My father didn’t care to stick around long enough to get to know me.
My ex knew me but didn’t value me enough to try to work things out.
Silas knows me better than I know myself some days and he’s not afraid to be seen with me. The man threw me over his arm and kissed me in front of everyone he knows, for heaven’s sake! He’s carrying out his dead mother’s wishes for the boutique tohonor her memory, which speaks of integrity. The kind I didn’t know still existed. Silas also values what I bring to the business and he pushes me to be a better version of myself.
Not that I’ll ever take up jogging on a regular basis. He’s going to have to give up on that.
Hell, Silas even stood up to his father when he badmouthed me last night. He choseme.
Only an uncaring fool would turn their back on Silas Winthrop.
I lean down and lightly kiss his cheek, feeling the scrape of his whiskers. I think about what life could be like if I gave in to what my heart is trying to say. It’s beating against my chest like it plans to climb right out of my body and land at Silas’s feet.
“Good morning, honey,” Silas whispers.
I jerk my head up and see his eyes open, watching me carefully. “Hi.”
“You look like you were entertaining deep thoughts.” His voice is gruff and calm. The perfect way to wake up on a Sunday morning.
There’s no way I’m divulging what I’ve been thinking about. “Hmm. Just thinking of what to wear to church.”
Silas turns on his side and slides his arm around my waist. He pulls me into him, dropping lazy kisses on my neck, making me shiver. “I say we play hooky and skip church thisSundee.”
I gasp, feigning outrage, even though I love the way he says the day of the week with that twang. “To do what?”
I feel his grin against my skin. “How about I show you?”
And then his head slips below the covers. His T-shirt gets pushed up above my breasts and Silas’s mouth finds its way between my legs. My back arches and my mouth drops open, chanting for my maker.
We end up at Jasper Lake in the early afternoon, a place I’ve heard about but have never actually been. It’s just outside the town limits, a smallish lake that’s overrun with families with children. Coming from California, I’m used to beaches with deep sand and cold waves, but Jasper Lake offers lapping lukewarm water and a dirt shoreline. The heat is unbearable, only beat by humidity so thick it’s curling my eyelashes.
Silas took great pleasure in lubing me up with sunscreen before we left his house. He didn’t miss an inch, but the first thing I do stepping out of his truck in the grass parking lot is spray myself down with bug repellant. Mosquitos seem to love me here in the South. Silas reaches in the back of the truck for a cooler packed with our lunch and two folding chairs. I slap on a pair of sunglasses and grab the beach umbrella.
“I’m too pale for this,” I whine as we pick our way across the lot to the dirt beachfront. Sprays of dirt are flying up behind my flip-flops and hitting me in the ass with each step. My jean shorts are going to be dirty by the time we get to the actual water.
“You need vitamin D, Betsy Mae. It does a body good.” Silas stops at a bare patch of dirt and plops down the cooler. I grunt, not sure I agree with him. I catalog vitamin D up there with jogging. It’s overrated, in my opinion.
He sets up our chairs as I watch him move about. He’s dressed in hot-pink swim shorts with tiny hunting ducks regularly spaced on the fabric. His yellow polo shirt has the collar flipped up. Yes, the man wore a polo to the lake.
“Do you own any T-shirts that you actually wear outside the house?” I had to dig deep in his drawers to find a shirt to sleep in last night.
Silas gives me a winning smile under aviator shades that make him look ten times hotter than the sun blasting down on this lake right now. His brown hair looks golden in the bright light, like even the sun came down to kiss this gorgeous man.
“Are we talking fashion on our one day off, honey?” He gestures to a chair and waits until I plop down in it before he grabs the umbrella I dumped in the dirt.
“No, definitely not!” We agreed that to celebrate Harp and Hemline’s huge win yesterday, we’d not do one damn thing work related today. We deserve a day off.
Silas digs in the dirt for a good five minutes before he can wedge the umbrella in there enough for it to stay. He pulls up the spokes and the thick material provides instant shade. I let out a sigh of relief and rest my head on the back of the chair.
“My little storm cloud can’t handle the sun.” Silas laughs as he whips his polo over his head and settles in the chair next to me, which is entirely in the sun.
Damn, he looks good shirtless and tan. Maybe I do need to expose my skin to the sun. I hold my arm out from under the umbrella, regretting it when it turns pink almost instantly. That’s even with SPF fifty!
“You might want to save your suntan hours for when you’re in the water,” Silas drawls.
If we were in sand, I’d kick some on him. Instead, I flip him off. He shakes his head at my antics, stands, and reaches down for me. I let him help me up and then we walk hand in hand down to the water. We have to weave around kids everywhere but we find our own little area. I tiptoe in, expecting cold water, but find it’s almost bathwater temperature.
“Seriously? That’s not even refreshing.”
