Shipwreck Road (Whisper Cove # 3)

My breath caught in my throat as his musk washed over me. Caleb. My Caleb, here. In my bedroom. I froze as he pushed off the doorway and stalked towards me. The tingling inside me suddenly blossomed into something more. I pushed that thought down deep.

He moved like a panther, coming closer and closer until he stood inches away. His dark eyes focused on me. As always, he hid the scarred side of his face in the shadows.

“Those for me?” He reached out and took the pillow and blanket from my trembling hands, ducking his head to hide his scars, and turned toward the living room, Kessler at his heels.

Dumbstruck, I stood by the bed until he called out from the living room. “Where do you want me to set up my computer?”

I shook off my unexpected lust, tamping it down and putting it back in the box I had kept it in since coming to Whisper Cove. The day Polly quit and I convinced Harry to let sixteen year old me wait tables was the day I locked the old me away and became the Avery Gray I now was. The old me--she didn’t exist anymore. Her important papers, birth certificate, ID, and everything else was stuffed in a slit in the bottom of my mattress or shoved in a box in the back of a closet, and hadn’t seen the light of day in years. The new me--well, she knew something as foolish as a fling with a handsome local boy was a risk she couldn’t take.

My fingers tingled when I touched Caleb, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what he said. He’d called my pajamas sexy. Does he think I’m sexy?

I didn’t care about the racoon or whatever it had really been. I didn’t think for a minute Caleb pulled out his KA BAR for a racoon, but the butterflies in my stomach wouldn’t let me be upset. My steps slowed as I put one foot in front of the other, each one taking me closer and closer to my living room. Caleb’s boots clunked behind me as the rubber soles hit each tread, mimicking the beat of my heart. I could hear it pounding in my ears, and my hand grew warm as I held his calloused fingers in mine.

I took a deep breath, my breasts rising under my black silk camisole as I crossed the threshold into my small apartment. For the first time since I met him, I found myself wondering what this soldier thought of me.