Wild & Hexy by Vicki Lewis Thompson Page A

thought, unless you have some magic drying charm.’’
    ‘‘I’m afraid not.’’ Even if he did, he wouldn’t use it. The other possibility was too tempting.
    ‘‘Then let’s try this.’’ She picked up one stick with a fork on the end and jammed it into the sand close to the fire. Then she found a second one of about the same length and planted it a few feet from the first. Finally she propped a straight stick across the forks. ‘‘Clothesline.’’
    ‘‘Clever.’’ He gulped. She was way ahead of him.
    She turned and walked away from the fire. ‘‘Don’t look.’’
    ‘‘I won’t if you won’t.’’ He grabbed the pink blanket, walked in the opposite direction and kept his back to her. As he shucked his wet clothes, he could hear her doing the same.
    The sound of her undressing should have, by all rights, given him a boner. But he was so cold that everything was shrinking. He hoped she wasn’t sneaking a peek. She might not understand how cold could affect a guy.
    ‘‘I won’t turn around until you say so,’’ she called out.
    ‘‘Okay.’’ He moved fast as the cold night air hit his testicles. Soon he was draped in the blanket. All he wore besides that were his glasses, still attached to their trusty leash.
    In theory this concept had sounded sexy—both of them naked and loosely wrapped in soft blankets. That was before he’d decided to give her the blue one, leaving him looking like Chief Pretty-in-Pink.
    But at least he was warmer, and maybe, once they were settled beside the fire and his privates had returned to their normal size, he wouldn’t feel so ridiculous. ‘‘Ready,’’ he said, and turned around.
    She stood on the opposite side of the fire, her bare feet scrunched into the sand and the rest of her covered from neck to ankles in the blue blanket he used on his bed all winter. Her hair looked as if she’d been in swimming and hadn’t bothered to comb it out. Seeing her like this, mussed and naked except for the blanket, his blanket, was more arousing than he ever could have imagined.
    She was a present ready to be unwrapped, and he was more than ready to do that. He couldn’t assume that she had similar thoughts, but she had come up with the clothesline idea, so they might be on the same page.
    No question the plan was logical and practical. But there was serious subtext. He wondered if she realized that or if she thought they would simply dry their clothes by the fire and put them back on with no hanky-panky in between.
    She leaned down to pick up two bits of fabric and almost lost her grip on the blanket. ‘‘Whoops. You’d better turn around again until I get my clothes draped over the clothesline.’’
    ‘‘Sure.’’ He turned, and imagined he looked even sillier from the back. A blanket-wrapped woman was one thing. You pictured her throwing it off with a seductive smile. A blanket-wrapped man . . . not so much.
    ‘‘There,’’ she said. ‘‘Now I’ll turn around while you hang up your clothes. I tried to leave you plenty of room.’’
    Picking up the wet, sandy clothes he’d left in a heap, he faced the fire and her makeshift clothesline. Sure enough, her bra and panties were black and lacy. She’d put them very close to the flames.
    ‘‘I hope your underwear doesn’t catch fire.’’
    She laughed. ‘‘That would take some explaining back at the Winston house. But it would be a great story for my grandchildren, wouldn’t it?’’
    It would, which generated thoughts he had no business having. Until now, he’d been living for the moment, hoping he could fulfill his fantasy, if only for one night. But Annie was more than a one-night stand to him.
    And that was his deep, dark secret—he wanted her on a forever basis. He wanted to be the father of her children, the grandfather of her grandchildren, the great-grandfather of her great-grandchildren, and so on through the ages. Wasn’t ever gonna happen, but he wanted it,