Muffin Top (Page 36)

Was she sounding a little bit like a woman on the edge of losing it? Hell yes, she was, and she didn’t care. This was it. This was her.

The longer Frankie just stood there staring at her, the expression on his face unreadable for once, the louder the doubt demons screamed in her ears. She could last it out, though. She was a strong woman made of stern stuff and—the first tears burned the backs of her eyes. No. She would not. She would not allow herself to cry. She would not. Grinding her teeth together in an effort to clamp down on her emotions, she watched Frankie do nothing but stand there and stare.

At her size-twenty body.

Naked.

Without saying a damn thing.

Her nose twitched, and she had to blink back the tears. She may not be able to stop them, but she sure wasn’t going to let him see her cry. God, this was worse than she imagined. She felt raw and exposed and vulnerable—everything she fought every damn day not to be.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice raw. “That’s what I thought.”

Without waiting on a response that wasn’t about to happen, she strode into the lake, waiting until she was waist deep before she dove under the water and began swimming toward the floating dock and away from such a stupid fantasy as being more than just a pity fuck for Frankie Hartigan.

Chapter Fourteen

Frankie had no idea what had just happened. Wait. He took that back. He knew what had happened, but was clueless about how he’d become the asshole in all of this.

What in the ever-loving hell was going on?

Once actual thought had burst through the haze of WTF, he started to strip down. It didn’t take long, since he wasn’t slowed down by having to deliver an angry tirade directed at a person who was so turned on by seeing Lucy’s naked body that they couldn’t think straight, let alone form words.

By the time he was bare-ass naked, the woman in question had made it out to the floating dock. She pulled herself up onto it, and Frankie’s brain went into shutdown mode again.

The moonlight caught every inch of her skin, wet and tempting from her swim. He might have been—okay, totally was—mesmerized, but she couldn’t even be bothered to look back toward the shore. Instead, she went straight to the metal box in the middle of the wooden square and pulled out a blanket. With a few efficient moves, she had it spread out on the dock and sat down, facing away from him as if he didn’t even exist.

Oh no. That was not going to happen.

Lucy Kavanagh wasn’t going to tell him that he couldn’t possibly want her when every part of him—including the part pointing right at her—wanted her very, very badly.

That need, hot and urgent, spurred him forward into the water. On any other night, the squishy ground and God-knew-what that had brushed against his leg in the murky depths of the lake may have stopped a city boy like him who’d only ever been in chlorinated pools. However, tonight was a different story.

His patience had run out.

He made it out to the dock in record time, if someone kept records for naked night swimming to go have an argument with a woman who made him nuttier than a handful of peanuts. Reaching up, he planted his palms on the floating dock and vaulted up onto it.

“Lucy Kavanagh, you are fucking maddening.”

She jumped up from the blanket with a squawk of surprise as if she really had figured he’d just gotten an eyeful of her naked and had slunk away into the night. That just pissed him off more.

“I am not that bitch Constance, or that guy from Marino’s who told you to eat a salad, or any of the other dumbasses who’ve been too stupid to see you as you are.”

She whirled around. “Oh yeah, and what’s that?”

“One of those women who men start wars over.”

He heard her breath hitch in surprise. God, all he wanted in the world was to take the three steps it would take to reach her so he could touch his fill, but he wasn’t going to do that. Precarious didn’t begin to describe the situation, and he wasn’t about to intimidate her with his size or the fact that they were both naked, staring at each other like they were the answer to each other’s questions.

At least she was to his. He knew that to be a fact and he’d swear to it in court—just hopefully with more clothing on. “Lucy Kavanagh, you’re the kind of woman who makes a man so desperate he’ll happily lose his ever-loving mind for the chance to touch you.”

She let out a sigh and all the brusque, angry tension went out of her. “I’m not a small woman.”

“Maybe you’ve noticed,” he said, straightening to his full height. “I’m not a small guy.”

Her eyes dipped lower, and yeah, he reacted to the appreciation he saw in her eyes when her gaze moved back up. A small smile teased the ends of that sweet mouth of hers, the one he couldn’t stop fantasizing about, much to the detriment of his sanity, and she took a step closer.

“Do you even know what to do with that?” Her voice had gone husky. “What if all the talk around Waterbury is exaggeration?”

He raised one eyebrow, which was all the response that asinine question deserved. Still, he answered anyway. “Why don’t you give me a try and find out.”

She took another step closer, the blanket still clutched around her body like a shield, but almost near enough to touch. It was killing him to stay still, not to push his advantage, but this had to be her call. Thank all that was good in the world, because she took another step forward, and another and another until his body was tense with anticipation. Then, she reached out and glided a fingertip across his chest, following the line of freckles that he’d hated as a kid but was so goddamn thankful for now because Lucy seemed to be fascinated by them.

“What happened to being patient?” she asked, her tone as soft as her touch.

And that’s all it took to break the last thread of self-control holding him back. “This.”

In the next breath, his fingers were digging into her wet hair, his mouth on hers, and nothing else mattered. It was a frenzy of touching, licking, tasting as they came together. He glided his hands over her body, loving the way she reacted to him with throaty moans and answering touches.

He couldn’t get enough of her, the round curve of her full hips, the weighty heft of her breasts, which filled his hands as he plundered her mouth. Fuck, there was so much he wanted to do with this woman that he had no idea where to start. With other women he’d always known, but this wasn’t a flirty seduction, this was a full-on, fully engaged four-alarm fire, and he was glad as hell to be burning.

…

Lucy had lost her ever-loving mind. If she had a mind. She wasn’t sure anymore, not after she’d turned around in time to catch Frankie pull himself out of the lake and onto the floating dock.

He had been naked. Had she mentioned that?

And he was still naked.

And kissing her.

And touching her.

And turning her brain into total rambling mush wherein she was having a silent conversation with herself because there was no way she could kiss this man and not do something a little crazy at the same time.

Had she mentioned they were naked? Yeah. Good, because they were, and his long, hard, and thick cock was pressed against her belly. And his hands? They were everywhere at once, and his touch wasn’t gentle or timid or unsure as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to be doing this. Nope. Frankie was a grab-a-handful-like-you-mean-it kind of guy, and she was reveling in it.