Prologue #3
I tried to laugh, but it came out shaky. “Good,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure what I meant by it. My toes curled against the warm wood of the dock, and all I could hear was the beat of my own heart and the crickets buzzing over by the water’s edge.
His gaze traveled over me like a lit match, igniting something dangerous beneath my skin as we stood watching each other.
“All right,” he said with a deep breath before finally turning away from me. “I’m getting in.”
He walked to the edge of the dock, then looked back at me over his shoulder. “You coming?”
Before I could answer, he hooked his thumbs in his boxers and shoved them down.
“Hunter!” I laughed, shielding my eyes but leaving enough space between my fingers to see his bare ass as he stretched.
“What’s wrong?” he asked with a chuckle. “Tonight’s the perfect night for skinny dipping.” He grinned before he dove off the edge of the dock and into the lake.
The splash echoed into the dusk as he vanished beneath the surface.
I stood on the dock, staring after him as the last shards of light pooled golden across the lake and Hunter’s broad back as he surfaced.
Water slicked his skin, running down the muscles of his shoulders, and he shook his hair out of his eyes with an easy, reckless smile as he turned back to face me.
Hunter Calloway was right there in front of me, completely naked beneath the water, and he didn’t seem to be bothered by that fact at all.
But me?
I was so damn bothered.
I was an absolute mess. My skin felt alive as I tried to breathe through my rising panic, and the sound of Hunter’s soft laughter did nothing to help it.
His fingers broke the surface, sending ripples across the water that lapped against his bare chest. “Come on, Mags,” he said so lowly that the words seemed to vibrate through every inch of me.
“Aren’t you the one who just said you can hang?
” His eyes traveled deliberately down my body before coming back up and meeting mine, one corner of his mouth lifting.
“Unless you’re scared I’ll see something you don’t want me to see. ”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re such a child.”
He shrugged, but his smile softened, just a little. “You’re overthinking it, Mags.” His voice was low and intimate, like there was no one else in the world but the two of us, and I hated him for it. “You don’t have to go skinny dipping if you’re scared. Just jump in.”
I wanted to prove to him that I wasn’t scared, but my heart hammered against my ribs like it was trying to escape.
One night. That’s all this was. One reckless summer night that would dissolve by morning.
But standing there, watching the water slide down his skin, I knew the truth.
Hunter Calloway belonged to my sister’s past despite how desperately I wanted it to be different.
He couldn’t belong to her past and my future.
Beyond Hunter the sun sank into the mountains, staining the sky orange, and the air hung heavy around us, electric with the summer storm that had been threatening to make an appearance since this morning.
Half of me was ready to dive into the lake where Hunter waited, but the other half had already counted the steps to his discarded jeans, my fingers itching to grab my keys and flee to the safety of my truck.
If I stayed, I’d cross a line that could never be uncrossed. Hunter and Ella were no longer together, but she would never forgive me. It had been Ella and I against the world for so long, and the thought of betraying her like this made me sick.
But it still didn’t stop me from wanting him.
Hunter’s voice dropped to a rasp. “It’s just me, Maggie.”
My gaze met his, and everything between us, years of wanting what wasn’t mine to want, slammed into me.
Just me.
As if Hunter Calloway hadn’t been a constant, infuriating fixture in my life since I’d moved to Willow Grove.
I’d spent the last two years pretending that Hunter was just another guy in this town, a friend despite what my sister had done, and I’d gotten good at it.
Until he stood at the end of this dock bare-assed and daring me to be reckless right along with him.
I stared into his brown eyes, and there was nothing in them but the slow, patient burn of a man who knew exactly what he was doing to me. I could feel the flush rise up my neck and the sweat slick down my back despite the cooling air.
“Fine,” I said, planting my hands on my hips and trying to summon every ounce of bravado I’d ever possessed. “But cover your eyes, and don’t you dare look.”
His smile spread across his face, and something hot curled low in my belly.
“You have my word,” he said, lifting his hands in surrender before pressing them over his eyes.
I glared at him for good measure, then walked to the edge of the dock. The water below shimmered gold and green, and my heart was a jackhammer in my chest, each beat loud enough to drown out the crickets and the low, throaty drawl of Hunter’s voice.
