The Way We Feel

Chapter 29

       

I couldn't look away.

The view was beautiful. A wide, clear blue sky already showing the beginnings of pink and orange in faint streaks, dropped down to meet a crystal horizon—the vast expanse of aquamarine water currently lapping against the soft white sand.

And against my husband—the view that was impossible to look away from.

He was walking out of the water looking like a damn Greek god. It rushed around his legs as he headed back toward the beach, running his hands over his wet hair—like it was trying to hold onto him. Even from here, where I was stretched out on a lounge chair underneath an umbrella, a book forgotten in my lap, I could see the drops of water trickling over the planes of his chest, dipping into the creases of muscle, making his skin and tattoos glisten.

The warmth in the air would've been oppressive if not for the breeze coming from that water, but there was a heat crawling along my skin now that made me feel like I couldn't sit still.

And had me biting my lip by the time he reached me.

There was a glimmer of amusement in Harry's eyes.

"Are you going to sit here all day?" he asked, bringing a towel up to his face to wipe his eyes.

His leg hair was dark and pasted against his skin, and somehow, even that was sexy.

"I haven't decided yet," I said, letting my eyes drift over his enticingly short navy blue bathing suit. His thighs flexed as he shifted his weight.

"Mads, you've put sunscreen on three times already in the hour we've been here. I don't think the sun will get you this time."

We'd been here in Anguilla for two days, and I'd already gotten completely burnt after a day on the beach yesterday. I was warned that the Caribbean sun was stronger, but apparently I hadn't done enough to heed that warning.

I sighed, looking back down at me book, and just that movement made the sunburned skin of my stomach stretch and sting. "I know that."

Harry chuckled as he sat at the end of his lounge chair beside mine, still toweling off.

My eyes drifted over to his back, the drips of water still clinging to his skin where he hadn't been able to reach, the way those drips trickled over the swells and dips of muscle.

He looked over his shoulder at me, and smirked when he caught me ogling him.

"Want to come in with me?"

"Hm?"

Harry tilted his head in the direction of the water. "I want you to come in the water with me."

I wouldn't admit it, but I was definitely afraid of spending too much time in the water today. The last time I'd gotten this badly burnt, I was eleven, when we were on a family vacation in Florida. After the initial application, I was having too much fun to worry about putting on more sunblock, and I'd spent hours more in the pool, getting singed by the sun. My sunburn was so bad, it had put me off going back in the water for the four days of vacation that were left. The same thing had happened yesterday. Though I did reapply after getting out of the water once, I was too lazy to do it again after that. And we'd spent enough time on the beach that I should've.

I felt the same fear now as I had back then about not wanting to go swimming again.

But how could I say no to him?

"Put more sunblock on first," I said to him, buying myself some time.

Watching him put it on, helping him put it on, would only be an added bonus.