That beautiful girl was insane.
It wasn’t until she was nearly at the dock that Graham realized this was no game. Emily was really going in, damn it all to hell, and it was dangerously cold. The lake itself was dangerous. There was no way to know what lay below the surface. There was no way to know how deep the water was.
Too late, he started running after her, barefoot in the dark, pulling off his shirt and throwing it to the side.
She hit the dock running, just out of his reach. He had to stop, taking big, braking steps as he came out of a full run, cursing as he jerked his belt open and shoved his jeans and underwear off, but he was too slow, too slow.
Emily leaped for the rope at a run. She caught it high, so high that as she swung out over the water, she was far above the surface. He had only a second to pray that the water would be deep enough for her to plunge into safely from that height—and in that same second, the image of her in the moonlight was burned into his mind. She was beautiful, young and whole and all skin—please, God, deep water—as she let go of the rope and threw herself into a flip.
She hit the water hard. Went under.
Graham kept his eye on the entry point as he ran for the end of the dock. Just as he was throwing his arms forward to launch himself off the dock in a shallow racer’s dive, Emily broke the surface with a cowboy’s yee-haw. For a split second, his shoulder screamed with pain at being forced into the diving position, but then he dove just beneath the surface, and the shock of the cold knocked that pain out. The cold made everything hurt.
He surfaced quickly, right near Emily, who was still finishing the haw in her yee-haw. He shook his head once, hard, to throw some water out of his hair. A fully bellowed oo-rah was the only way to handle the shocking cold.
Emily laughed.
Graham used the palm of his hand to send a wave of water right at her beautiful, crazy face. As she squealed, he started to laugh, and then they were laughing together, bobbing in the freezing reflection of the moon as if they were co-conspirators in some grand joke.
For about two seconds.
“It’s flipping cold,” Emily said, and she started swimming for the dock.
He beat her there, but only to turn around and grab her outstretched hand and haul her in. She put her hands on the dock and kicked to get up on it, and Graham helped her with a solid hand under her bare backside. Third time’s the charm for that.
He hauled himself out, an easy press of arm muscle that didn’t bother his shoulder, which still wasn’t painful because it was so damned frozen. Emily was way ahead of him, running down the dock. He walked. He thought for a second that she was yelling another yee-haw, but she was yelling freez-ing.
Hell, yeah, it’s freezing. Little idiot. What did she expect? He scooped up his jeans as he stalked past them and realized he was laughing. This was insane, skinny-dipping in Texas with a woman who was old enough to know better.
Old enough. Up ahead, she bent over to scoop up her underwear. Lust hit him hard, blinding him. His navy shirt was hard enough to find in the dark without the distraction of a nude Emily as she shook dirt and leaves off a skimpy excuse for a bra.
Yet he couldn’t stop smiling. The water had been so shocking, every thought had been obliterated—except Emily. Catch Emily, be with Emily, help Emily.
Laugh with Emily.
You don’t walk away from this, Ben. You run toward it.
Acting on that crazy-clear thought, he started running after her. When Emily stopped to pick up her dress, he was close enough to see that the laughter in her face had been replaced by concentration. She was shivering to the point that she had to swipe at the dress a couple of times before she hooked it on her finger and headed for the SUV.
Just as she threw her clothes into the back, he caught up and touched her, hand on her waist, but only to push her away from the back of the SUV. “Back seat’s warmer.”
Water from her long hair poured over his wrist. He opened the door and chucked his jeans over to the far seat, but he didn’t have to push her in this time. She climbed in fast, holding one hand below her perfect belly button, her fingers splayed to serve as a fig leaf—pretty damned effectively—and one hand trying to cover both breasts, doing a thankfully poor job of it.
It was hard not to laugh even as his teeth threatened to start chattering. He cursed loudly on general principle, because that’s what anyone did in the military whenever conditions sucked, and he hustled to the back of the SUV and started pitching towels over the back seat so they landed on Emily, who’d started cursing, too.
“Holy frigging crackers, it’s cold.”
She had the tone of voice right. The vocabulary needed work.
He fixed it for her under his breath, shivering now as he stepped back to close the hatchback and shut out the cold for Emily, but he was still grinning at crackers. Emily didn’t think she did cute well. She was wrong.
