She blinked. There wasn’t anyone. And she didn’t need there to be anyway. That was what made her mother so weak. Her mother needed someone else to make her feel complete, needed drama and loud fights and passionate sex to feel alive. Lily made herself feel alive. She pushed herself, supported herself. She was the only one she counted on for anything, and that was the way it had to be. If she let herself down, there was no one else to blame, and there was no one else hurt. It all came down to her.
Usually, those thoughts left her feeling fortified, but not now. It just made her feel lonely. She used to ache like this all of the time. Wish that someone would care for her, care about her. She’d let it go so long ago she hadn’t realized that those old longings still existed … they were buried, but still there.
She inhaled a sharp breath of the hot, damp air.
“Of course she had me,” Gage said, his voice hard. “I would never leave her to fend for herself.”
A tightening sensation curled in her stomach. Envy, she realized. Envy that Maddy had someone who cared for her so much, to love her so much, even if her parents hadn’t. Lily hadn’t had anyone. She still didn’t.
“Let’s swim,” she said, the words leaving her mouth before she had a chance to process them. She didn’t really want to reveal her body to Gage. She valued her image, the shield she’d put up around herself, too much to make herself so exposed. But she realized that if she didn’t do something she was in danger of doing something much stupider than that.
“I didn’t think you swam.”
“It’s too beautiful to resist.”
Gage dropped anchor on the boat and stepped back down on to the deck, gripping the bottom of his T-shirt and pulling it off in one fluid movement.
Lily felt her jaw go slack, and she knew that she looked as awestruck as she felt. She’d never seen Gage without a shirt. She’d mostly seen him in business attire, which was a massive treat for the eyes. And then, in preparation for the yacht trip, when he’d changed from his suit into pair of well-worn, well-fitted jeans and a threadbare T-shirt that revealed hints of his musculature beneath the soft, thin fabric, she’d found him incredible.
But now, standing in front of her with nothing but those jeans, low-slung, revealing lines that seemed to point straight down to a part of his body that should be completely off-limits to her, even in her mind, he had the power to stun her completely.
His chest was essentially mind-numbing. Acres of golden skin with just a slight dusting of dark hair, his muscles well-defined, shifting and bunching as he moved around the yacht, tying off ropes and making sure everything was secure for them to disembark.
When he straightened she couldn’t help but watch the play of his ab muscles, shifting, rippling.
Oh, my …
Her heart thundered and her mouth went completely dry.
She owned beachfront property. She saw half-naked men every day of the week. And she even liked looking at them. But never, ever, had she been unable to do anything but stare. But she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.
Now she really needed a swim. And she hoped the water was cold enough to jar her out of whatever stupor her hormones were lulling her into.
He unsnapped the top button of his jeans and the intensely provocative motion shook her back to reality. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t say anything, only gave her a wicked grin and lowered the zipper on his pants, shrugging them down his slim hips, revealing his swim shorts.
She narrowed her eyes and grabbed the hem of her T-shirt before hauling it over her head. She tugged her shorts down and tossed them onto the chair before the full impact of what she’d done and what she was wearing could hit her.
His eyes raked over her, his expression mirroring everything she was feeling, although he didn’t have the dumbfounded look she was sure had been etched onto her face. No, there was nothing confusing about any of this for him. His expression showed nothing but intent. He knew what he wanted, and he knew what to do about it, and suddenly she felt as if she would trade anything, even half of her kingdom so to speak, for an ounce of that surety. To feel confident. To know she could have what she wanted and suffer nothing for the indulgence.
Her self-imposed strictures had never bothered her before. She’d been happy simply putting her head down and working, climbing the ladder, doing everything she could to put miles between herself and her past.
Now, for the first time, she wondered if she’d missed something somewhere along the way.
Part of her wanted to give him the disclaimer that she never wore such revealing swimwear. But another part of her, the more stubborn part, didn’t want him to know that she felt totally out of her depth being alone with a man in the middle of a tropical paradise, wearing little more than a few strings tied together and passed off as swimwear.