It’s at least a five-mile hike out here from the main road. The moon is high, so I’d guess it’s sometime after midnight. Luckily it’s close to full, so the woman is able to see in the thick darkness.
She stumbles, lists, and drops onto a boulder with a trill of laughter.
Huh . . . maybe she can’t see.
Talking softly to herself, she reaches down and pulls off one boot, then the other, followed by her socks. With what looks like effort, she pushes back to standing and hooks her fingers into the waistband of her jeans. Her hips shift from side to side and— Oh God.
I drop my gaze, blinking.
Why is she taking her pants off?
I don’t want to invade her privacy. I should just turn and go back to bed, protect her modesty and honor, but . . . my teeth run along my bottom lip and my stomach flips with anticipation. Her light humming and giggles continue to filter in through the open window. I shouldn’t look. It’s not right.
She screeches.
My gaze jerks back to her.
“Oh my God, it’s freezing!”
I turn my head, try to avert my eyes, but it’s impossible, as if they’re tethered to her.
She slowly wades into the water, the soft curves of her body on full display beneath the moonlight. Toned legs meet the round globes of her backside and her hips sway with each step. Long black hair falls down the length of her back, the tips reaching for her bottom as if they’re just as desperate to touch its softness as I am.
Images of my hands caressing her thighs and opening her legs flood my mind. A sickness stirs in my gut, but this isn’t the illness that comes with food poisoning. No, this is something dangerous. A need that makes me restless, overcome with wanting. My fingertips itch to touch, my mouth waters to taste, and between my legs I’m heavy and aching.
This is bad. It feels wrong. Dirty.
Yet I’m helpless to look away.
She’s not quite in the deepest part of the creek, the water only hitting her at midthigh, and she turns to face the house. For a second I fear she might see me, but she doesn’t startle, only continues to sway, at ease, as if she’s become one with the current.
Her face is cast in shadows and my eyes travel down the long column of her neck. I lick my lips and imagine what she’d taste like, what her soft body would feel like. The creamy skin of her full breasts stand in extreme contrast to her dark tight nipples. A low groan falls from my throat as my gaze slides down her soft belly to the thin strip of hair between her legs.
My hips flex uncontrollably and I dip my hand into my sweatpants, gripping myself so hard it hurts.
As much as I’m desperate for pleasure, I shouldn’t use her to take it.
She isn’t mine.
It’s not right.
My hand pumps on its own accord and disgust and shame roll through me.
I’ve never seen a naked woman this beautiful. Just watching her is doing things to my body that are impossible to control. Although I’ve felt the unwelcome draw to a woman, wrestled with the burning need that coils between my legs, it’s never been this extreme. This demanding. There’s safety in my anonymity and my shame takes a backseat to my yearning.
I bite my lip against the pleasure-pain of my grip as I watch her drag her fingertips along the surface of the water. She sways back and forth and I feel her body moving in my arms. My lips soaking up the moisture from her bare skin, my hands in all that long hair. What would it feel like to be skin on skin, to have the warmth of another body pressed against mine?
She steps out of the shadows, and my eyes, lids half-mast and vision lust-fogged, move up to her face—Oh God!
I stumble backward. Rip my hand from between my legs.
It’s her.
The woman from the diner and Mr. Jennings’s house.
I squint. She’s crying.
I crouch low and watch. She’s staring at the house and her cheeks are wet with tears. What was once the gentle sound of her humming has turned to quiet sobs.
Maybe she saw me and she’s upset?
But she’s still standing there, completely exposed. It’s as if the house itself is making her cry.
I blink against the strange urge to comfort her. As if women aren’t intimidating enough, emotional women trigger a darkness in me I can’t allow myself to acknowledge.
Who is she? The night I dropped Cody off, she was terrifying, but today at the diner she was kind. Gentle even. And with that piercing stare that sends my pulse racing, she’s the kind of pretty that makes my chest hurt.
Without another thought, I turn and scurry back to my room. I crawl beneath my sleeping bag and try to ignore the still heavy weight between my legs and the painful throb that begs for my hand. No. I push away images of the naked woman in the creek.
The room shrinks around me and I slam my eyes closed, begging for sleep to take me.
SEVEN
SHYANN
“So no one will hire you and now you’re desperate enough to come by and ask for your old job back?” My dad doesn’t look up from his newspaper and takes a sip of black coffee.