Then he was diving into the back seat, too, but only to haul himself halfway over the front seats to reach the ignition and start the engine. It would take a few minutes for the engine to be warm enough to turn the heater on, but at least he could get the built-in seat warmer going for Emily.
He turned around to hit the button for the rear bucket seat’s warmer. Emily was staring at him so hard, he jerked to a stop. Well, damn. The interior lights had come on with their opening of the passenger door, so everything was well lit, nice and bright, as he stood completely in the buff. He’d been giving her an eyeful of his flank, his back, and now...his front. His bent thigh provided some modesty, at least. Probably. Depending on her angle.
The back seat was pretty spacious, but they were still almost on top of each other because the center console made them share this half. Emily was huddled under the towels, for the most part. Glimpses of her arm and leg among the twisted towels were almost as erotic as seeing her completely nude. But it was her face, that expressive face, which arrested him. She was biting her lip in a way that might mean she was a little intimidated, maybe, but the lip she was biting curved into a smile of appreciation.
If he blushed, he’d lose his man card. Confidence, cockiness—whichever it was, he called upon it to wink at her. “Got a towel I could borrow?”
“Sure. Help yourself.”
Even in a sexually charged moment, she could make him smile. He grabbed the towel from the top of the pile on her, since it wasn’t actually touching her skin and wouldn’t leave her exposed. She arched her back and hissed in a breath anyway, reminding him for one second of her sexual response to his touch on her breast earlier in the evening, but then she was sitting up and turning around in her seat.
“All this c-cold water keeps sliding down my back.” She grabbed one of the towels and started drying the leather. “I’m just going to g-get out of your car for a moment.”
“Not this time.” Graham covered her hand when she grabbed the door handle. He held the bunched-up towel in his other hand and held it over his groin, in case she felt like she needed to put space between them for modesty’s sake. “You’re shaking with cold. I know you have a thing about getting out of my SUV, but you’ve got to stay and warm up.”
“I have to go squeeze this water out of my hair or I’ll n-never warm up.”
The towels were in her lap and she clutched one to her front, but now that she was leaning forward to get out, Graham could see all that long hair plastered to her back, sopping wet. “Go ahead and do what you’ve got to do in here. It’s only water. The carpet will dry.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Says the woman who just went skinny-dipping in January. Come on, hurry. You’re staying too cold, too long.” He hit the button for the seat warmer on the other, dry seat, then twisted back to the front to reach the dashboard and start the heater.
When he turned around again, Emily was avidly watching him while she scooped all her hair to one side. He tried to get out of her way as she bent forward and started to twist it with shaking hands, wringing it out like a towel, but she raised one eyebrow and nodded toward his backside. “If I wasn’t so c-cold, I’d really be enjoying this.”
“You do live a wild life, sweet girl.” His words were light, but the water on her exposed back was making him cold just to look at. He sat on the edge of the seat, pushing her legs over to make room, and used the towel in his hand to rub her back briskly.
“Do you have a c-comb or brush?”
“I want to get you in that dry seat first.”
She gave her hair one last twist, clear water dripping onto the carpet of the floorboard and their feet. “You first. Then you can p-pull me over, like you did in the front seat.”
She was too shivery, too huddled into herself to climb over that console. He rubbed her arms briskly, while she kept clutching her towel to her front. He dried himself off even more quickly. His jeans were on the dry seat, his gym bag on the floor, so he had to move them, climb over the center console without totally flashing Emily and reach over the back seats for the comforter. He reclined the seat to gain more room. If Emily were lying back, then her face wouldn’t be so close to his body next time he reached for the dashboard. The footrest they’d joked about earlier came up automatically when the seat reclined.
“Do men always show off the size of their f-footrests?”
He wanted to laugh. Even frozen, she was funny to him. “Dry your feet off. Leave all that water over there.”
She smacked at the water and the leaves that were stuck to her feet with a towel. Finally, Graham sat, picked up Emily and lifted her over the center console so she was cradled in his arms again, just as she’d been in the front seat.
Hell, yeah.
There was too much skin, way too much skin, in touch with too much skin.
Complete the mission. You control your body; your body doesn’t control you.
He just had to ignore her backside in his lap. Her bare backside in his bare lap. Yeah.
