fuzzy brain registered warmth, power, and the scents of the great outdoors and a male body. She stepped away from him quickly and put a distance of about a foot between their bodies, surprised by the sudden awareness she felt being that close to him.
"Whoa, sorry," the man said. He had a deep voice that made Anne’s toes curl and stomach flutter. The best way to describe his voice was that he had a bedroom voice, kind of like that singer, Barry White. What a voice! Her nerve endings came alive just at the sound.
She looked at the line of the man's tanned throat and his brown chest hairs that peeked out from above the open collar of his red polo shirt. Looking down, she could see the muscle definition of a powerful chest, lean hips, and long legs encased in faded blue jeans. This man had the body to go with the voice. Realizing that she was ogling the man’s body, she quickly looked up into his face and hoped that he would not realize what she had been doing. She almost groaned when she saw his face. He was possibly the most handsome man she had ever seen. He did not have the pretty boy sophisticated metro sexual look that some men cultivated but instead looked like a man’s man. He looked like he took life on and bent it to his will. He had just the look that never failed to appeal to her.
The man’s hair was a thick medium brown color; his eyes were like milk chocolate. His nose was strong and slightly crooked, and his lips were positively sensuous, looking both hard and soft at the same time. He also looked familiar. With a jolt, she realized that he was Ben, Lily Carlson's brother. She was ogling Ben! Feeling suddenly too warm and breathless to continue standing that close to him, she stepped away even further so that he was forced to let go of her arms.
"Anne? Is that you?" He went from looking at her with the awareness of a man who knew that he had just been checked out by a woman he found equally attractive to amused surprise. "Well, what do you know? Little Anne Petrovic is all grown up. Nicely too, I might add."
"Hello. Do I know you?"
"Liar," her mind screamed at her. She tried to assume a look of confusion. A line suddenly appeared between his brows, and he looked slightly disappointed that she did not remember him. He remembered her. Oh God! Did he remember her crush, too? He called her Anne Petrovic. She was so flustered by his remembering her that she did not correct the use of her name. When he was here, he knew her as Anne Petrovic, the daughter of Jim and Jane Petrovic.
"I used to come here with my family when my sister and I were kids. You remember Lily Carlson, don't you?"
"Of course I remember Lily. She's getting married this weekend."
"Yes, she is." He nodded his head then looked over his shoulder to where Lily stood talking to another man whom Anne assumed correctly was her fiancé.
"Good for her. That would make you Brent."
"Ben," he corrected her. Then he gave her that charming smile that she remembered. It lit up his eyes with brown fire, and his lips curved up until a small dimple appeared in his left cheek. A slight breeze blew a lock of hair onto his forehead and Anne became transfixed at the sight. She forgot what she was going to say for several seconds before it came to her that she was trying to pretend that she did not remember him.
"Of course! I'm sorry I forgot your name. It has been a long time." Oh, what the hell, she thought, before dropping the coyness act and giving him a warm smile in return. He continued to stare at her now with a strange intensity suddenly entering his eyes. His gaze disturbed her, and she felt the heat of his desire. More disturbing was that her body began to respond. She felt her face blush, and the heat move down. Needing to break the hold he had on her senses, she moved around him so that he was forced to either follow her to the main entrance or stay where he was. He chose to follow her.
"So, Anne... Do you still live here on Orcas?" He soon caught up to her with his longer strides until he was walking beside