Page 47 of And I Love Her

“Did you want something to drink before we go?” She lifted her arms to fasten her hair back into a ponytail.

The move pushed her breasts against the front of her T-shirt, prompting Jake with a reminder of how they’d felt pressed against his chest. She’d have the same soft, creamy skin all over, but her nipples would be blossoms of color—pink or rose or maybe some shade of peach…and what would she taste like when he—

“Jake?”

He jerked his attention to her face, trying to suppress the heat pooling in his groin. “What?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “I asked if you wanted something to drink, but you were too busy staring at my breasts to respond.”

Embarrassment heated his neck. “Uh, I wasn’t…okay, yes, I was. Sorry. You’re just so damned pretty. And sexy.”

Her eyes widened with faint surprise. “You think I’m…” She paused and cleared her throat. “Uh, thank you.”

To deflect attention from his growing fascination with everything about her, he nodded at the print of the boardwalk and picked up his camera. “I took a picture almost exactly like that this morning.”

After scrolling through the images on the viewfinder, he found the shot and showed it to her.

“It’s lovely.” Callie peered at the small image. “The sunrise colors are gorgeous.”

“I like playing with color and light in photography. It’s an interesting way to convey a mood and draw people in. Maybe even to see part of the world in a way we usually take for granted.”

She followed his gaze to the black-and-white print on the wall. “Did you know all the white marble Greek and Roman statues we admire so much today were originally painted vivid colors?”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Color was incredibly important to Greek and Roman sculptors, for the reasons you just said. They saw the world in color and wanted to convey the dynamism and mood of the subject. Color was a way of drawing people closer. In the Euripides tragedyHelen of Troy, Helen hints that they actually disliked unpainted statues. She says, ‘If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect…the way you would wipe color off a statue.’ But when the sculptures were discovered during the Renaissance, a lot of the paint had worn off and scholars started lauding the beauty of the white marble. Now, classicists are reviving the concept that the sculptures were originally bright and colorful.”

“That’s fascinating.”

“Yes.” She glanced at the black-and-white photo again and twisted her mouth wryly. “As a Classicist myself, maybe it’s strange that I don’t have much around here that’s colorful.”

“My sister would call your design scheme neutral.” Jake shrugged. “I guess there’s a lot to be said for that too. But I have to say that it doesn’t really seem likeyou.”

“I’ve never really thought about color before. I don’t even think I noticed. I just buy stuff that’s neat and practical.” She fingered the hem of her brown shirt. “Because I’m neat and practical, I guess.”

“Hey.” He closed the distance between them and tucked his hand under her chin. “I didn’t mean you should change. I lov…really like you the way you are. It’s just that when you smile, your eyes light up with gold and silver, and when you blush, your cheeks turn all different shades of red and pink. Even your laugh is colorful, as if it’s bright purple or blue…and it just seems like everything you have should match who youare.”

She stared at him, her throat working with a swallow. He ran his thumb over her lower lip, suppressing the intense urge to kiss her again. If he kissed her now, in her house, he’d want to keep going as far as she’d let him.

As much as he wanted more of Callie—hell, he wanted everything she had to give—that was a hard line he wouldn’t cross. He’d never taken a woman to bed with a lie between them, and he sure as hell wouldn’t start with this one.

Washe lying, though? He’d asked her out because of his deal with Eleanor, but he’d been attracted to Callie and wanted to seek her out before he even set foot in Sugar Joy. The Eleanor bargain had just given him a good excuse to make the move.

And now? He was beginning to wish he didn’t have to leave Bliss Cove in less than three weeks. He wanted to spend all the time with Callie that he could.

“I’ll be right back.” Callie slipped away from him and walked back to her bedroom.

Jake’s shoulders tightened. He’d offended her. Made her think he didn’t like her exactly as she was, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. If anything, he was trying to ignore a persistent voice thathewas the problem here.

An action-movie star wasn’t good enough for a brilliant Classics professor. They were having fun now, but he didn’t have whatever it would take to sustain her interest. Even Eleanor had said they’d be mismatched as a real dating couple.

“Is this better?” Callie reappeared, knotting the tails of a shirt around her waist. She still wore the white T-shirt, but she’d replaced the brown shirt with a pink button-down that brought a rosy glow to her skin. “This has been in my closet for ages. I can’t even remember where I got it.”

“It’s pretty.” Jake shoved his hands into his pockets to stop himself from reaching for her. “But you don’tneedto wear pink, Callie. I mean, I was trying to—”

“Hey.” A crease formed on her brow, and she placed her hand on his chest. “I wasn’t offended. What you said was lovely. I like color, of course. The red book bag…my father gave that to me the first day of my freshman year in high school. I was so nervous because I wanted to go to Harvard even then, and I knew my freshman year was when I had to start working as hard as I could. So the book bag became kind of a good-luck charm all through high school. But I guess now I don’t think about color very often. Maybe I should start.” She gave a little shrug. “So thanks for mentioning it.”

The tension in Jake’s chest eased. “For the record, you could wear a paper bag…or nothing at all…and I’d still want to kiss you every chance I got.”

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