17. Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Gina
“Going to work?”
I jump, clutching the coffee beans to my chest at Benji’s question. “Dammit, I thought you were asleep. And yes, but just for a couple of hours to help Briar. We have guests checking out of seven cabins this morning.”
Benji shoves the blankets down and gets to his feet. “Why isn’t he helping?” He motions to the bedroom, where Milo is softly snoring.
“Because I’ve got this.” Milo will be working in his woodshop, making furniture from reclaimed timber. The money he makes doing that is the main reason we can buy Happy Lake.
“I’ll help.” Benji takes the coffee beans from me. “We can get it done twice as fast so you can spend the rest of the day doing something fun.”
“I agreed to help out at the Havenwood Days working bee today. The event isn’t until August, but there’s a parade, and we need to get the floats ready—”
“Can they function without you?” he asks. He’s measuring the coffee grounds into the filter, but I can feel his attention on me.
“Sure, but—”
“Remember what you asked me after we went skinny dipping?”
I nod. I asked him for a summer of fun. Our secret, just the two of us.
Benji finishes putting the coffee on and steps close to me. He puts his hands on my shoulders like he’s about to drop a brutal truth on me. “You need to make time—to have fun, sure, but to rest, too.”
“I promised I’d help.”
“We could take the canoe onto the lake,” he coaxes. “Have a picnic on your island. You could show me all the best spots.”
“You sure you can separate yourself from Wade’s metal detector for a day?” I tease. He’s spent a lot of his free time with that thing. It’s not a hobby I would’ve expected Benji to pick up, but he seems happy, and Wade enjoys having someone to share it with.
“I think I’ll manage,” he says with a laugh. “Come on. Take the afternoon off.”
I can see what a day on the lake could look like with Benji. He’d be so good in a canoe, and I know a lot of secluded places. Maybe he’d kiss me again.
But Cheryl and the others are counting on me.
Every summer, I spend days putting together decorations.
Most of the time I have fun doing it, but the thought of spending such a beautiful day in the high school gym gluing tissue paper flowers onto components of a float or making banners or flags or whatever the committee has come up with this year fills me with gloom.
Benji’s hands glide down my arms until his fingers lock with mine. “Call and tell them you can’t make it.”
I waver, but the longer I look into his blue-green eyes, the more I tip toward doing the impulsive, irresponsible thing.
It’s not just that I want to spend the day with Benji or that I’m tempted solely by the possibility of kissing him more.
Last year, I only made it out on the lake twice, and this summer looks like a repeat. It’s right here, waiting for me.
Maybe Benji’s right, and I need to make the time, even if that means I have to let someone down sometimes. The working bee isn’t short of hands this year. It won’t be the end of the world if I miss today.
I pull my hands from his to slide my phone from my pocket, and before I can second guess myself, I type out the first thing that comes to my mind and send the message to Cheryl, then chuck my phone onto the counter.
“Did you do it?” Benji asks. He’s grinning, but I clap my hand over my mouth and stare at my phone.
When I nod, he pulls me into a hug. For a brief, wonderful moment, I’m pressed against the smooth, warm skin of his chest. I place my hand on one hard pec to push myself back, but the steady beat of his heart stops me.
“I’m so proud of you,” he says softly into my hair, and now my heart is beating faster. “What did you tell them?”
That breaks the spell, guilt walloping me full force. I step back. “I told Cheryl I wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be coming. She’s never going to believe it. I don’t get sick often.”
Benji hands me my phone. “Check.”
I do. Cheryl has replied with a handful of random emojis—there’s a squid for some reason—and a ‘rest and feel better soon.’ “I guess she believed it.”
It doesn’t mean I feel good about the lie or ditching the working bee. I think Benji can tell. He pours me coffee and insists on making breakfast, asking me questions about the lake the entire time.
The guilt sticks around, but it lessens. By the time we finish cleaning the cabins, it’s nearly noon, and I’m mostly anxious to get out on the lake before someone asks me to fold towels or stack firewood. But we make it back to my cabin, change clothes, pack lunch, and we’re ready to go.
Almost ready.
I tap Benji’s arm with a bottle of sunscreen. “You’ll burn out on the water.”
He pulls off his shirt, turning his back to me. “Help me out?”
“Yeah,” I say too quickly. “Sure.” I’m already squeezing sunscreen into my hands. In my rush to touch him, I forget to rub my hands together to warm it up, and his breath skitters out in a hiss when I put my hands on his shoulders.
Okay, I need to slow my roll here. I close my eyes and take a deep breath before I open them again and start spreading the thick cream over his skin, up to the tops of his shoulders, and down along his spine.
I wish I knew the names of all these muscles, but I take my time learning their shapes as I rub the sunscreen into his skin.
He has a small freckle on his left shoulder.
