Page 100 of Dead Set on You
I almost barrel into him as he slows to a stop, hands on his hips. The wind ruffles his hair, and the moonlight makes him seem younger than his (newly) thirty-five years.
A blush creeping up my face, I turn my attention to the water. Lake Michigan is beautiful in daytime, but at nighttime, there’s something almost frightening about its enormity. Unlike Rafael, I love the water, the way it makes me feel, like I’m connected to all the other people who stand in it. Big and small, all at once. Now I wish I could dip into it, will its cool depths to soothe me.
“What are we doing here?” I ask.
Rafael turns a positively wicked gaze in my direction. He rubs his palms together. The wind attempts to braid his hair into knots. And yes, I’m also jealous of the wind.
“For someone who’s devoted her life to obsessing over me, I’m surprised you haven’t caught on,” he says.
“Obsessed with you?” I balk.
“I won’t tell a soul.” He winks, standing oh-so-close to me, and my breath hitches in my throat. His lips lift to one side, and the feeling of imploding spreads.
“You’re ridiculous when you drink.”
He leans closer, his eyes dark orbs. “I think you mean ravenous.”
“I—no,” I begin to say, but his hands move to the hem of his shirt and begin to pull upward, revealing bits of tanned skin.
Alarm makes me stumble backward, and I’m not sure if he’s talking about him or me being ravenous.
I gawk at him, mouth dry.
“What are you doing?” My voice rises in pitch as he tugs the shirt over his head and tosses it onto the sand.
“Undressing.” He begins to unfasten the belt at his waist. Hisbarewaist.
“Undressing?”
“Sí.”
I’m feeling hot and cold, confused and aroused. Someone’s pulled my hormonal fire alarm, and it’s going haywire. I hold ahand to my head and breathe in and out. It sounds like wheezing. “Why?”
He stops midway through unzipping his pants and considers me like I’m the one who’s undressing on a beach in the middle of the night. “Your bucket list.” He holds my gaze as if willing the list to telepathically transfer to my brain. It’s hard to think about all the items on the exhaustive list when all I can focus on is the lean muscles of his torso. The sugar skull tattoo wrapping around his toned bicep. The tanned skin stretched taut over his thighs (and all the way to the other side of them).
And then it hits me, like being knocked over by a powerful wave or a lightning bolt, either of which would be much appreciated at this moment.
Bucket list item #72.
Skinny-dipping in Lake Michigan.
A bucket list item born of too much cabernet sauvignon and originated by the perpetrator of all troublesome ideas: Gemma.
“No, no, no,” I say, stumbling backward with my arms thrown out, needing him to stop from going further.
His pants drop to the ground.
Oh. God.
If there’s ever been a moment for me to finish dying, it’s now.
Or maybe in a minute.
I assess the length of his body, trailing my gaze over the lines of his lean muscles because my conscience has joined my body on that hospital bed. I force my eyes to focus on his face. His smug face.
Rafael’s hands are on his hips, on which his boxer briefs hang very, very low. He watches me expectantly. “Well?”
“Please … put your clothes on,” I choke out, past the fiery knot in my throat, while Rafael’s standing in the sand like one of Michelangelo’sDavids.
