It’s beena hell of a week pretending I’m fine, pretending not to think about or notice Roxanne. I wake up and catch myself checking for her even though I’m in Topper’s house. I’ve been keeping my boots moving, my head down, and reminding myself this is for the best. She’s leaving, and I’ve got no business wanting something that can’t last. That doesn’t mean it’s been easy to not want to be near her.
She’s been doing her damnedest to get my attention, though.
One morning, we’re halfway through our weekly check-in on the sundeck. Me, Topper, and a couple other vets are discussing our plan for repairing the chicken coops and the fact that we are acquiring some animals from a nearby sanctuary that’s overflowing with rescues. Topper’s going over the supplies we need while I’m nodding along, pretending I’m fully present.
I am, until I see her.
She steps outside the lodge looking like a damn fever dream with a galvanized bucket hooked on her elbow. She’s wearing this little white dress covered in blue flowers that looks like it was stitched out of summer itself. Thin straps tied at her shouldersbarely holding in her full breasts. That hem, curving high on one thigh, like it’s flirting with gravity. I don’t even realize I’ve stopped breathing until Topper jabs me with his pen.
“You okay, boss?” he asks.
“Yup,” I lie, voice low and tight. “Uh, so where are we going to put the new burros?”
I try to keep my eyes focused on my work until I catch Roxanne walking across the lawn like she doesn’t know that she just shifted the Earth’s rotation. There’s this sway in her step, confident but not cocky, like she’s letting herself have fun for the first time in a long while.
“Brought refreshments,” she says sweetly, setting the bucket down right between me and Topper. She leans over the table, and my eyes drop to the way that fabric hugs her.
Fuck, I’m toast.
“Appreciate it,” Topper says, grabbing a mason jar of tea.
“Why thank you, ma’am,” another vet, John, says, flashing her a smile.
I bite back a cough and manage to grunt something that might be “Thanks.”
Roxanne’s not done, though. She places a tea in front of me, extra slow. Lets her fingers brush against mine for a second too long. “My pleasure,” she says, then winks this heart stopping seductive wink and walks off without a backward glance.
Topper pats me on the back. “Man’s trying to keep it together and she’s out here making chess moves with a sundress.”
“Let’s wrap this up,” I manage to say.
Over the next few days, things only get worse. Roxanne knows what she’s doing. Low-cut dresses at dinner. High-cut shorts during my walkthrough of the chores we do in the morning. A barely-there tank while she helped Allie and Leo with drone shots.
I’m not sure how much more I can take.
Ever since that moment with the iced teas, I’ve buried myself in chores, meetings, sunrise yoga, hell, I even volunteered to clean the godforsaken goat barn to get my mind off the way Roxanne looked in that dress.
None of it prepares me for what she does next.
Topper and I are folding up yoga mats from an early class. A few of the vets are milling around, sipping coffee or stretching out sore joints. I look up as Allie, Leo, and Roxanne walk out from the lodge.
Roxanne is wrapped in a white robe, her blond hair is wild around her face, her hips swaying casually as she makes her way toward the pool off the back deck. She’s talking to Allie and Leo, completely at ease. Everything seems like no big deal until she drops that damn robe to her ankles.
For a moment, it’s like I’ve left my body and am floating above myself. Wouldn’t you know it, I’m wearing a thin pair of athletic shorts—which means there’s not much to hide my dick straining against them.
The red bikini she’s wearing is holding on for dear life. String-tied and high-legged. The kind of suit that makes a man believe in higher powers.
She squares up and does a near-perfect dive into the water, and every part of me forgets how to function. I lose her for a second as she glides underwater. When her hands wrap around the pool ladder, my heart slams against my ribs.
Roxanne surfaces like a goddess rising from the sea with water cascading down her in slow motion, clinging to skin I’ve dreamed about tasting.
That red bikini is a war crime!
It hugs every dip and curve like it was sewn onto her body, the triangle top barely containing the generous swell of her breasts, which jiggle slightly as she climbs out of the water.
She wrings water from her hair, tilting her head in thateffortless way that makes her look like sin on a Sunday morning. I force a breath through my nose, and try to focus on anything other than the way Roxanne’s bikini bottoms ride up her hips or how her nipples are pebbling from emerging from the water.
She walks by with a slow, dripping confidence, and I have to shut my eyes for half a beat just to hold the line.
