I stare at my bathing suit choices in my dresser drawer as my conversation with Callie days earlier dances around my head. I wish I was more of a fashion queen like Callie. My middle sister always looks fabulous—and mostly in clothes that would make other people look ridiculous. She can rock anything and doesn’t veer away from bold, wild choices. I do. I am safe. I am sweet. I dress like a Catholic schoolgirl—and not in that porn fantasy sort of way.
Jessie walks by my open bedroom door and stops. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to decide on a bathing suit to wear to the lake. Everything I own is lame.”
She walks in and stands beside me, staring down into the drawer. She reaches in and picks up my blue-and-white gingham bikini and holds it up. “Wear this! You look adorable in it.”
“I don’t want to look adorable,” I explain and roll my eyes.
She drops it back into the drawer and fishes out my red tankini. I give her a stern look before she can say anything. “I might as well wear a turtleneck.”
She laughs at that, drops the suit back into the drawer, walks across the room and sits on Callie’s bed. “What’s the big deal about what you look like?”
I sigh. “I just… I guess I’m sick of my image. I want to change things up. Maybe I should cut my hair off.”
“Whoa!” Jessie raises her hands. “Don’t be crazy. You have the most beautiful hair of all of us.”
She’s so ridiculous. My hair is a bland almost-black shade and flat as a board. Hers is perma-tousled and a beautiful auburn that’s prettier than a sunset. I don’t bother to argue this point with Jessie because I know—I’ve known my whole life—she doesn’t see herself the way the world sees her. It’s probably a good thing. If she knew how stunning she was, she might be unbearable.
Jessie claps her hands suddenly like she’s just had a brilliant idea, jumps off the bed and rummages around in Callie’s dresser. She pulls out a tiny black bikini with a silver band around the waist that ties on either side and silver string ties holding the two tiny black cups of the top together. I notice the tags are still on it.
“She’s never worn it,” Jessie tells me. “She bought it for a photo shoot she was styling for a magazine but forgot to pack it when she went back to L.A.”
I take the bikini from her and examine it. It’s the tiniest thing I have ever seen. I’m a little terrified of it, actually.
“Is that image-changing enough?” Jessie asks with a smirk, like she’s calling my bluff.
“I guess we’ll find out,” I whisper.
“For the record, there is nothing wrong with your current image,” my sister tells me as she disappears into the hall, closing the door to my room behind her.
I know she still thinks of me as sweet, innocent, romantic Rosie. I knew even before Callie joked about it on the phone that everybody sees me that way. But Callie was right, that Rosie isn’t getting what she wants out of life—so it’s time to mix it up. I put on the barely there bikini and stare at myself in the mirror as I tie the silver straps around my neck. The bottom is so low-cut it barely covers my butt and the tiny triangular top is subtly padded to make my small B-cup breasts look more like an ample C.
I grab my cover-up from the desk chair and head into the hall. Coop is coming out of the master bedroom at that exact moment. He literally drops the hammer he’s holding when he sees me. I instantly turn completely red in the face.
“Sorry!”
He smiles. It’s devious, like he’s thinking dirty thoughts. About me.
“Don’t ever apologize for looking like that,” he says in a deep growl of a whisper.
Jordan comes up the stairs as I start to pull my cover-up on and stops at the sight of me. “Holy crap, Rosie!”
“Shut up!” I shoot back, feeling my face flush deeper. I very awkwardly get the gauzy white cotton cover-up over my body.
“Luc’s here,” Jordan tells me, shock still plastered over his face.
I smile at Coop and basically run down the stairs, eager to get away from my embarrassment. Jessie is standing in the kitchen holding a coffee mug as I charge past her. Luc, sitting at the kitchen table, looks up and smiles. He’s wearing a fitted black T-shirt and his black-and-red swim shorts. His sunglasses are perched on his head, pushing his long hair back from his handsome face.
“Let’s go!” I say, grabbing the beach bag I packed earlier off the kitchen chair and pulling him out the door.
Jessie follows us onto the porch and calls to Luc. “You have my permission to slug any guy who goes near her today! And that’ll be a lot of guys!”
Luc gives me a confused stare. I just shrug. We hop into Claudette and fall into easy, casual conversation on the ten-minute drive to the lake.
He turns toward our favorite part of the lake. At night the dead-end street that borders this part of Silver Bay Lake is a bit of a popular make-out place. In fact, Jordan’s mom, Donna, told me she and Wyatt had their first kiss there when they were young. During the day it was the smallest and least crowded shoreline of the entire lake.
“So have you heard about the bachelor and bachelorette parties yet?” he asks me.
“Heard what?”
“Leah and Cole want a joint one,” he explains. “And get this—they want to have it in Atlantic City!”
“Really? When?”
“In two weeks,” Luc explains, his brown eyes bright with excitement. “You’re coming, right?”
