much to starve myself into a thinner body. I exercised and stayed as fit as I could be. I’d always been content with that.
But that was before I was standing in front of Colin, a man who was used to me having a lighter, more attractive body and a more youthful appearance.
I swallowed hard and consoled myself with the fact that he couldn’t see the faded stretch marks on my belly from carrying our daughter.
I watched, my body tense as he took off his sunglasses and dropped them onto the blanket.
His gaze met mine before he pulled the T-shirt over his head and dropped that too.
My heart skittered as my eyes roamed over his muscular chest and abs.
Seriously, how was it possible that he still looked as fit as he had when he was in the military?
He really hadn’t changed much.
He still wore his hair military short, and he’d shaved the scruff off his face that he’d gotten from our time in Lania.
The man was ridiculously gorgeous.
