Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Dean wasn’t kidding. He led me through trees with hurried steps. His strides were confident, as if every twist and root in the path had already been memorized. The trail dipped beneath a canopy, and then sunlight flickered through the branches, dappling his shoulders in golden light.
I barely had time to catch my breath before the trees opened to another world.
A clearing spread before us, quiet and still, like a slice of heaven on earth.
At its center, a weathered dock reached out over the lake, the boards bleached silver by years of sun. The surface of the water shimmered, broken only by the shadows of dragonflies skipping across.
Dean didn’t pause. He released my hand, the sudden absence of his touch startling me, and strode to the edge of the dock.
His fingers hooked the hem of his shirt, and before I could process what he was doing, he tugged it over his head.
The fabric fell in a careless heap at his feet, followed quickly by his shoes.
Then his jeans.
The sound of the zipper seemed impossibly loud in the still air.
I blinked, heat rushing to my cheeks. One second, he was standing clothed in front of me—the next, he was nothing but lean muscle, tan skin, and a strip of black boxers before he dove headfirst into the lake.
The water swallowed him whole, a spray of sunlight and ripples in his wake. I stood frozen at the edge of the dock, staring after him.
What was I supposed to do? Follow him? Pretend anything that just happened between us was normal? That I didn’t still feel his kiss all the way to my core?
I shifted on my feet, chewing my lip, the summer air suddenly heavy and too warm. My gaze landed on his clothes in a heap on the dock. Everything that had happened in the last ten minutes played back through my mind. His grandmother, the easels, the man on the log, Dean barreling through the trees.
I let out a laugh. “This is insane,” I whispered under my breath, just as his head broke the surface of the water. He shook his head, and droplets sprayed from his dark hair, until he pushed it back, grinning up at me. “Come on,” he said, his voice deep and even. “The water is perfect.”
I looked down at my clothes. My sandals. At the glassy surface of the lake rippling softly around him. I should’ve said no. Should’ve shaken my head, stayed rooted right there on the dock. But instead, my fingers found the hem of my shirt, and I tugged it nervously.
“Turn around,” I said, my voice too thin, my heart hammering so loud I was sure he heard it.
He did, without hesitation. His broad back faced me, shoulders glistening with drops of lake water, muscles shifting as he treaded water.
My breath faltered as I stripped down to nothing but my bra and panties.
I jumped in before I could talk myself out of it. The water closed over my head, cool and shocking, the lake swallowing me whole until my feet grazed the bottom, and I pushed back up for air.
When I surfaced, he was there, floating on his back a few feet away.
His dark hair was slicked against his head, droplets trailing down the hard lines of his chest. The sight of him—bare, unguarded—knocked the breath right back out of me.
My stomach twisted, and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about our kiss.
How confident he’d been, like he knew exactly what he was doing—yet there was a gentleness, too. A type of coaxing that left my head dizzy and my mind whirling even now.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, his face now turned toward me.
I kicked my feet, putting more distance between us. “I was thinking about how I was almost discovered back there. Thank you for saving me.”
A smile curved its way through his mouth, but his eyes cut to mine, as though he didn’t quite believe me. “I’d just walked into the meeting when someone mentioned a nude model,” he said. “Didn’t take me long to figure out what was happening.”
A shaky laugh slipped out of me. “Can you imagine what they would have thought if I’d actually started painting? They would’ve known I was a fraud within seconds.”
We drifted as we talked, water carrying us little by little toward the shallows. The lake lapped soft against my shoulders, and when Dean stood, water streamed down his chest in sheets, catching the sun like glass. I swallowed hard. My own feet barely brushed the bottom.
“Sorry,” I said, pushing wet hair away from my face. “If you missed your meeting because of all that.”
He looked at me for a long moment before answering. “It’s fine.”
But it wasn’t fine, and we both knew it.
“The men in suits?” I asked. “Are they what your meeting was about today?”
His jaw shifted. “Yeah.”
“Was it important?”
He drew a slow breath, water lapping quietly in the wake between us, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he his gaze dropped—just briefly—to my mouth. “No,” he whispered.
Heat swept through me, so sharp and dizzying that my pulse stuttered.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m attracted to you, Emily.”
I wasn't expecting that answer––this shift. I was so thrown by it that I didn’t quite know how to breathe anymore—let alone speak.
And somehow, without my realizing it was happening, the gap between us closed, making me hyper aware of his bare skin, inches from mine.
His hand lifted, brushing a wet strand of hair from my face. But then his fingers stayed, unhurried, tracing my temple, then the soft curve of my jaw.
Every nerve in my body strained toward him, pulled taut with the certainty that he was about to kiss me again.
His gaze dropped to my mouth. Then, just as fast, hesitation flickered across his face.
“We need to be careful,” his hand fell away, then his eyes averted from mine to the water. “I don’t want things to get… complicated.”
I cut him off with a brittle smile. “Right. Of course.” I forced the words out like armor, even as something ached deep in my chest.
Six more days of pretending.
Six more days of convincing his family we were in love—while trying to ignore how the heat between us blurred every line.
The silence thickened, heavy and suffocating. His jaw flexed, like he was biting back something he knew he shouldn’t say.
Then off in the distance, a voice carried faintly through the trees, breaking the spell. I seized on it like an escape, turning and swimming hard for the dock.
“Em—wait,” Dean called after me.
Too late.
I hauled myself onto the dock, dripping and breathless, yanking my clothes on over wet skin. By the time he reached the edge of the water, I was dressed, my heart racing—not from the cold, but from everything twisting inside me at once.
“I’ll meet you back at the cabin,” I called, not turning around. Then I slipped into the trees, following the sound of voices ahead.
I froze the moment I broke through the brush.
Mason stood there, a towel slung loosely around his neck, sandals dangling from one hand like he’d been on his way to the water. He stopped short when he saw me, his gaze flicking past my shoulder toward the beach I’d just left.
One brow lifted. “Everything okay?”
His tone was calm, but something underneath it made my stomach dip.
I tucked damp hair behind my ear and forced a shrug. “Yeah. Why?”
His eyes stayed on my face—on my flushed cheeks, my uneven breathing—before drifting back to the trees again, like he was expecting someone else to step out.
“No reason,” he said at last.
The silence that followed stretched, heavy with questions he didn’t ask. My skin prickled, and I couldn’t quite place why.
Behind him, a group of men in bathing suits came up the path—men I recognized from breakfast. Their laughter carried easily on the breeze, too easy, like something practiced.
And suddenly I wasn’t sure whether the chill at the base of my neck came from the damp air…or the sense that something was happening here that no one was saying out loud.