52. Kate
Chapter Fifty-Two
Kate
The sun was warm against my skin, a lazy breeze teasing strands of sea-salt hair across my shoulders. When was the last time I’d felt like this? Certainly not this side of thirty.
I was stretched out on a lounger at the edge of our private deck, one leg bent lazily, a cold Diet Coke on the side table beside me. The ocean lapped somewhere in the distance. It was endless, turquoise waters melting under the sky, completely, impossibly perfect.
I let my head fall back, sunglasses slipping slightly as I tipped my face toward the sun. This place was heaven. Quiet. Secluded. Just us. No buzzing phones. No training schedules. No one asking anything of me except to relax.
And I was doing exactly that. In a tiny, black, thong bikini. The one I’d picked up in Canada specifically to drive Jordan wild.
Not that it took much with that insatiable man. Honestly, I question why we were ever surprised I ended up pregnant.
My bump had finally made a proper debut, a small, tidy curve that I was still getting used to.
I’d hidden from the world for most part in the past few months, but here, I didn’t have to.
I could finally breathe. I had a tan now, a little glow.
Even a few freckles sprinkled across my chest. I hadn’t felt this effortlessly beautiful in a long time.
It was amazing what shedding two years of heartache could do for your skin.
And judging by the way Jordan had been looking at me since we arrived, he very much agreed. Speak of the devil. I heard the sliding glass door open behind me, and turned my head lazily just in time to see him step out of the bungalow.
Dear. God.
He was shirtless, bronzed, dripping from an earlier swim.
His swim shorts clung low on his hips, accentuating the V trailing into them, with a backwards black cap that sat low over his curls.
He had on those black sunglasses that made my pulse misbehave, and he was carrying two drinks, biceps flexing in a way that really should come with a warning label.
“More hydration for my girl, and my boy,” he said, handing me something colourful with a ridiculous little paper umbrella in it.
I took it, letting my fingers graze his. “Appreciated. Although this view is already making me feel a little weak and lightheaded,” I said, looking him up and down.
He smirked, setting his drink down and dropped to sit beside me on the sun lounger. His eyes scanned me slowly, from my freshly manicured toes to the high-cut bikini bottoms, all the way up to where my pregnancy breasts were plotting their escape through the sides of my triangle top.
“Jesus, Katie,” he murmured, cupping a handful of each one. “Just when I thought I couldn’t fancy you more…you’re gonna be the death of me.”
“Coming from someone who looks like a Greek god on holiday,” I murmured, reaching to tug his cap off only to put it right back on, backwards, over my own salty waves. “There. Now we’re even.”
He gave a quiet laugh, but it faded fast when I leaned forward and brushed my mouth against his. Tasting the salt on his perfectly bronzed skin.
The kiss deepened instantly, his hand gripping the edge of the lounger as he hovered over me. His fingers found my hip, then slid to the curve of my bum.
“I think you wore this to torture me?”
“Maybe.”
“I haven’t been able to think about anything else since you put it on.”
I smiled against his lips. “I wasn’t aware you had anything to think about out here.”
“Oh, I do,” he murmured, dragging his mouth down my neck. “I’m thinking about bending you over that railing every time you walk past looking like this.”
Heat surged low in my belly. I arched into him, breathless and grinning. “You’re ridiculous.”
He kissed just beneath my bikini top, right over the slight swell of my bump, and looked up at me completely serious now.
“No. I’m completely, utterly in love with you.”
Something about hearing it here in the middle of nowhere, sun on my skin, nothing between us but air and ocean and a whole lot of heat, made it sink even deeper.
“I know,” I whispered. “Me too.”
Then he grinned, that boyish, cheeky one that still made my heart catch. “Right. Finish your drink, then get in the water with me. Or I’ll carry you in.”
“Erm…Pregnant woman,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, standing and offering his hand, his eyes glittering. “You’ve no idea what I’d do for you.”
I took it, letting him pull me to my feet. And just as I passed him on the way to the steps, I let my fingers trail along his abs.
He watched me, his eyes glued to the sway of my hips. “Jesus Christ, woman.”
I shot him a wicked grin over my shoulder. “You coming?”
His mouth curved. “I’m always coming where you’re involved.”
I burst out laughing. Always with the dirty jokes, that one. I waded slowly into the water, knowing exactly what I was doing to him.