“No. Who are they? How many are there? Where do they all live?”
“Oh.” He shrugged. His family seemed minuscule in comparison to hers. “My folks live in a northern Chicago suburb. I’m an only child.”
“So am I. But Zara told me this morning that Eric was your cousin . . .”
“He is. But I don’t consider him family.”
She looked confused, and he realized he’d been a little sharp. He attempted a smile to smooth things over. “Sorry. Eric belongs to the East Coast Gaites-Granvilles. Our great-great-grandfathers were two of four brothers. My ancestor was kind of a lone wolf. He brought his share of the newspaper business to Chicago and created this kind of family schism. At least back then, it did. These days, the scar has healed. At least on the business end of things. But Eric and I aren’t close. His presence here is my parents’ idea of keeping me in line.”
Her confusion turned to bewilderment. He shook his head. “It’s a long story.”
She laughed softly at that, probably because she’d told him the same thing last night about her parents.
“Family,” she said.
“Family,” he agreed dryly.
For a second, their stares held. He experienced an overwhelming urge to close the distance between them, to feel her mouth beneath his . . . to sink into her taste. He probably would have with another woman.
Maybe she’d read his mind, because her gaze skipped nervously away and landed on the beach.
“Oh. You brought rafts. That’s great,” she said, waving at the two yellow floats lying on the beach.
“Yeah. Did you wear a suit?”
She nodded. “It’s hot, isn’t it?” Her gaze skittered down over his body to his swim trunks. He wore a T-shirt, but even through the fabric, he felt her stare on his skin. Arousal tickled at the base of his spine and tingled his sex. He felt himself getting hard. He bent to hide his reaction, acting intent on pulling a towel out of his backpack.
“I brought a towel. We can share it,” he said. His uncontrollable sexual reaction when it came to her irritated him. He’d seen her fear and anxiety yesterday when he came upon her swimming naked, so lost in her private thoughts. So vulnerable. The last thing he wanted to do was to scare her off.
“I brought one too,” she said breathlessly.
He tossed off his T-shirt. His sideways glance told him she was staring at his chest. There was definitely more than just anxiety in her gaze. He hoped he wasn’t kidding himself. He took several steps toward the shoreline.
“You coming in?”
“Yeah,” she assured him, but she made no move to follow him. He realized she was self-conscious about the idea of peeling off her clothes in front of him. As interested as he was in watching her strip—the image of her wet, naked body gleaming in the sun had been plaguing his every waking and sleeping moment—he plowed into the water, keeping his back to her and giving her space.
You could use a dunk in the cold water anyway, lecher.
Neither his self-condemning thoughts nor the sudden plunge into the lake did anything to cool the rising fever in him, though.
• • •
She hurried out of her clothing, keeping an eye on Asher as he knifed through the water, his gleaming back and flexing muscles capturing almost her entire attention. The remainder of her awareness focused on her own body: on how self-conscious she felt in the black two-piece she’d borrowed from Zara this morning in preparation for her meeting with Asher. Her mother frowned on bikinis, at least in Laila’s case. Laila liked to swim and paddleboard, so she usually preferred sportier swimwear anyway. But she had been known to borrow her cousins’ bikinis, once they were at the public beach’s changing room and away from her mother’s disapproving gaze.
Why did you have to do it today, though? she wondered as she adjusted the bikini briefs anxiously while she stood on the shore, assuring herself Asher wasn’t watching.
But the question was stupid. She knew why she’d done it. He was the most attractive guy she’d ever met.
Ever imagined.
She wanted to look good in front of him. Sexy.
She stood at the edge of the lake when he surfaced a moment later.
“Do you want me to bring in the rafts?” she yelled when he turned toward shore, wiping his wet bangs back. He’d swum out quite a distance.
“Yeah,” he call