A Is for Alpha Male by Laurel Curtis Page A

on his back in the sand, his breath coming out only in wheezes as he struggled to move air in and out of his lungs.
    Struggling to my knees, I reached a hand in my top and scooped out the bucketful of sand that had sandwiched itself between my breasts, and cautiously tried to get a look at the madman as I did.
    Working my way up the body, I saw manly, bare feet, tan, hair covered legs, and a pair of black board shorts that were being filled out quite nicely. Keeping my naughty eyes moving, I encountered a matching, tan, washboard stomach with a smattering of dark hair running down the center, a firmly delicious chest with a tattoo I couldn’t quite make out across the left peck and shoulder, and a strong jaw...that I recognized.
    Well, shit.
    Oopsie.
    Crawling on my hands and knees, I made my way over to Danny and put my face in front of his in an attempt to ascertain the state of his health.
    When his eyes met mine with the right amount of focus and his breaths started to come evenly, I smiled, waved a little, and said with breezy casualness, “Oh. Hey, Dan-o.”
    Shaking his head slightly in the sand, he muttered, “Hales.”
    Looking back down at his chest, I took a closer gander at his tattoo. It was hard to make out at first, but after a few seconds I managed to decipher that the part on his chest was a tribal, abstract sort of depiction of a map of the world, and coming across his shoulder was what looked like a hand reaching for it.
    Danny cut into my observations, sitting up and pushing me back up to my knees in the process.
    “If you’re done pulling a double-team attack on me, do you think we could talk, Haley?” he sort-of-asked. He phrased it like a question, but it didn’t exactly sound like a question.
    It sounded like we were going to talk. Period.
    Still, Haley Whitfield was no pushover.
    Looking over my shoulder at Allison as she lifted herself back into her chair, I surveyed her with my eyes and she gave me a nod.
    She was calm after such a traumatic event, but we were involved in them enough that, after time, you became somewhat desensitized.
    Turning back to Danny, I answered, “Sure, Danny.”
    Okay, so I wasn’t a pushover...until I asked my mommy for permission.
    Po-tay-toe, Po-tah-toe.
    “Do you want to go for a walk?” I asked politely.
    He just nodded, climbed to his feet, and then reached a hand down to help me up.
    After about ten feet of silence, my nervousness took over and I started to babble. “So, um, sorry we almost killed you and everything. But when you were looming over me like that, I couldn’t see your face, and I kind of thought you were there to kill me . I mean I don’t think you look like a killer or anything, but I was right on the edge of consciousness, so you startled me, and then I screamed, and then I woke up Allison with a shriek that put her on high alert—”
    “Hales,” Danny cut in.
    “Right,” I muttered in answer.
    We walked for several more hundred feet before either one of us spoke again.
    “Look,” he said. “I sought you out today because I didn’t like the way we left things yesterday.”
    That made two of us.
    “You put on a good song and dance, acting like everything was fine, but I could tell you were a little upset.”
    Okay, so Allison wasn’t the only one who could see it in my eyes. Damn turquoise windows to the soul.
    “And to be honest with you, that kills me. There’s nothing I want more in this world than your happiness, bold and in your face and shoved right down everyone’s throats.”
    That was pretty much the perfect description of my personality. And it was also disconcerting that he knew that seeing as I had just met him a couple of days ago.
    How did he already know me so well?
    I didn’t want this to be awkward, and it was beyond obvious that Danny already felt bad enough about the situation, so I tried to give him the best out I could.
    “Forget it. It’s obvious to both of us that I was feeling a little differently