She lay still, her eyes covered by her sunglasses, but then she extended her arm. “I would never refuse ice cream. Help me up, would you?”
I took her tiny palm in my hand and pulled her to her feet. “A woman after my own heart. If you’d refused ice cream, I would be morally obligated to run in the other direction.”
“Consider your conscience and your moral compass safe, then.” She held onto my hand all the way to the ice cream truck.
She spent almost as much time as Harper deciding what flavor to get and added as many crazy toppings. I laughed at her indecision. It was adorable.
“Something funny?” She turned to me, tits bouncing in the tiny bikini. She hadn’t made any attempt to cover up and seemed to be completely comfortable in her own skin. It was refreshing.
I smothered my grin. “Not at all. You just reminded me of someone.”
The easygoing smile fell from her face. “Please don’t tell me it’s an ex-girlfriend or ex,” she wagged a finger between us, “whatever this is.”
“Hell no.” It was freaky enough that I’d identified a commonality between her and Harper. The last thing I needed was for Gabrielle to think that I had some ex-fuck on my mind. “It’s really not that.”
We grabbed our cones and took off along the beach. “You want to go for a walk?”
Our towels had been flipped over by the breeze by the time we reached them, but they didn’t seem in any danger of going anywhere.
“Sure, okay,” Gabrielle answered as she twisted her tongue around her ice cream cone. I was mesmerized by her tongue, curling like a kitten’s around the lucky fucking soft serve that melted into her mouth.
My cock begged to join the party, but I talked him down. Well, almost down. He was definitely aware of Gabrielle’s presence.
My fingers interlocked with hers as we walked. “Anything interesting happen to you this week? Except for, you know, becoming Mr. Skye. James Skye?”
“Are you ever going to let that go?” I didn’t really want her to. It made me feel like a superhero spy or something. Like getting her number had been me completing some sort of mission. I guess deep down inside, all men want to feel that.
“Not a chance, Mr. Skye.” She pushed her sunglasses to her forehead and wriggled her eyebrows at me. It was the realest gesture a woman had made to me in a long time.
“Well, Ms. Ralls. The answer is no, nothing really. You’d think that the life of an NFL player would be much more interesting. I went to the gym with Ryder and yeah...” I spent time with Harper, but we were miles away from that conversation.
“That sounds scintillating. Tell me more.” She laughed.
“Oh, it was.” I leaned in like I was about to tell her some big secret. “He’s a big softie. Always grunting through his sets.”
She stopped dead and called out to the empty sand. “Extra, extra read all about it. Ryder is a big softie. Stop the presses!”
Gabrielle had a goofy side. I’d always hated goofy, but she wore it well. “Yeah, yeah. Enough with your big mouth.”
“You like my big mouth. You’d like it even more if—” She squealed as I hoisted her up over my shoulder and walked her to the water.
“You had one free pass, Ms. Ralls. And you’ve already used it, so it seems a swim in some cool water is in order.” She hammered her tiny fists on my back as she laughed her protests.
“Don’t you dare, James! I’m serious, put me down!” She could hardly catch her breath.
“You had more than enough warning,” I told her as my feet hit the shoreline.
“I surr
ender. I do. I solemnly swear that I was up to no good!”
Jesus, did she just quote Harry Potter to me? I set her down. “Mischief managed.”
Her face turned incredulous as I completed her quote. “You are something else, Mr. Skye.”
I tugged on her ponytail like a middle-schooler. “As are you, Gabrielle. As are you.”
We stood in silence for a beat before she reached for my hand and laced our fingers together. “So, uh, who is Ryder?”