“Me,” he replied, grinning at me. Even in the dark, those green-blue eyes of his glowed. Taking a couple steps closer, he motioned at me. “You.”
I laughed a couple notes, but given I was nervous as all heck, I sounded more like a dying animal than a laughing girl. “Me.”
Of course when Cole laughed, he sounded all swoony and sexy.
“Okay,” Dani said, staring at Cole like someone had just decided to reincarnate a God and put him in a sinner’s body. “Who is you? Or who is me?” she said. “I’m so damn confused.”
“This is Cole,” I said. “Cole Carson.”
I saw a familiar gleam in Dani’s eyes. The one that said and I can get him into my bed how?
“You were listening,” Cole said. “I didn’t think you were doing much else other than staring.” His smile curved higher on one side.
“You know him?” From Dani’s tone, I knew I’d just gotten twenty extra cool points.
“We met earlier today,” I said.
“While we were both swimming at the same place,” Cole added, stuffing his hand in his pocket. “Naked.”
Dani’s eyes popped. She was a worldly girl—it took something especially shocking to get those jaded eyes of hers to pop.
“What Cole forgot to mention was that he was on Grandma M’s private property and I had no idea he was even there.”
“Wait.” Dani shook her head. “You swim naked?”
World views were being shifted.
“Oh, yes,” Cole said, popping his brows, “Elle swims naked.”
He’d seen me naked, but hearing him say my name was intimate in a way I hadn’t anticipated. “How did you find out my name?”
“A bunch of people were talking about this Elle Montgomery girl who didn’t have a rebellious bone in her body showing up a few minutes ago. Of course, once I saw the girl all those fingers were pointing at, I knew they were wrong. How could a girl who swims na**d and flirts with equally na**d strangers not have a rebellious bone in that fine, fine body?”
“I was not flirting with you,” I said, not really sure if I had or hadn’t been. I wasn’t even sure how to flirt in a calculated, alluring way, so if I was flirting with Cole as he says I was, that meant it had all come naturally.
Which was possibly the most troubling piece of trivia I’d been made aware of all week.
Dani managed to peel her eyes off of Cole and studied me for a few seconds. She had always been able to see right through my lies, and it was obvious that that was what she was seeing through now.
“I’m going to go mingle,” she said, standing up. “Let you two pick up where you left off.”
“We don’t need to pick anything up,” I said.
Dani leaned close to whisper in my ear. “If you still feel that way in ten minutes, come get me. I’d be more than happy to pick up anything of his.”
“You’re disgusting,” I hissed after her.
Her response was a wink as she beelined towards the growing group of smokejumpers and their entourage.
“So you really weren’t flirting with me this afternoon?” Cole asked as he took a seat beside me. With him pressed up against me, the stump seemed a lot smaller than when Dani’d been next to me.
“I really wasn’t,” I replied, checking my nose to make sure it wasn’t growing.
“Wow. I think my ego just took a serious nosedive,” he said, making a hurt face.
Darn. Even when he was faking insult, Cole’s face did things to my insides no face that wasn’t my boyfriend’s should do.
“From where I’m sitting, it looks like you’ve got plenty to spare,” I said, smiling into my cup as I took a sip of beer. I liked this edgier, wittier Elle. I never talked this way to Logan.
Cole’s eyes shifted to my mouth for one second before they flashed to mine. “And from where I was swimming, it looked like you’ve got plenty to spare, too.”
If I wasn’t already flushing from him glancing at my lips, now I was. Although flushing might have been understating it.
“Oh, shit,” he said, as his eyebrows came together. “You’re embarrassed. Actually, judging from that shade of red, I’d say you’re more along the lines of mortified.” I liked the way he studied my face, like he was really looking at me and seeing who I was. I hated the way he studied my face for the same reason. “I’m sorry, Elle. I assumed the girl who skinny dipped and tossed witty remarks at me this afternoon wouldn’t be easily embarrassed.” For the first time, Cole’s face and words seemed genuine. “I’m a dick. Forgiven?”
Ah, crap. He said it, so now I was imagining his. Just when you think you’ve got nowhere else to go on the red scale. . .
“Okay, changing the subject before you pass out from red poisoning,” he said, smirking at me just enough to let me know he knew what I was thinking. Or picturing. “So if the high class keggers in the back woods aren’t normally your scene, what is?”
“It’s nowhere near as exciting as parachuting into forest fires,” I said, liking the way Cole’s arm felt against mine. I shouldn’t like the way it felt. “In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite of daring, exciting, and adventurous.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Cole said. “Because it’s no secret that girls who skinny dip are not in any way, on any planet, boring.”