Her legs felt a little rubbery from fear once they reached the beach, but other than that, she was fortunate enough to be left unscathed. They sat on a large rock together for nearly a minute, neither of them speaking as Natalie’s breath calmed.
“Thank you, Liam.”
“Don’t thank me,” he replied gruffly. “I had no idea that breakwater was unsafe. You could have drowned.”
“But I didn’t.” She reached out and touched his upper arm in reassurance. “I think part of the breakwater crumbled last night during the storm. The waves are especially rough today. The combination must have caused the undertow.”
“Yeah,” Liam said soberly, his narrowed gaze on the black breakwater. “And to think…I was going to let Brendan and Jenny swim out there.”
“You wouldn’t have let them swim alone. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have gone out on my own.”
“Let’s get you inside,” he said, tight-lipped. He stood and helped her rise. Her hand still felt a little shaky, but Liam’s hold was steady and warm.
Once they were inside, he handed her an enormous robe and a fluffy towel and urged her toward the guest bath.
“Take a hot shower. You’re trembling. It must be shock.”
“I’m fine, really,” she insisted. Still, she followed Liam’s instructions. He looked so worried, she didn’t have the heart to argue.
In the shower a few minutes later, she had to admit he might have been right about the shock. It wasn’t a chill making her shake. The memory of the strong undertow pulling her seemed more frightening in recollection than it had when she’d been so preoccupied with keeping herself afloat.
By the time she got out of the hot shower, she felt much steadier. She grinned when she inspected the robe Liam had given her. It was made of dark blue cotton, and still had the tags attached. Natalie wondered if his mother had given it to him as a gift. Whoever had provided it wouldn’t have had a lover’s sensitivity and must not have recognized that Liam wasn’t the type to wear robes and slippers.
Liam was clearly most comfortable in his own skin.
A lover’s sensitivity.
The phrase came back to her as she brushed her teeth. Is that what she possessed toward Liam? A lover’s sensitivity?
She was in the process of working a tangle out of her long, wet hair when a brisk knock at the door startled her.
“Can I come in?” Liam asked from the other side.
“Oh…yes.”
The door swung open. Natalie gulped when she saw he wore just a pair of dark blue cotton drawstring pants. They hung so low on his narrow hips she couldn’t help but speculate that he wasn’t wearing anything under them. He must have just showered as well; his short, wavy hair was still damp and mussed, and she caught a hint of his fresh, spicy scent.
He looked so beautiful to her, standing there in the doorway, so present…so vibrant, that the image struck her consciousness like a gong, leaving her entire body vibrating with awareness.
“Are you doing okay?” he asked.
She nodded and attempted a smile as she held up a snarled tress and the hairbrush. “It can be a pain sometimes,” she said breathlessly, referring to her hair.
“Let me.”
She just stood there stupidly at the sound of the two words. He came behind her and removed the brush from her clutching hand. Natalie watched him in the mirror, but she would have known precisely what he was doing in those taut moments whether she saw him with her eyes or not, she was so keyed in to him. He was a head and a half taller than her, but he bent his neck, bringing his face close, as if he wanted to inhale her scent. He attended to his task with more careful deliberation than a detective handling evidence at a crime scene. She was highly aware of his body ghosting hers as he moved, adjusting himself to the angle of each new tress. Every time he gathered a new bunch of hair in one hand, a fresh ripple of excitement coursed from her skull to her neck to her breasts.
By the time he detangled the last locks, her entire body was tingling with awareness.
He set down the brush on the counter, the sound of hard plastic hitting marble seeming unnaturally loud in the still room. Without speaking, he gently gathered the damp tresses in his hands, smoothing each hair away from her face. Distantly, Natalie realized there was no veil for her scars, no glasses, no dim light, not even her hair to cloak her.
She didn’t care. She was too enthralled with the image of Liam’s eyes—how could they look so fierce and so tender at once? She thought for sure her heart would swell past the capacity of her rib cage when he began to slowly wind the thick tail of her gathered hair around one large hand. His palm turned and turned, the dark brown, sleek skein wrapping around his hand and wrist. The movement hypnotized her.
He finally stopped when his hand was against her nape. Natalie stood there, expectant…breathless. He tugged slightly and her head fell back an inch. Their eyes met in the mirror.
“I was a fool,” he said.
“When?”