greedily drank in his bare
skin. Starting from the small of his back
and working my way up, to a long, jagged
scar that raced diagonally from his left
shoulder blade to just under his right
armpit.
When I winced, he turned to face me
and gave me a bitter smile. “Ready to do
this?” Without another word, he stuffed
his shirt inside his black bag, swooped up
our boards and jogged down to the edge of
the sand.
Sighing, I pulled off my own top and
shimmied out of my shorts, rolling them
into a tight wad afterward. Cooper
shielded his eyes from the sun with one
hand and called out, “Didn’t take you for a
one-piece type of girl.”
And as I walked toward him, I found
myself hugging my balled up clothes to my
stomach, creating friction against my own
scar until my skin ached. “There’s a lot
you don’t take me for, huh?” I said when I
came close enough to touch him.
He winked at me. “Just makes getting
to know you more interesting.”
Chapter Five
Cooper didn’t elaborate on what he
said, not that I expected him to, but that
didn’t stop me from wanting and needing
more from him. Was this the way it was
going to be? Little comments— offhand
remarks—that would haunt me long after
they slipped past his lips?
“The sea is fucking amazing this
morning,” Cooper said at last, breaking
the silence. “It’s unpredictable and moody
—and you never know when it’ll try to
screw you over—but I can’t stay away.”
He turned to stare out at the unending blue,
which gleamed under the clear morning
sky. I took two wobbly steps forward,
following his gaze with my own. To be
completely honest, the sea didn’t seem any
different from any other time I’d looked at
it. It was still frightening to me.
But that hazy expression that took over
his face, the way every hard line of his
body seemed to gravitate toward the
waves—I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I
wanted to feel that passionate about
something other than the one thing I
couldn’t, no shouldn’t have.
Just as long as that something
wouldn’t drown me, landing me in rehab
again.
“It’s nice,” I said. A blast of cold
foam hit my bare feet, causing me to suck
in a deep breath, but he didn’t notice. He
was still mesmerized. Too transfixed to
realize when I stopped gazing at the ocean
to take a few steps backward and to the
side. So rooted to the spot that he must not
have felt my gaze heating the side of his
face, on the tattoo written across his rib—
I couldn’t make out what it said—and
again to the scar on his back.
Had he gotten it surfing?
When I closed my eyes for a moment, I
could see myself with a similar scar. A
scar that matched the one across my lower
belly.
Not today, Willow. Focus on him, on
learning this shit, and not on that .
I opened my eyes and sucked in a deep
breath. “You ever gotten hurt surfing?” I
asked in a husky voice. It seemed better
than coming right out and asking how he’d
gotten injured. He turned his head a
fraction to give me an amused look. I let
him study me for another thirty seconds,
then I snorted, crossing my arms over my
chest. Did he have to make me feel like
his blue eyes were burning two holes into
my face?
“It’s a simple yes or no answer,” I
stated.
“You ever gotten hurt acting?” he
asked.
All the time . I could have told him
what I was really thinking, that acting had
hurt me more emotionally than physically,
but then I cleared my throat and shrugged.
I pretended to be interested in a piece of
lint on my swimsuit. “If you count stubbing
a toe or breaking a fingernail on a prop,
then yeah. Guess I have.”
A flicker of disappointment passed
over his face but it disappeared almost
immediately. He sighed and scratched his
head before sweeping his hand out at the
ocean. “You’re going to get hurt,” he said.
“A lot. Hell, you’ll probably be black and
blue by the time the rest of the
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