Between the Seams Read Online Free PDF Page B

other like kids, dunking each other, dragging each other under, giving each other wedgies. He half expected to find out one day that they’d run off to Vegas and eloped—except as far as he knew they weren’t actually attracted to each other.
    He pushed the laughter and voices to the back of his mind, found the quiet place in his head and focused on casting, reeling and trying to hook. He felt a slight tug, set the hook, and reeled in his first catch of the day. He caught the largemouth bass in one hand, removed the hook with the other, and tossed it into the live well. He turned back to the water and was just about to cast his line when Jo appeared beside him.
    “Nice fish,” she nodded her head towards the live well.
    “Thanks.” Chase turned towards her, and froze.
    Jo stood in front of him, sunglasses shading those blue green eyes that had always made him feel like he was drowning. She was wearing one of those two piece bathing suits that looked like a one-piece—a tankini, he vaguely remembered Jenn calling it one day. The top was dark blue, tight around her breasts while flowing away from her abdomen. It skimmed her hips, which were clad in red and blue polka dotted bikini bottoms that had these little ties on either side. Those ties made his fingers twitch.
    There was nothing immodest or particularly revealing—he’d certainly seen less fabric out here on the lake—and yet his mouth was dry and his body was definitely responding to the beautiful, wet woman in front of him. The only part of his body that seemed capable of movement—his eyes—skimmed over her again, drinking her in like a parched man in the desert.
    He didn’t remember her breasts being quite so…big…the last time he’d seen her in a bathing suit. Granted, that had been sometime in early high school at a party they’d both been invited to, but still. His gaze tripped down her body and stuck on her legs before flying back up and noticing her arms and shoulders.
    “You lift?”
    God, she was going to start thinking he’d taken one too many baseballs to the head if he kept up such scintillating conversation.
    His gaze returned to her face, and he noticed that her cheeks had pinkened. She grinned shyly, winked, and then flexed her right arm. “Yup. I even have a baby bicep to prove it.”
    Chase laughed and felt a little of the tension drain from his body. “That’s a little more than a baby bicep.”
    She flexed again before dropping her arm. “A little more. How’d you know I lifted?”
    He swallowed. “Your legs. And then your arms and shoulders.” If she hadn’t known he’d been checking her out behind the lenses of his sunglasses, she did now.
    Jo took a sip of water before returning his casual perusal, raking her gaze from his head to his toes and back up. “I’m not the only one who lifts.”
    “No, you’re not.”
    She turned and looked out at the water before turning back to him. “I shouldn’t have come today. I’m obviously making you uncomfortable.”
    You have no idea, Jolene Westwood. He sighed. “Not uncomfortable, really. We’re just…” Chase searched for the words that could most accurately describe what she was making him feel, without giving away, well, how he was actually feeling. Like a horny teenager. “We haven’t seen each other in years. We’re different people, but kind of the same.”
    They stood there in silence, contemplating each other before Jo turned her head and looked out towards the water again. She wrapped her arms around herself, the motion pushing her breasts up higher. Chase swallowed, tamping down the lust that clawed at his gut.
    Funny how while some things had changed, others certainly hadn’t. She still made him feel like a fourteen-year-old boy, all needy and antsy and itchy, like a bottle rocket waiting to shoot off into the sky.
    She worried her bottom lip, shifted her weight from one foot to the other. As he watched her—he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of