Touching Scars(21)

“Wait, where’re you going?” He looked confused.

“Packing up to head back home, what does it look like?” I said, with more force than I intended.

His eyes captured mine. I saw him trying to read my expression. I worked hard to school my face, trying not to give away the fact that he was making me nervous and I just wanted to get away from him.

“Kat, you don’t have to leave on my account. I’ll leave if you are really that uncomfortable with me being here.”

I sighed deeply. Searching his face for any sign that he didn’t mean what he said, I saw that he was being honest. Okay, seriously, I was being the biggest bitch. Deciding that I needed to take a chill and look at his being here from a different angle, I put my bag down and smoothed my features.

“Look, I’m sorry. I’m just not used to falling asleep on the beach and waking up to someone sitting in my light. Then you start flirting and I don’t know how to take it.”

He chuckled. “You think that I was flirting with you?”

Did I mistake his comments for him coming on to me? Feeling like my face was flaming with embarrassment, I said, “Yeah. Umm, weren’t you?”

He leaned over so he was eye level with me. “I suppose I was. But if I were really flirting with you, I’d make sure you knew it.”

I swallowed hard. It was already in the upper nineties outside and him being this close made me feel like my skin was on fire. Desperate for an excuse to move away from him and cool off, I stood abruptly and announced, “I’m going for a swim.”

Looking down at him, he was leaned in towards my beach towel, with one arm in the sand supporting his weight and the other resting across his knee. He lifted his head just enough so that I could see his pale blue eyes checking me out. I felt like I was on display. His gaze went from my face, down to my breasts that were very much out there for his viewing pleasure, and then moved further down to my stomach that I felt was too pudgy but I still worked out enough to keep thin. He swept his eyes down my legs and back up again. He was breathing harder, and I couldn’t take the intensity of his stare. I quickly shimmied out of my shorts and moved down the beach to the water. The Gulf during the summer months was like stepping into bath water. It stayed at a steady eighty-five degrees.. When I was completely submerged to the top of my breasts, I turned around in time to see that Timber was standing up to remove his grey wife beater.

Fuck. Me.

He was perfect. Wading out here in the water far enough that he couldn’t tell exactly where my eyes were trained, I stared at him unabashed. I’d never seen anything like him before, at least not in person or where Photoshop hadn’t had anything to do with it.

Timber was tall. Last night I had noticed that he towered over me by almost a good foot. His long, lean legs easily displayed his height. When he turned around to toss his shirt on my beach towel his firm ass was in perfect view. If I didn’t know it before, I certainly did now. I…was…an ass girl. Licking my lips, I imagined putting my hands on his firm cheeks and squeezing. When he turned back and started making his way towards where I was floating, I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the way his swim trunks hung low on his hips. He had a beautifully sculpted V that made me imagine what sort of prize it led to. There was a trail of dark hair that ran from his belly button and disappeared underneath the fabric. Just above his navel I saw the most incredible set of abs I’d ever seen. I remembered seeing Timber with his shirt off in high school during football practice when I was running around the track, but his body had never been this hard or sculpted. He’d been thinner, leaner. I knew being out on the oil field kept him in shape, but I was certain he worked out too. Nobody that worked with my uncle was that ripped. My eyes continued their journey north, noticing the many tattoos that graced his body. On the left side of his ribcage was a tat that said the word ‘Faith’. There were words underneath it but he was still too far away to discern what they were. Up around his pecs were some swirl designs that looked really intricate. He had the words ‘cursed with a blessing’ written in a hard-edged script on his collarbone. I wondered why he would put those words on his body. He had a sleeve on his right arm that I’d already seen but I really wanted to look at close up.

Speaking of close up, he had moved nearer to me and I directed my gaze to his full lips that were surrounded with dark scruff, and then to his eyes. Those blue eyes that I could get lost in. They wrinkled slightly at the corners and I realized that he was grinning at me.

As he approached me he said, “Get a good look? I can do a twirl if you’d like me to.”