Read All To Myself for Free Online

crawling?” She dropped onto the loveseat that backed up against the cottage wall. “My heart was breaking at the thought of you out here pining over me.”
    He slapped his hand over his heart. “I was. I really was. Why are you wet?”
    “I just came back from the beach.” His gaze dropped to her bandaged knee. She stretched it out and kept the wince off her face. “See? It’s fine.”
    “Yes,” he said, and the corner of his mouth turned up wickedly at the corners. “Yes, it is.”
    The seat beneath her was far from comfortable and she wanted to tuck her legs under it, but she didn’t want to lose that hot gaze he had her under. She tucked her damp hair behind her ear and pointed to the soda. “Can I have some of that?”
    “Help yourself. There are glasses in the kitchen.”
    She slipped off her sneakers and stamped along the patio in her bare feet. Glancing at him as she pulled open the storm door, she caught him with his head tilted and his stare on her bikini clad lower half.
    He snapped his gaze back up and raised his brows in the most unapologetic look imaginable. “Sorry?”
    “Perv.” She bounced a little as she stepped into the chalet, oddly pleased with herself as if she had anything to do with the curves he was admiring. It wasn’t that she didn’t take pleasure in flaunting them, but these days it just seemed pointless. She always felt frumpy in her Garden View apron, and too starched and phony when donning her whites and blacks at The White Tip. Otherwise, she was too tired to bother shaking her ass at anyone.
    She knew her way around. When she got tired of burning herself as a dishwasher, she had moved to housekeeping and had cleaned every one of these chalets at some point. It wasn’t a big space. The cottages that lined the road leading to her grandfather’s little blue box were bigger than the house she grew up in. This place Noah called home for the summer was more luxurious than the average prefab cottage, but it was still just one level.
    She found the glasses where they had always been and chose a small one, then returned to him on the veranda.
    He had moved to the loveseat, arm draped across the seat back. She bit the inside of her mouth to keep from smiling as she filled her glass. She could have taken the chair he had vacated, or she could have fallen into his trap and took the seat next to him. Instead, she took her glass and leaned against the edge of the veranda, and gave him a look she hoped came off as sly as the one he gave her.
    “Are we going to take that drive?” she asked, then took a sip.
    “I think we can skip it. I will drive you home, though.”
    “I’m not going to say no, but you don’t have to.” She raised her glass out to him. “This is good, too.”
    He leaned forward with a “cheers” and clinked his glass with hers.
    “How was the water tonight?” he asked.
    “Not very warm, but it was good.”
    “When I first started coming here, I hit the beach every day, all day. I’d only go in the water to cool off if it was too hot, though. The best time to go swimming was always at night. No kids screaming about getting wet, no dogs flicking water into your mouth, and the suits would come off.”
    “We wear our suits when we go swimming.”
    “Where’s the fun in that?”
    “This is the second time you’ve referenced skinny dipping to me since we met.”
    “I want to get you naked, obviously.”
    It was too hard not to smile as she hung her head back. “Why do you do that?”
    “You’re the one who asked. Why did you come here?”
    “I just wanted to say ‘hi,’” she said with a shrug of her shoulder.
    “It sounds like you want to put a question mark at the end of that statement.” Noah chuckled and tapped the spot next to him. “Sit down.”
    She shook her head. “I can’t.”
    “You were sitting here a minute ago.”
    “Yeah, but now ... you’re there.”
    “So?”
    “I know what’s going to happen if I sit down.”
    He leaned