He parks by the curb across from a small park where toddlers are playing with their parents and a group of high schoolers are paying Ultimate Frisbee.
I shrug and jump out of the truck. “I don’t know if I can get the time off.”
“You’re coming, Rosie,” he repeats, and this time, he’s not asking.
We walk through the grass and tall oaks until the ground turns to sand and Silver Bay Lake stretches out before us. It’s a beautiful sight, as always. Silver Bay Lake is enormous and this particular end makes for a picturesque view. You can see the cluster that is the main part of town directly across the large expanse of rippling, silvery water. Toward the east are rocky cliffs and hills peppered with vibrant evergreens and bushy maple trees that turn fiery colors in the fall. In the winter, it’s snowcapped and as beautiful as an Ansel Adams photograph. There’s something so romantic about our hometown, which is why I’ve always loved it. I watch the corners of Luc’s mouth tug up a little, like they always do when we hang out at the lake. He loves it as much as I do, which is why he chose to build his home on it.
There are about ten people scattered around the narrow expanse of beach. We both move, in unspoken agreement, as far from them as possible and take a spot near a tall oak. I dig my oversized towel out of my bag and make sure it’s perfectly laid out on the sand. Luc pulls his towel off his shoulder and drops it in a heap on the sand. He kicks off his shoes, pulls his shirt off and drops his ass onto the towel.
I stare at him, half naked and smiling up at me. He’s got more muscles than last year and I have no idea how that is even possible. But his back looks wider and stronger and his biceps are thicker, his chest broader and his stomach ripples with muscles. It’s a thing of beauty. So is that fleur-de-lis tattoo. I never thought I was a girl who would get hot for inked men, but everything about the tattoo is so perfectly Luc it turns me on.
He lowers his sunglasses and looks over them at me. “Are you just going to stand there? You’re blocking my sun.”
“Someone needs to, you burn under a lightbulb,” I don’t know why he burns so easily, because he has a delicious almost olive skin tone, but he burns like he’s a porcelain-skinned redhead. “And I’m betting you forgot sunscreen.”
“I didn’t forget it. I purposely didn’t bring it,” he informs me, smiling even broader now. “I knew you’d have some.”
I roll my eyes like I’m an exasperated mother and dig into my bag again, producing the large bottle of Water Babies 60 SPF sunblock. I wear 45 normally, but I knew he’d need this.
“Water Babies. Appropriately named,” I snark and toss it at him. It hits his solid chest with a whack, like it’s hitting a brick wall.
As he opens the bottle and rubs the thick white lotion onto his chest I turn away, to keep myself from drooling, and shimmy out of my cover-up, dropping it onto my discarded flip-flops.
I turn back around and Luc is frozen like a statue. White lotion is running down his abs and his hand is flat against his chest like he’s an old woman trying to catch her breath. His sexy mouth is hanging wide open and I get a little tingle as I notice his broad pink tongue resting on his bottom lip. God, I want to taste that tongue.
“What?” I ask and look behind me to see if Angelina Jolie is dancing naked in the trees. Because that’s what he looks like he’s looking at.
“Holy hell, Fleur… that bikini is…” He shakes his head and swallows. “You look indecent.”
My face falls.
“Decently indecent,” he corrects himself and grins awkwardly. “Now I know why Jessie wants me to beat people up. Every guy in on this beach is going to be turned on by the sight of you.”
I blush and inside I’m more than a little thrilled. I wonder if he’s turned on too, but I don’t ask him. I may be trying to spice up my image on the outside but on the inside I’m still a chicken shit. Baby steps, I tell myself. At least I had the nerve to wear this scrap of fabric in public.
He glances around, reaches up and tugs on my arm. “Lie down already before you get noticed!”
I laugh. He stares. Just sits there and stares as I fall to my knees on my towel. At least I think he’s staring. It’s hard to tell with his shades on. But it’s like I can feel his eyes on me. Undressing me? Maybe. That thought makes me warm. But I’m still self-conscious.
“Luc, look somewhere else.”
“I can’t look away.”
“If I throw sand in your eyes you won’t be able to stare,” I threaten and he looks away and finishes rubbing lotion into his chiseled torso. Now it’s my turn to look away.
I flop down on my stomach, resting on my elbows, with my face toward the water and concentrate on the cool blue surface. Luc’s face is behind me now so if he’s ogling my ass, I can’t see it, thankfully, but I do make a point of tilting my hips a little and making it look as perky as possible. Just in case.
All of a sudden something wet drips down my spine. I twist my head. Luc is kneeling beside my towel, his thick arm hovering above my back, the open lotion bottle in his hand.
“You need this or you’ll burn,” he says firmly.
There are a million reasons why I don’t need the sunblock. I hardly ever burn. I already have a base tan. I had put on some 45 at home after my shower. But I don’t tell him any of that. I just let his big, rough hands slide down my spine, rubbing the lotion into my body, and I try not to shudder with the lust that’s begun heating my blood.