Her Dakota Summer Read Online Free PDF Page B

would alert him to her presence. How embarrassing would that be?
    Dakota swam four flawless laps of her pool before he emerged naked and glistening. The images of him she’d gotten during the day were nothing compared to now. She could see every single muscled inch of his body. He swiped his hair out of his eyes, only to have it fall forward when he bent and slid into his shorts.
    Celeste closed her eyes for a brief moment to burn the image of his lovely nakedness on her mind. The next thought was how she was going to get out of there before he saw her, but she suspected it was too late.
    He walked up the three stairs to the deck, retrieved whatever he’d left there and walked over to the table.
    “Hey, Celeste.” He held up two bottles. “Would you like a beer?”
     
    * * * *
     
    Truth be told, he hadn’t known she had been sitting in the corner of the patio until his second lap. Unperturbed by her presence, he’d finished his laps, got out of the pool and dressed, then did what any gentleman would have done—offered her a drink.
    Dakota pressed a towel to his wet hair and sat down at the table. He placed a cold bottle in front of Celeste and twisted the cap on his own beverage.
    “Hot night, yeah?” He tipped the bottle back and let the beer cool his parched throat. “Less mosquitoes than during the day.”
    Celeste hadn’t moved or spoken since he’d sat down and he feared he might have been talking to a shadow. But at his remark, she reached out and took his offering. There was a faint swish as she opened her bottle.
    “I have to apologize.” She spoke in a shaky voice. “I disturbed your evening swim.”
    “Not at all,” he said easily. “I think I might have disturbed your evening meditation.”
    “Oh.” She giggled and took another swallow of beer. “Not quite.”
    He placed his bottle on the table. “When I worked at the law firm, this was when the magic happened. I’d sometimes have been up since about six or seven in the morning, come in, prepare papers for whatever lawyer was going to court, sit in on depositions or meetings, and work through lunch. I’d catch a quick nap about three, something to eat if I could snag it….work through till about twelve.” He breathed in the herbal scent of the bug repellent bags she had around the deck. “But it was only after midnight when the breakthrough happened. I could be working on a brief all day, struggling with the research, half asleep, bored out of my mind…but when the clock struck one, it was as if a switch had been flipped. I tore through four hours of work in half the time. It wasn’t like that every day, but it helped to be able to do it when I needed to.”
    “You must be a night person,” she said, her voice polite and formal. “A lot of people work better when there are less distractions. You must have been a valuable asset for your firm.”
    If only that had been the case, he’d still be working there. “According to them, not so much. Long story short, I wasn’t billing enough hours.”
    “So you’re not into law for the money, I take it?”
    He couldn’t see her face, but her tone was teasing. “I don’t know. First year out. It wasn’t what I expected.”
    “Things like that take time.”
    His eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he could see her a little better now. She held her beer in her right hand and he watched as she tilted the bottle up to her lips. His breath hitched in his chest and he looked away. For lack of something better to do, he picked up his own bottle. Warmed, the beer was less appetizing now, but he swallowed the rest of it anyway and wondered what time it was.
    As if she were reading his mind, she placed her bottle on the table and made as if to get up. “I’m going to go inside,” she said, yawning. “I’ve got a conference call Monday at nine to prepare for tomorrow.” She giggled. “I think summers get me all messed up. What time is it?”
    “Don’t know.” Not wanting her to