But not as gorgeous as the man standing in front of it.
His dirty-blond hair had been cut short on the sides, kept longer on a top, combed back and to the side in a gentle swoop, and I nearly stopped in my tracks at the transformation. The laid-back surfer in a muscle shirt and sneakers had been replaced by a clean-cut masterpiece of power. The gravity of the vision of him pulled me toward him like a tractor beam. He looked like he’d stepped off a magazine cover with tan skin and eyes shining a shade of sky blue that felt infinite. The suit he wore fit him perfectly — charcoal gray swathing every angle of his broad shoulders and chest, one button of his coat fastened, his shirt crisp and white, and tie thin and black. One hand rested in his pocket, his coat bunched up at the seam where his hand and hip were, and the other held a scotch.
I was nine hundred percent sure my uterus whispered his name when he smiled at me, popping that dimple and my ovaries with a simple flicker of cheek muscles.
I might have floated into his arms, slipping mine around his neck as I kissed him. There was quite literally nothing else I could have done when I saw him standing there, dressed like that.
His lips were so warm and familiar and soft and sweet. The two measly days we’d been apart felt like a month.
I pulled away, humming, but I didn’t give him his neck back, just fiddled with the short hair at the nape, marveling over the soft bristling against my fingertips.
“Your hair,” I whispered, smiling as my eyes scanned him in wonder.
“You like it?”
“I love it. If it wasn’t combed, my fingers would be buried deep, deep in it.”
He laughed softly, the sound rumbling through his chest and into me. “Later we’ll bury all kinds of things in all kinds of places.”
I answered with a laugh of my own. “What in the world possessed you to do it?”
Bodie shrugged. “I went in for a trim and decided to cut it. It matched the suit.”
“True. But do you think you might grow it back out?”
“Why? Miss it already?” he asked with a smile, holding me tighter.
“Maybe. I do love your long hair, but this is so soft.” I ran my fingers over it. “And I swear, somehow, your jaw looks a hundred times sharper. You’ve got a good looking head, boy. You could be a part-time model.”
He laughed at that and kissed me again.
I smiled up at him feeling dreamy and light and unbelievably happy. “I missed you,” I said without thinking.
His face held its shape, but something behind his eyes shifted, sending a jolt of uncertainty through me, cooling my mood. “I missed you too.”
I swallowed and looked at his tie, running my hand down his chest. “Where the hell did you get this suit?”
His smile shifted sideways into a smirk. “Same place as you get your lingerie.”
I laughed. “Oh, I very much doubt that.”
Bodie chuckled, his hand on my hip, thumb shifting against the soft silk before he twisted the tie around his finger and held it up. “So tell me, what happens if I pull this?”
I pressed the length of my body against his and smiled, stretching on my tiptoes to get to his ear. “Boom, I’m naked.”
His lips were at my ear too. “Good to know.”
The man was magic. He could whisper anything in my ear — My grandma makes a mean scone. I’m all out of peanut butter. I wish I had more time to climb trees — and I’d forget that there was ever or would ever be anything to do besides him.
I sighed into his ear, and he held me a little closer. I found myself pouting because I couldn’t stay right there like I wanted.
I pulled away and stepped back, though I slid my hand down his arm and to his hand to hold it. “You gonna be okay out here? It’s about to start, so it shouldn’t be long before I’m back to entertain you.”
He held up his scotch, smiling. “I’ll keep myself company.” He paused, his eyes on mine in a way that I felt in the tips of my fingers and toes. “You look beautiful, Penny.”
My cheeks flushed, and I smiled back. How could I not? Adonis in a suit was smiling at me with a scotch in his hand and a suit that made my vagina do an involuntary Kegel.
“You’re not so bad yourself, handsome. I’ll see you in a little bit.”
“I’ll be waiting,” he said.
And the words worked their way through me like I’d been the one drinking scotch.
I watched Penny walk away as I took a sip of my drink, my eyes running over all the places I wished my hands were. The deep V of the back of her dress, framing her tattoos. The small circle of her waist, tied by that little sash that would strip her with a tug. The swing of her hips as she hurried away in the direction she’d come from.