Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
His laugh echoed through the brick structure.
“Why not, let’s see a movie, Morgan? Or my personal favorite, let’s order in and watch Netflix, Morgan?” We finally reached a landing with a door, and I turned toward him as he stepped up beside me, drawing my eyes upward again. “Hmmm?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“I will order in with you whenever you want.” His gaze dropped to my lips, and the temperature in the lighthouse rose. Or maybe that was just my own body. “I’ll even let you pick what we do next time.”
Next time. I swallowed, trying to find the levity we’d had just seconds ago. “I hope you’re up for a fun night of reading on the couch,” I teased.
“I’ll come read with you,” he offered in what had to be the sexiest voice imaginable. Hell, that was the sexiest line imaginable. “What book are you spending your nights with?”
“I just finished Mrs. Dalloway, and I’m on to Orlando now. I’m on a bit of a Virginia Woolf kick.”
“Go figure, you’re a classics kind of girl.” He grinned. “You almost had me fooled, thinking you were all about night hikes,” he joked.
I scoffed. “I’m not exactly an outdoor kind of girl, you know.” At least I hadn’t been.
“With all the shell hunting, beach walking, and yoga and surfing? You could have fooled me.”
“The old me preferred pedicures to four-wheeling, and the only things I hunted on the beach were boys and a tan. Oh, and the occasional Jet Ski trip.” My shoulders lifted in a shrug.
“The old you, huh?” He took a few steps to my right and reached for the door handle.
“Yep. She even came with a quick smile and sharp little tongue when the occasion called for it.” That was a whole other life—a whole other girl—but the girl I was tonight didn’t feel too bad, either.
“You still have those things. Trust me. And I happen to like whatever version of you this is just fine. In fact, I have yet to see any version of you I don’t like. They’re all just you.”
The sincerity in his eyes stripped away another layer of my defenses, but I didn’t feel raw or exposed. I felt…seen, which was oddly comforting in a way I really didn’t want to examine at the moment. “Thank you. So are you going to open that door, or was this hike just for fun?”
He stepped to the side and opened the door with a flourish. “After you.”
I stepped onto the deck, and my hair went wild, flying varying directions in the strong breeze that whipped at me from the ocean. I fisted the strands in one hand and the hem of my dress in the other as Jackson came through the door behind me and shut it. We stood on a circular deck just below the top of the lighthouse, where a light rotated in a steady rhythm at least ten feet above our heads.
His wide grin had me questioning his sanity. “You look just like you did when I first saw you.”
“Oh,” I said softly. He remembered the beach that well?
“Here.” He came close enough that I felt the heat of his skin as his arms reached around me, replacing my hands with his. “Now you can grab a hair tie if you want.”
“What makes you think I have a hair tie?” I arched a brow, refusing to give in to how damned handsome the man looked in the moonlight.
“Don’t all women keep a hair tie in their purse?” He nodded toward mine, which I’d slung diagonally over my shoulder.
“I’m not sure there’s anything that all women do,” I retorted, knowing full well that I had a tie in my bag. But common sense prevailed, and I surrendered my hair and hem to him, then reached for my handbag. My cheek brushed his bare forearm when I turned my head, and I muttered an apology as I quickly found the tie and restrained my hair in a quick bun.
Jackson won another point when he didn’t mention that I had, indeed, had a tie as he’d assumed. Instead, he took hold of my shoulders and turned me slowly so I faced the ocean. “Worth the hike?”
My breath caught, and I moved forward to lean against the cool, metal railing, hoping it was enough to keep my skirt from flying up over my underwear. These were definitely a step up from my Hello Kitties, and I wasn’t exactly ready to show them off.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, unsure if the wind made it too hard for Jackson to hear. The full moon played off the waves in the distance, streaking a path of white across the water that led straight to the beach, illuminating the coastline in a blend of light and shadows, softening the dramatic landscape.