“Not looking,” Hunter called, but his fingers spread just enough that I could see his eyes through them.
I rolled mine and turned away from him, letting my hair fall down my back as I reached behind me and unhooked the clasp of my bra.
The evening air kissed my bare skin, raising goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold.
I dropped it onto the dock and glanced over my shoulder, catching Hunter’s eyes through his splayed fingers.
His gaze traveled down the curve of my spine, lingering at my waist, and the heat in his stare bloomed low in my belly.
There should have been a part of me that was pissed that he was watching me, but all I could think about was how his calloused hands would feel tracing the path his eyes were taking now.
My fingers trembled at the hem of my underwear, hesitating before I finally slid them down my thighs.
I kicked them into the pile with my other clothes, painfully aware of Hunter’s gaze burning across my skin.
I hugged an arm across my chest, and I counted to three inside my head as my heart crashed around inside my chest.
I looked down at my pile of clothes, and then at Hunter, waiting in the water like he had all the time in the world for me to figure myself out.
“You look like you’re about to rob a bank, not jump in the lake. What’s the worst that could happen?”
What was the worst that could happen?
I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut as I turned and jumped.
The water hit me, and everything else disappeared. I sank under the water and the world turned blue-green and muffled as my feet hit the bottom. I surfaced with a soft gasp, hair plastered to my face, and I wiped the water from my eyes just in time to see Hunter laughing.
“I have to admit, Maggie.” He treaded through the water easily, arms moving slowly and smoothly over the surface. “I would have put money on you chickening out.”
A laugh ripped out of me as water sluiced down over my shoulders, shock and heat colliding inside my chest. I shoved my hair off my face and glared at him. “Shows what you know about me, Calloway.”
Hunter drifted closer, the sun trailing over his face, and he looked so young in that moment. For a second, the urge to just float there forever and pretend nothing else in the world mattered overwhelmed me.
“Oh, I know plenty about you, Mags,” he said, and the way he said it made my skin prickle.
“You think so?” I tried to keep my tone light, but it came out thin and shaky.
He drifted closer, water rippling between us. “I know so,” he drawled. “Remember that night we all shared a bottle of Jack?”
I shot him a glare, pretending the memory didn’t send heat crawling over every inch of me.
It was one of the first nights we’d ever hung out without Ella around, and it was a night where I swear Hunter had looked at me like I wasn’t his girlfriend’s little sister.
“You swore you’d never bring that up again. ”
Hunter moved closer still, close enough that I could feel the water displaced by his body lapping against my skin. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“You’re an ass.” I backed up slightly, my foot scraping against a rock.
He spread his arms out, water rippling around his shoulders. “That’s a matter of opinion, darlin’.”
For fuck’s sake, why did that word sound so good falling from his lips?
“I’m nobody’s darlin’.” I splashed water in his direction, and he didn’t even try to avoid it. He just blinked slowly as it ran down his face, his eyes still fixed on me.
“Uh-huh.” The corner of his mouth lifted, and I realized I’d backed myself against the dock.
My back pressed against the warm wood, nowhere left to go but into him, and Hunter inched closer. He was close enough that I could feel the heat of him and the unspoken dare in his eyes.
“Are you always this stubborn or is it just for me?”
Heat flickered through me, and I looked down at the water, at the invisible line that was drawn between us that neither of us dared cross. The distance between us was carefully maintained. He was good at this. I was good at this, and I didn’t want to be good at it anymore.
We’d been practicing for over a year now, ever since Ella’s taillights disappeared down the highway and maybe even before then.
But the way Hunter was looking at me now? It made me wonder if he remembered what side he was supposed to be on.
I could taste the electricity between us, feel it out in the air, and on every inch of skin that prickled beneath his stare.
“I don’t know.” I shook my head gently. “You do like to piss me off.”
Hunter’s smile was absolutely infuriating. “What can I say? Something about you brings it out in me.”
I huffed, the water lapping at my collarbones with each breath, and his eyes tracked the movement like he was committing it to memory. The lake stretched between us, nothing but water and my want, and if I just extended my hand, my fingers would brush against his bare skin.
And God, I wanted to.