Tori was killing him and she didn’t even know it. She’d come out of her room wearing what looked like a long sleeveless tank top that covered her from collarbone down to her knees, but when they hit the beach, she pulled it off and revealed an electric blue bikini.
It was actually on the conservative side, with a high waist, but there were cutouts along the sides and the top did up with a complicated network of knots in the back that made his fingers itch.
Hottest spandex ever, and mostly because she wore it like it was a dive suit. Totally utilitarian. And she was oblivious to the effect it had on him as she ran into the ocean ahead of him—and then he had to charge past her, because of the effect it had. Hard-ons were best hidden under the surf.
Stifling his desire wasn’t new, so he ran through drill orders in his head as he swam away from shore, hard and fast. Tori kept up nicely, and when he dove underwater and spun around to find her, she wasn’t far behind him.
He resurfaced in her path and she splashed him.
“Another twenty yards and I’ve have caught you,” she teased.
“You always were good at the long distances.” He nodded toward the resort. “Race you back to shore?”
Instead of answering, she tucked her head and rolled into the water, planting her feet against his chest and pushing off into a flip turn. He rocked back, then dove underwater to gain the lost ground.
She was good, but he was better. By the time they reached shallow water again, he was beside her. He could pull past, but he didn’t want to. Landing in the surf at the same time, laughing hysterically, was infinitely superior to winning.
“How long has it been since we did that?” she asked, gasping for air as she rolled onto her back, her elbows planted in the wet sand.
He assumed the same position beside her and crossed his legs, watching the turquoise water turn into white surf around their bodies. Her legs, curvy and distractingly smooth next to his. That electric blue suit right next to his hip. He blinked and refocused his attention on the conversation. “Ten years?”
“At least. Maybe at the lake my first summer of college?”
They’d been on a competitive swim team all the way through high school. Then Logan joined the Navy, all with an eye to eventually joining the SEAL teams, and Tori had gone to university. “Did I come home that first summer? I don’t think so. I was on basic training and then I had leave, but you were at your grandparents’ cottage. I think it was the summer after that. You’d just decided to major in math, remember? And I’d given you such a hard time about that.”
Tori tipped her head back and laughed. Man, she’d forgotten about that. “Yeah. I swore up and down that it would lead me to a real career one day and you couldn’t see how.”
“I was all ready to buy you a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches.”
She’d used that degree nicely, though. Now she was the CFO for a tech start-up in Atlanta. “Most of the time I wear geeky graphic t-shirts under my suit jackets,” she said. “Although I’m not sure that’s better.”
“I like graphic tees,” he said, kind of roughly, and she glanced over at him expecting to see something like gentle understanding on his face because that’s what Logan did so well. But he wasn’t even looking at her, he was staring out at the horizon.
“Hey, you wanna go back to the villa or something?” She rolled toward him and bumped into his arm. “Lying around in the ocean probably isn’t a treat for you.”
He smiled, the curve of his mouth softening the hard, granite lines of his profile. “This is a treat.”
“You still loving it?”
She knew he understood she meant his military service. She asked him the same question every time he came home. He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good.” And it was good. It was great. But it still hurt a little that she’d lost her best friend to a greater good.
Maybe it had been a mistake not to follow him out to the west coast. But he’d never extended that invitation. She’d danced around it, and in the end, decided to stay in Georgia—a decision that had felt right at the time. Hindsight was a different story, and she knew being dumped was playing into that in a big way. After graduating, she’d considered California again, but the cost of living and precarious nature of the high-tech sector had kept her cautious self looking for work closer to home.
Less fancy, more stable. That was Tori’s life motto.
Of course, look where it had dumped her in the end. Dumped. Ha. Freudian slip.
There was some important meaning to be found in the fact that the first exotic vacation she’d been able to go on happened because of Stephen, but also without him. That it took a dozen years for her and Logan to finally take a wild adventure together.