Another on his right side, on his ribs. He shakes a little, holding in a laugh, when my fingers slide over those ribs.
He would be ticklish.
At long last, I have thoroughly covered every inch of skin on his back.
“Done,” I say, stepping back. I can’t look him in the eyes. He either knows I didn’t want to stop touching him, or he thinks I take sun safety very seriously. Both are true.
Benji turns to face me. “You’re not done.”
My eyes flick up. He grins, motioning to his chest and abs.
My mouth is suddenly dry, but my hand is already squeezing the bottle, squeezing and squeezing—
His eyebrows shoot up, and I glance at the handful of sunscreen I’m now holding. Shit, it’s enough to cover us both twice, head to toe.
Maybe, if I were someone who knew how to be sexy, I’d know how to slather him up in a way that would have him as flustered as I am.
But I’m not, as evidenced by the amount of sunscreen in my hand.
The only thing to do is slap it across his chest and start rubbing it in from the shoulders south.
By the time my hands pass over his hard nipples, my face is so hot he could get a sunburn, so I guess he’s lucky I laid it on so thick.
His abs are next, so I take a detour and do his arms. But once that’s done, I have to face the abs.
It’s not that they’re sexier to me than any other muscle group on his body—it’s that to do his abs, I have to look down, and looking down makes it impossible to pretend I don’t see how his cock is straining against his shorts.
Like it wants to leap out into my sunscreen-slick hands.
Seeing how hard I’ve got him forces me to acknowledge that I want to do more than kiss him. I also have to acknowledge that he is huge, and I’m not sure I’m built for that.
He sucks in a breath as my hands smooth the sunscreen over his skin above the waistband of his shorts. I swear the fabric twitches. Maybe that’s why my fingers delve about an inch below his waistband—I want to see if it’ll happen again.
“You’re killing me,” he whispers.
“Am I?”
“I am so close to begging, Gina.”
My hands are still covered with sunscreen, so I sink to my knees and wrap them around his thigh, a few inches inside the leg of his shorts.
Benji gives a tortured groan. “You don’t know what seeing you on your knees like this does to me.”
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing. I finish one leg, then the other, before I look up at him. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Anything.”
Apparently, my face can get hotter. “You’re…big. How does that not…hurt?”
“So much foreplay,” he murmurs. “I’ll bury my face between your legs, and I won’t come up for air until I have you sopping and ready.”
“Oh.” Again, I have no idea what to say. ‘Yes, please’ isn’t an option.
Benji crouches in front of me. “There’s always lube, too. But as long as we communicate and you’re honest about what you like or don’t like, I can make it so good for you.”
He would, too. I need to say something. Probably about how I’m not ready for that yet—but is that exactly true? If it weren’t for my impending marriage of convenience and the fact that Milo could walk in on us, I’d be dragging Benji to bed.
Absently, I reach for the sunscreen and squeeze more into my hand. Would it really be letting Milo down? We’d agreed not to see anyone, even secretly, until after Diana left for Florida.
“Gina?” Benji’s concerned look breaks into a relieved grin when I press my sunscreen-coated hands against his cheeks. “Thought I broke you there for a minute.”
“You’ll have to try harder than that,” I say with so much fake bravado I laugh at myself.
He picks up the sunscreen. “Want me to do you?”
“Already done. Let’s get out there.” Quickly, before we do something we shouldn’t.
Twenty minutes later, we’re cruising across the lake. I’m in the back because I know where we’re going, and maybe so I can stare at Benji’s flexing back and arm muscles as he paddles. He’s shirtless. Naturally.
A few boats are out, but Happy Lake is moderately big, and they’re at the other end of the lake. It’s hot and humid in a way that promises storms later, but the sky is cloudless. And Benji keeps looking over his shoulder like he can’t keep his eyes off me.
It still feels surreal that this gorgeous man is my husband. And that he came out to the middle of nowhere to be with me. That despite everything, he’s still here.
Yesterday, he stood perfectly poised on his paddleboard, looking relaxed and like there was no place in the world he’d rather be than teaching a couple of retirees how to paddleboard, and that, more than all the gleaming muscles or the dimples, is why I’m falling for him.
This kind, funny, beautiful man, who is used to more excitement than a place like this can provide, is having fun.
He likes it here. He likes me—the real, confused, messy version of me, struggling to figure out who I am. He wants more, too.
Love feels too strong of a word, like something that can’t happen this fast. But no one has told my heart that.
Or maybe I have, and it’s not listening because something happens in my chest when I look at Benji.
Even when I think about him. Beneath the butterflies, there’s a ballooning warmth impossible to contain.
“You okay?” he calls back, looking over his shoulder again.
I’ve stopped paddling. Whoops. I smile and dip my paddle into the water again. “I’m good.” Really, really good.