Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
It wasn’t until I felt like I might actually pass out that I gave in, slowly swimming up until my head crested over the surface of the water. I shook out my hair, brushing it back from my face and wiping my eyes before blinking them open.
When I did, Chloe was sitting at the edge of the pool staring back at me.
“Impressive,” she mused, a sleepy, sexy smile on her pink lips.
No, it wasn’t purposefully sexy. Just sleepy. Curious, Friendly.
But it was still sexy as fuck to me.
“I will admit, I was only going to wait about ten more seconds before I dove in to save you. There’s a fine line between impressive and stupid.”
“I tend to walk that line quite often,” I grumbled, and she smiled wider.
I swam a few feet until I could touch the bottom of the pool, but made sure I was still a full five feet from where Chloe sat. The more distance between us, the better — especially with her looking the way she did right now.
Her hair was still wet and clinging to her neck, tiny droplets leaking down and disappearing beneath the hem of her tank top. I never thought I’d wish for that ridiculous fluffy robe of hers, but I did now. It was too much to see her in tiny sleep shorts and that thin top. It was too tempting, all that damp, warm skin.
She hung her feet in the water, kicking them lazily, her hands tucked under her thick thighs. I tried not to notice how her shorts rode up between them, how the fabric seemed to just barely cover her pussy and hips before it was all leg.
Scrubbing a wet hand over my face, I looked up at the clear sky above us for a moment of reprieve.
“Thank you for coming today,” Chloe said, drawing my attention back to her. “I can’t tell you how much it meant to Ava. She kept running through every moment when we were cleaning up the classroom. She especially loved telling the story of how Charlotte’s dad tried to sneakily ask you for your autograph, but she saw it.”
I didn’t smile, but the sentiment tugged at my dead heart.
“It’s Jenny who actually loved donuts,” I said, and instantly, I wondered why the fuck that had come to me. But it was better than staring at Chloe in tortured silence while I tried not to check her out. “I hate them, actually.”
“No one hates donuts.”
“They’re too sweet.”
“Right. And sunsets are too pretty, and kittens are too cute.”
“Speak for yourself on that last one.”
She rolled her eyes. “Did you tell her that? Ava?”
“No.” I frowned. “I didn’t think to, honestly.”
“You don’t talk about Jenny much, do you?”
It was an honest question. A curiosity. But it hit me like a truck, the weight of it crashing into my ribcage and making my next breath catch.
I didn’t know why, but I’d never faced the truth behind that assessment. I’d never stopped and realized that I really didn’t talk about Jenny — not to anyone, least of all Ava.
Her own daughter.
That hit my heart harder than anything ever had, and I found myself stumbling back a bit, blinking, frowning.
“I… I really don’t.”
“I can understand why,” Chloe said, having more grace and forgiveness for me than I deserved. “I’m sure it hurts.”
“It did,” I confessed. “But it’s… easier now. Not easy, but easier. And I should be talking about her more. I should be telling Ava all about her. I should—”
I clamped my mouth shut, jaw working as I fought against the emotion just thinking of her conjured inside me.
“Maybe it’s something we can do together,” Chloe offered. “We can start introducing Ava to her mom one thing at a time. A food she loved, a place she enjoyed, a song, a movie, a photograph, or memory.”
My eyes roamed hers, searching for an ulterior motive to her suggestion. I waited for my senses to go off, for that familiar feeling of detecting when a woman tried to use the death of my wife to get close to me.
But I found nothing.
Nothing but pure, honest intent to do good.
Fuck, I hated that. I loved it. I detested it. I craved it.
I wanted to warn her to shut her mouth just as much as I wanted to shut it myself, to kiss her hard and leave her breathless.
“Sorry,” Chloe said, reading my stare as me being upset. Which was fair, since I wasn’t sure exactly what I was feeling. “We don’t have to. I didn’t mean to overstep.”
“Stop fucking apologizing.”
“Then stop looking at me like I need to apologize.”
My eyebrows shot up at that. “Is that how you think I look at you?”
“Is it not true?”
I could see how she was breathing harder now, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she doubled down on sitting on her hands — no doubt to avoid fidgeting. There was something bold in the way she stared at me, like she was facing a fear I didn’t realize she had just by talking to me.