belly. She shifted and silver flashed in the sun, catching his eye.
Belly-button ring , his stunned mind processed, even as his mouth dried out and his heart rate increased to battlestation conditions.
A little mental discipline, please.
Forcing his mind away from the image of himself dropping to his knees and tonguing that new, taunting bit of jewelry and the warm, salt-sweet body beneath it, Beck studied the rest of her, taking in the details he hadn’t had time to assess at the relay challenge the day before.
Her cheeks were pink with more than whatever emotion swamped her at the sight of the husband she no longer wanted, and her red-gold curls were escaping from the knot on top of her head in wild corkscrews. The fact that she had the sweatshirt at all when it was easily seventy-five degrees in the sun …
“Just come off the ferry?” he asked casually, and didn’t even try to keep himself from enjoying the surprised dilation of her pupils.
“How did you—?” She faltered, glancing over her shoulder to the large transport craft still bobbing gently on the water. Swaying to her left made the bangle bracelets around her wrists jingle like bells. “Yeah, I’m meeting my team in Chinatown.”
Wait a minute. “Your restaurant is in Berkeley.”
She lifted her chin, “Queenie Pie Café,” she said. “Corner of Shattuck and Bancroft.”
Beck took a deliberate step to his right, more for show than because she actually impeded his view. Yep, he’d been right.
The orange lettering on the side of the boat spelled out “Golden Gate Ferry.”
“That ferry didn’t come from Berkeley,” he said. “The Golden Gate line makes runs from…”
If her little chin got any higher, she’d be staring straight up at the clouds. “From Sausalito,” she confirmed. “That’s right. I’m living there now.”
In spite of Beck’s personal vow not to try to predict emotional reactions, he was still surprised by the sudden wash of disappointment that soaked through him.
Sausalito. The quaint, picturesque artist colony where Skye’s free-spirited, radical parents lived, painted, wrote political rants disguised as plays, and kept their daughter gently but firmly ground under their vegan shoes.
Skye had hated Sausalito, had danced a wild, spinning circle around their first, tiny, crappy apartment over a grocery store in Chinatown, swearing she’d never go back. And now, here she was, a Sausalito resident—even though it meant an hour and a half commute every morning and night.
Maybe Skye hadn’t changed as much as he thought, if she was still living her life to please her parents.
* * *
Goddess of the stars, could this get any worse?
Feeling the tickle of her stupid red hair frizzing around her face, Skye impatiently yanked her hands over her head and tucked what she could back into the rubber band securing her bun.
She was windblown, exhausted from the trip home from Chicago, pissed about the loss yesterday, stressed after dealing with her parents on about three hours of sleep, and now this.
Henry Beck, standing here before her, in the huge, handsome, judgmental flesh.
He looked … big. Had he always been so tall? So broad through the shoulders? The heather gray of his cotton T-shirt stretched taut across his chest, his biceps straining the sleeves. The baggy fit of his jeans did nothing to hide the leanness of his hips or the strength of thighs.
And she might not have a good view of it at the moment, but Skye could draw up a mental image of his deliciously tight, muscular backside just by closing her eyes.
He was harder than her memories, though, in a lot of ways. There were creases in his angular face, lines beside his dark eyes that hadn’t been there ten years ago. Probably from squinting into the blazing sun reflecting off an ocean on the other side of the world.
Henry’s eyes, so dark brown they were almost black, had always been impenetrable. Impossible to read, unless he wanted to
Belly-button ring , his stunned mind processed, even as his mouth dried out and his heart rate increased to battlestation conditions.
A little mental discipline, please.
Forcing his mind away from the image of himself dropping to his knees and tonguing that new, taunting bit of jewelry and the warm, salt-sweet body beneath it, Beck studied the rest of her, taking in the details he hadn’t had time to assess at the relay challenge the day before.
Her cheeks were pink with more than whatever emotion swamped her at the sight of the husband she no longer wanted, and her red-gold curls were escaping from the knot on top of her head in wild corkscrews. The fact that she had the sweatshirt at all when it was easily seventy-five degrees in the sun …
“Just come off the ferry?” he asked casually, and didn’t even try to keep himself from enjoying the surprised dilation of her pupils.
“How did you—?” She faltered, glancing over her shoulder to the large transport craft still bobbing gently on the water. Swaying to her left made the bangle bracelets around her wrists jingle like bells. “Yeah, I’m meeting my team in Chinatown.”
Wait a minute. “Your restaurant is in Berkeley.”
She lifted her chin, “Queenie Pie Café,” she said. “Corner of Shattuck and Bancroft.”
Beck took a deliberate step to his right, more for show than because she actually impeded his view. Yep, he’d been right.
The orange lettering on the side of the boat spelled out “Golden Gate Ferry.”
“That ferry didn’t come from Berkeley,” he said. “The Golden Gate line makes runs from…”
If her little chin got any higher, she’d be staring straight up at the clouds. “From Sausalito,” she confirmed. “That’s right. I’m living there now.”
In spite of Beck’s personal vow not to try to predict emotional reactions, he was still surprised by the sudden wash of disappointment that soaked through him.
Sausalito. The quaint, picturesque artist colony where Skye’s free-spirited, radical parents lived, painted, wrote political rants disguised as plays, and kept their daughter gently but firmly ground under their vegan shoes.
Skye had hated Sausalito, had danced a wild, spinning circle around their first, tiny, crappy apartment over a grocery store in Chinatown, swearing she’d never go back. And now, here she was, a Sausalito resident—even though it meant an hour and a half commute every morning and night.
Maybe Skye hadn’t changed as much as he thought, if she was still living her life to please her parents.
* * *
Goddess of the stars, could this get any worse?
Feeling the tickle of her stupid red hair frizzing around her face, Skye impatiently yanked her hands over her head and tucked what she could back into the rubber band securing her bun.
She was windblown, exhausted from the trip home from Chicago, pissed about the loss yesterday, stressed after dealing with her parents on about three hours of sleep, and now this.
Henry Beck, standing here before her, in the huge, handsome, judgmental flesh.
He looked … big. Had he always been so tall? So broad through the shoulders? The heather gray of his cotton T-shirt stretched taut across his chest, his biceps straining the sleeves. The baggy fit of his jeans did nothing to hide the leanness of his hips or the strength of thighs.
And she might not have a good view of it at the moment, but Skye could draw up a mental image of his deliciously tight, muscular backside just by closing her eyes.
He was harder than her memories, though, in a lot of ways. There were creases in his angular face, lines beside his dark eyes that hadn’t been there ten years ago. Probably from squinting into the blazing sun reflecting off an ocean on the other side of the world.
Henry’s eyes, so dark brown they were almost black, had always been impenetrable. Impossible to read, unless he wanted to
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