The Reality of You by Jean Haus Page B

attacked him all while moaning.
    He set his glass
down. “Limbo round two?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at the dance
floor.
    “Ah…ha,” I said,
trying hard not to wring my hands in front of me like some virginal
schoolteacher. “My…ah…” I rambled. Reese’s brows rose slightly. I snagged my
empty water off the table. “I need another water. Mad, mad thirsty after all
that limboing,” I said, marching into the bar.
    Inside, I didn’t
look back, just plopped down on a stool. I pushed my empty water glass toward
the bartender. “Refill, please,” I yelled since the music was loud.
    As the bartender
filled my glass, I buried my hands in my face and tried to get control of my
emotions—or maybe hormones would be a better descriptor. My fingers dug into my
forehead. Okay, fine. I didn’t like Reese, but I was attracted to him. And
okay, fine. In my lust, I seemed a bit—a lot—superficial. Was it really that
bad that I wanted a guy I detested? I wasn’t a bad person. Maybe a bit of a
slut at the moment. We all had the freedom to get slutty, right? I mean, Jules
was kind of a slut, and I loved Jules to pieces. I dropped my hands with a sigh
and almost knocked over the water the bartender must have placed down while I’d
been considering my sluttiness.
    None of my
hem-hawing mattered. It wasn’t as if anything was going to happen—well, except
in my overactive imagination, but that thought made me loathe myself more. Here
I’d panted after him and let my imagination conjure up intense gazes, whereas
he mostly likely considered me a circus freak.
    Rum.
    Too much and I turned
into an illogical idiot.
    I pushed away from
the bar and grabbed my water, deciding it was time to go. Away from Reese, I’d
grow a brain and hopefully somelady
balls.
    Outside though,
Reese wasn’t at the table. I searched the dimness of the deck until I found him
standing at the bottom stair. He stood, facing away from me, apparently staring
at the luminous full moon over the ocean.
    Dang nabbit. Just
what my overactive imagination needed. The dark. The romantic shine of the
moon. The soft lull of the waves hitting the shore. And Reese Jordon in
contemplation, holding a glass of scotch.
    Imaginative moaning
echoed in my head at the sight.
    Setting down my
water on the nearest table, I realized that I needed to tread carefully. My
overactive imagination could get me in trouble.
    “Hey,” I said,
descending the stairs and stepping onto the sand to look up at him. “I’m
guessing you’re ready.”
    He turned to me
slightly, his profile sculpted in shadow from the lights on the deck behind
him. His eyes glittered in the near dark as he stared at me. “Ready?” he echoed
in a deep voice.
    Because he stood
above me, I moved around the stair rail, keeping something between us. “Ah, to
go?”
    He took the last
step down. “Am I making you nervous?”
    “Ha, naw,” I said
and waved an arm, my tone full of false confidence. “After all that work, you
kind of changed from man to slave driver.”
    His brows lowered
and his jaw tightened. He moved closer. I refused to step back, though my body
screamed for space.
    “So I’ve become
androgynous to you?”
    I did step back
then, my heels hitting the trellis around the bottom of the deck. He smelled
fantastic. I had to smell like beach, sweat, and probably rum, while he smelled
spicy and dark and delicious.
    “Well, I don’t know
about androgynous, but my nervousness evaporated more with each of your
demands.” I forced a slight smirk. “This week was probably a good thing for
me…ah…helping to conquer the strange nervousness around men that…that has…um…”
Was that a gleam in his gaze? And why did it have anxiety rolling through my
rum-soaked stomach? “That has kind of grown since I cut myself off—stayed away
from… Haven’t dated…”
    Could sharks jump
out of the water? The ocean lay more than a hundred feet away. I wanted a shark
to swallow me whole