But that bare backside was cold to the touch. He wanted to get her skin in contact with the artificial, electric warmth of the leather seat. Concern for her made it easy to slip out from underneath her and let her lie back in the seat. He couldn’t get that comforter on her fast enough, both for her warmth and his sanity, but he tried. He tucked it in tightly at her thighs, her hips, her waist. He yanked it up over her unbelievably sexy bare shoulders and tucked it in around her neck.
“There.” He nodded with satisfaction at the mummy he’d created, nothing but her head showing.
“Maybe a t-towel under my head? In case my hair starts dripping? Since you have my arms trapped.”
He had to climb over her a bit to grab one of the towels from the wet seat. He tucked it behind her neck, then took another towel and tried to dry her hair a bit. He kind of made a mess of it. He hoped she couldn’t tell.
She wasn’t even looking at his face. She was looking at his arms flex as he worked. At his shoulders. His chest, as he hovered over her. Fair enough; he’d be staring at her chest, too, if the roles were reversed. He couldn’t stop smiling; she was so damned cute.
“My eyes are up here,” he said drily.
“I like your tattoo.”
He forgot he had it most of the time. It was a single line around one bicep. It looked like a geometric Polynesian design, narrow, only black ink. Most people never realized the design was actually made up of letters that spelled out—
“I can’t read it. You have to hold still a minute.”
He fell still. Most people never realized the design was actually made of words, except Emily. Of course, Emily.
“F-I-F...lots of Fs. What does it say?”
“Semper Fi. It’s the Marine Corps motto, Latin for ‘Always Faithful.’ And Fortuna Fortes Juvat.” He waited until she looked from the tattoo back to his eyes. “The motto of one of the battalions I was in. ‘Fortune Favors the Brave.’” It had been the battalion he’d had the company command in, deployed to Afghanistan.
Emily’s lips twitched with humor, not cold. “I don’t think I applied that motto correctly, then. It’s what I told myself before trying to get you to kiss me on the side of the road.”
This woman, she could affect him so easily. The motto had been relentlessly tied in his mind to sand, to grim victory, to sacrifice. Now he was also going to see a beautiful Texan daring to touch him, to nudge him with her shoulder, to tell him she wasn’t scared of him.
He needed to put some space between them. He wrapped the damp towel around his waist as he stayed half-standing and eyed the wet chair. He could dry it off and just keep his feet off the cold puddle on the floor. The heater blew lukewarm air over his shoulders, making him shiver more than warming him.
Emily wriggled like a little caterpillar over to one side, looking so ridiculously cute again, he could shove Latin mottos to the back of his mind.
“Here, come and get next to me,” she said. “The chair’s getting nice and toasty now.”
When he didn’t move, she stopped wriggling and looked up at him. “Graham, you’re cold.”
“Not for long. The engine’s warming up. The air will be hot in a moment. I’ll sit over there.”
She spoke through a clenched jaw, an angry little caterpillar. “Sit down where it’s dry and don’t be ridiculous.”
“That schoolteacher voice isn’t exactly a turn off.”
“I’m not trying to turn you off or turn you on. I just want you to get your frozen butt in this toasty chair.”
She was right; he’d be ridiculous to disobey her. He wasn’t warming up very fast as he was. He fit himself alongside her, lying on his side to do it, so he was facing the mummy he’d made.
“All right, my butt’s in the toasty chair.” He was grateful for it, too.
She wriggled some of the comforter out from under herself and pulled it over his shoulders. “Here, it’s mostly dry.”
“You’re mostly naked. Not a good idea.” Best damned idea in the world.
“I’m all the way naked, and I’ll let you know when I’m trying to turn you on. This isn’t it. Besides, you’re wearing a towel.”
“It’s a towel, not a chastity belt.”
Emily kicked a little until she’d gotten some of the comforter over his feet, too. “There, now you’ll warm up faster.” She smiled at him once she was satisfied, a smug little grin over the comforter.
“What are you so pleased about?”
“I’d just like to point out that my schoolteacher voice works better on you than your scary military voice works on me.”
He narrowed his eyes at her challenge. “I bet I can make you take that back.” In bed, when you’re begging for me again.
She blinked, reminding him suddenly of the way she’d first looked at him back at Keller’s bar. That’s right, sweet girl, you’ve got all my attention. All of it.
