breeze of the Summer scent he’d worked so hard to rid himself of just moments ago. He breathed it in, and felt the magic bringing his body to life again.
“Rick.” Her tone sounded surprised...and maybe a little relieved. “I was afraid you weren’t coming tonight.” The teasing lilt of her voice emphasized the open look of pleasure glinting from her eyes in the moonlight.
He let out the breath he’d been holding and held up the towel in his hand. “Want to go for a moonlight swim?”
CHAPTER TEN
SUMMER HURRIED TO CHANGE INTO her swimsuit and work her hair into a braid. She wasn’t sure if she was hurrying because of excitement, nerves or fear Rick would change his mind. After all, if she was Cinderella, this magic would end in an hour and thirty-seven minutes.
Rick stood up as she came back into the front room. “Ready?”
Her body’s response confirmed she was indeed ready—for much more than a swim in the moonlight.
“Not quite.” She held his gaze as she made a pass around the couch and came to stand in front of him. “If you don’t kiss me again pretty soon, I think I might scream.”
Desire was evident in Rick’s eyes as he leaned close. “Well, we wouldn’t want to wake the kids.” He leaned closer.
In an English lit class, she once heard that the most blissful moments in life occurred the split second before being touched by someone we care for. If all those moments were totaled, they would only add up to approximately seven minutes out of an entire lifetime. The people depicted in Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” were fortunate to have been captured in that moment forever.
She closed her eyes in anticipation, wishing this moment, with the warmth of Rick’s breath on her lips and the sound of it in her ears and her heart threatening to gallop away, could be captured forever.
His mouth brushed against hers in just a whisper of a touch that caused her breath to stutter in her chest. She inched closer as his fingertips feathered up her arms, and the pressure of his lips increased ever so slightly. Her arms slid around his waist as his hands moved up to cup the sides of her face. The strength in the muscles she could feel beneath her palms was such a contrast to his soft and tender caress, an urgent need to respond to both tugged and coiled inside her. He captured her whimper with a delicate sweep of his tongue before he broke away.
When she opened her eyes, he was still holding her face close to his. The heat in his gaze zinged through her, down to her toes. “Now, you have to promise not to scream before I can let you go.”
Faced with such a compelling decision, her brain whirred, trying to decide on the best course of action. Finally, she smiled. “Then I think I want to scream, but I’m too weak.”
He laughed and gave her another quick kiss before he loosened his grip.
They were leaving her cabin when Kenny came strolling along the path from the dining hall on his nightly rounds.
“We’re going for a swim, Kenny.” Rick held up the towel as apparent proof of their intentions.
A sarcastic chuckle pierced the air as Kenny passed them. “Call it whatever you want. You’re on your own time.”
Rick’s hand reached for hers as they wandered down the path to the beach, and she relinquished it gladly. This entire night had been a reminder of how romantic holding hands could be.
“So, you’ve been practicing some fairy princess magic on the sly, haven’t you?” She punched a playful elbow to his ribs.
“Me?” The trees along the path obscured the light enough that she couldn’t see his eyes.
“How else can you explain ten eight- and nine-year-old boys asking ten girls to dance and not a complainer in the bunch?” For hours, she’d been wondering how he’d accomplished such a feat. Now another possibility came to her. “Or did you threaten them with some especially heinous KP duty?”
He waved his hand nonchalantly. “Oh, that? That didn’t take a threat or magic. That took good old-fashioned bribery.” He grinned, and she could see the line of his white teeth break across his shadowed face. “Did I mention that Charlie’s rounding up some hand-crank freezers for homemade ice cream tomorrow night?”
“Food! I should have known.” When they laughed together, he squeezed her hand, and the butterflies materialized in her stomach again and took flight.