Page 48 of Life To My Flight

His face was dripping sweat, mingling with that on his chest, and running down the ridged muscles of his abs to disappear in the waistband of his boxers.

“You did pretty good. Got a mile out of you at least,” he grinned.

As he got closer, I could see each individual rivulet of sweat roll.

I’d never been a fan of sweat.

It was bad enough when I did it, but just then, with Cleo all sweaty and sexy as if he’d just had sex for hours, I was turned on beyond belief.

“I tried,” I managed to get out.

“You did good. Proud of you,” he said as he took my hand and started walking back to his house.

Now that I wasn’t dying of hypoxia, I started to take in the road we’d been running on.

“This is a nice area. When did you move in here?” I asked.

He smiled fondly. “I bought it a couple of years ago. I didn’t move in here until last month. A couple of the MC members helped me out by replacing the floors and the roof, making it livable.”

“What I saw of it was really great. More than livable,” I supplied.

He grabbed my hand suddenly and veered off the road, taking a path that led into the woods.

“I’ve been fixing stuff here and there since I’ve been home. I just finished my bedroom two weeks ago. The bathroom a week before that. The kitchen, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired,” he spoke as we walked, leading me along a winding path through a deep thicket of woods.

“Wow,” I said. “Where are you taking me?”

“I own all this property on this side of the road. A little over sixty acres. I used most of my mom’s life insurance money to buy it. Now I’m using the rest of what she left me to fix it up,” he said just as the path we were on started jutting downward.

He held out his hand, and I took it gratefully as I maneuvered my tired legs over the uneven ground.

“Is there some water around here somewhere?” I asked, as I smelled the distinct scent of algae and plant life.

“Yep. My property runs along Twelve Mile Bayou. I share my backyard with a couple hundred gators,” he teased.

I looked at him crossly. “You know how I feel about them.”

He grinned unrepentantly. “Yeah, I do.”

I hated alligators. They were ugly, vile creatures.

They were also the reason I’d lost my childhood dog, Cinderella.

I’d seen the whole debacle and had formed a lifelong commitment to hating anything and everything that had to do with alligators.

“It’s a good thing I’m in Shreveport then. There’s no way I could live out here. You’d have to put up a fence or something to keep them from coming into the yard. Then you’d be out a bunch of money,” I said as we finally made it close enough for me to see the water.

He turned to me, looking at me oddly.

However, he didn’t say anything, just continued to scan my face for something.

“What?” I asked.

“I’d build you a fence,” he said suddenly.

My heart started to pound.

“Cleo,” I started, but he interrupted me.

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