Know Your Heart: A New Zealand - Tracey Alvarez Page 0,66
because she was shy about showing some skin—you couldn’t be in her line of work and not deal with your own physicality—but because now when Glen looked at her, she wondered who he saw. Looking in the mirror some days, even she didn’t know who the woman was staring back.
Ah, would the real Savannah please stand up?
“You know where the pools are?” she said as they stepped off the deck and headed down the driveway.
“Nate gave me directions when I first got up here. It’s not far.”
“Famous last words.”
He grinned over at her, linking their fingers. “Don’t worry. Like all men, I have an uncanny sense of direction.”
Her insides gave a hot little squeeze at the feel of his hand in hers, the simple sweetness of the gesture momentarily leaving her speechless.
Glen stopped beside a small path cutting away from the driveway and leading down through a thick grove of trees. “I’m man enough to ask for directions if I do get us lost.”
Light and shadows dappled over the white tee shirt spread tightly over his chest and shoulders, down to swimming trunks that sat low on his hips. The scent of his sun-warmed skin and the rich, earthy vegetation overwhelmed her senses.
She swallowed past a dust-dry throat. “Who would you ask for directions in the middle of the bush?”
Glen ducked under a tree branch and stole a kiss—more a tempting appetizer than a real kiss.
“You’ll just have to trust me.” He tugged her down the over-grown path. “C’mon.”
They followed the path downhill, keeping close to a barbed wire and wooden stake fence that kept the neighbor’s free-range cattle from straying onto Savannah’s land.
They trekked to the sounds of a slow-moving stream, buzzing insects and twittering fantails keeping them company. They pushed through giant punga fronds and avoided the hook-shaped thorns on the spindly branches of another plant that Glen told her with a grin was nicknamed “Lawyer vine”. Water sounds grew louder as the trickling stream flowed faster downhill.
“Lucky we had all that rain.” Glen offered a guiding hand down a particularly steep bank dotted with gnarled tree roots. “Nate said the pools are better then.”
A thick cluster of spindly manuka opened up into a small clearing.
“Oh,” Savannah breathed. “It’s so pretty.”
A low waterfall tumbled over mossy river stones into a pool of deep green. It wasn’t a huge pool, perhaps twice the size of an enormous spa, but after the fifteen minute walk through the afternoon heat, it looked inviting. A large, flat rock jutted part way out over the water, and they dropped their towels and bottles there.
Glen stripped off his shirt in one fluid movement. Bent over and untying her shoe laces, she froze.
“What?”
He’d caught her gaze on all those lickable inches of tanned flesh. The shifting light filtering through the trees seemed to make his sword tattoo dance.
Goose bumps popped out on her skin, though she hadn’t dipped a toe into the water. God, he was stunning. Standing there in only his shorts, which hung indecently low on his lean hips. Glen wasn’t obnoxiously buff like some of the men she’d worked with, their abdominal muscles ridged so tightly you could bounce tennis balls off them. She kicked off her shoes, dragging her gaze from the streak of dark hair low on Glen’s flat stomach. No, he wasn’t ripped, but dear Lord… She wanted to climb him like a tree and sink her teeth into the spot where his neck met the strong hump of shoulder muscles.
“You okay?” He took a step toward her, extending his hand.
What he planned to do with that hand she didn’t dare find out, since the urge to jump him then and there dominated her thoughts.
“Eels!” She yelped and hopped out of reach.
If she hadn’t been so tied up in knots trying to smother both nerves and the throb of blood filling out her erogenous zones, she would’ve laughed at the way Glen’s face crumpled.
“What? Where?” He whirled to peer into the water, giving her a prime viewing opportunity of the, most, amazing, ass.
“Thought I saw one. Be a pal and check it out.” Savannah gave him a not-so-gentle shove that tipped him into the pool.
Water splashed over her toes, and she danced backward—just in time, as Glen surged back out of the water, shaking himself like a wet dog. He propped his upper body on the sun-warmed rock, leaving his lower half dangling in the water.
“You,” he said, blue eyes glittering beneath dripping hair, “are gonna suffer payback for