The interior lights timed out, shutting off and leaving them in the dark. He waited in silence for their eyes to adjust, listening to the way her breath was a little shallow, a little quick, the way it had been when he’d had her body under his hands in the front seat. That little taste of his addiction hadn’t been enough, not nearly enough to last him for the next three months—but it needed to be. There could be no repeat in the back seat. If I have you once, I’ll never stop craving you. He’d tried to dismiss that thought when she’d had the steering wheel at her back, but of course, it had been true. Too true.
He needed to lighten up in the dark, for her and for himself. “If my commands don’t make you stop, your own common sense should. What were we supposed to prove by taking that little swim?”
“That we’re officially in the polar bear club.”
He rolled his eyes and started to turn away.
She laughed in the dark. “That our parents were right and we shouldn’t go swimming in January?”
“Let’s go with that.”
She propped herself up on one elbow, looking down at him in the gray dark. She was all smiles. He wanted her badly. He wanted to pull every last smile into himself, wanted to use her to fill up all that emptiness he’d been carrying around.
He closed his eyes against that blinding truth. Emily needed to keep running away from him if he ran toward her. She didn’t need a man who needed her so badly.
“We weren’t proving anything,” she said, oblivious to the serious turn of his thoughts. “We were celebrating. We’re happy that I’m not going to waste another half a year of my life at Oklahoma Tech. You’re happy that you aren’t working at some job that pays well but sucks.”
“Happy.” He laid back and used one hand to rub his forehead in the sudden silence.
“Aren’t you looking for happiness?” Her voice was a little more subdued.
“Happiness might be overstating it. I just crossed the border into Texas this afternoon. I wasn’t coming here looking for happiness.”
“What if you found it, anyway?” She rustled over him in the dark, settling her chest onto his as gently as feather down. Her skin was still cool to the touch. Her breasts, unbearably soft, gave against his hard chest. “You came here to reboot, which isn’t the same as being happy. But what if, on the very first day you arrived in Texas, you found out you could be as happy as you’ve ever been? No broken hearts. No regrets. Could you let go of your worries and just enjoy being happy?”
Emily’s question was simple on the surface. Graham lay underneath her, aware that she had depth and wisdom and a sensuality about her that went beyond bare skin and a buoyant personality.
He valued her all the more for it. Hearts and regrets and the future mattered more than ever, when they were hers.
Her hair dripped on his shoulder, as cold as ice.
“Let me get you that comb you wanted.” It was a gutless change of subject, and he knew it.
He felt her cool hand as she cupped his cheek. She kissed him once, softly, a kiss as if she—as if she felt sorry for him. “I’ll get it. Where is it?”
He raised his head, thinking to get up to get it for her, but it was a useless reflex, an automatic courtesy that served no purpose. He’d have to make her move and then he’d have to climb over her to get it. “In the gym bag. There’s a shaving kit.”
She plopped the bag on the center console and dug out his comb. Keeping the comforter in her teeth so it covered up her front, she pulled an already damp towel around her shoulders and then started combing her hair out, starting at the bottom, working her way up. Graham was glad the heater was blowing hot now, because the towel had to be cold as it caught more water.
He watched her in silence as she combed out her hair in the moonlight, a siren, a mermaid. He’d crossed oceans by carrier without seeing a mermaid. He’d needed to come to this little landlocked pond to find one. The thought came and went as he admired the grace in her movements, the unhurried efficiency that came from having done this same task year after year. It was such a womanly thing to comb out her long hair, as much yin to his yang as her smooth face was to his day’s beard.
“You are beautiful.”
She paused.
Then she took one more stroke with the comb and tossed it back in his shaving kit, tossed the wet towel onto the other seat, and tucked the comforter under her arms. Her bare shoulders were pearlescent in the gray light, her face an opal as she sat and looked out the window.
Graham ached for her, his body hard, aroused by her quiet beauty as much as he’d been aroused by more basic desires tonight.
She sighed as if she were completely satisfied. “This is the best night of my life. It already was, but it just keeps getting better. That was the most genuine compliment I’ve ever gotten.”
“You must have had other men say you were beautiful.”
She kept her eye on the stars. “Not like that.”
Graham was silent.
“Do you remember when you said my prom date must be kicking himself now for passing up the chance to hold a beautiful woman?”
She asked the question as if they were having a casual conversation.
They were not.
“For the rest of your life, whenever you remember Graham and Emily by the lake that night, do you think you’ll be sad that you have memories of making love to her?” She turned her gaze from the stars back to him. “Or will you only have regrets if you don’t?”