JACK (Red, Hot & Blue, Book 2)

It was hot. Not just normal hot like it got at home in New York in the summer, but beastly, sauna kind of hot. Nicki breathed out, but her own breath even seemed to raise the temperature.

She leaned against a fence in the shade and wiped the back of her hand over her forehead, ignoring the fact that she’d probably just left a lovely dirt streak there.

“How’re you doing?”

Speaking of hot… Jack had managed to sneak up without her hearing him once again. It’s like the guy walked on air.

“It’s hot,” she complained bad-naturedly.

Jack laughed. “Oh, darlin’, by the calendar it’s not even summer yet. What’re you going to do then?”

“Die. Or get a job in the frozen-food section of the food store in town.”

He shook his head vigorously. “Nope. I can’t let you do that. Jared would kill me if I let you quit over a little heat.”

“A little heat?” She stared at him in shock over that understatement. He didn’t look uncomfortably warm at all. Thin blood, she decided.

He reached out and grabbed her hand. “Come on. I know how to cool you off.”

“Where are we going?” It’s not that she didn’t trust him. Over the last few days, they’d settled on a kind of unspoken truce. He’d stopped with the questions, and she’d stopped avoiding him. But since this heat wave had hit overnight, she honestly was too hot to move. “Is it far?”

He laughed again. “You’re not going to melt from the heat. I promise.”

They crossed the field beneath the brutally hot sun until they were beneath the shade of a stand of trees. She was happy to be out of the heat of the sun again and even happier when they broke out through the trees and she spotted Jack’s destination. He stopped in front of a big, beautiful, and most importantly cool-looking pond shaded by a giant willow tree.

She took another step forward. “It’s like heaven.”

He smiled down at her. “And it’s fed by an underground spring, so it’s always cold.”

That information nearly sent her running into the water fully clothed. She turned to thank him when she noticed Jack stripping off his shirt while kicking off his barn boots.

“I don’t have a suit on.”

He grinned. “Neither do I, but don’t worry. We’re not formal around here, darlin’.”

“You mean…” Surely, he didn’t intend to jump in naked. Did he?

He paused with his hand on the top button of his jeans and looked at her strangely. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been skinny dipping before?”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.” She kicked at the dirt self-consciously and tried not to look at how the sun glinted off the sheen of sweat on his bare chest. She swallowed hard and forced her gaze back up to his face.

He paused, then bent and retrieved his discarded shirt and boots. “That’s fine. I’ll give you some privacy.” He turned back toward the way they’d come when she put one hand on his arm and stopped him.

“No. That’s not fair. You’re just as uncomfortable as I am.” She hesitated. “So, you do this a lot? Skinny dip?”

“I was swimming in this pond naked before I could walk.”

“But with girls?”

He shrugged. “Just another rite of passage. It’s really not a big deal around here. Now going to the local drive-in for a first date with a girl,that’s a big deal.”

She looked wistfully at the water and could practically feel it against her skin, cooling her right down to the core.

“Okay.”

He smiled. “Good for you, darlin’. You really haven’t lived ’til you’ve jumped into a cool pond on a hot day.”

She kicked off her own incredibly hot rubber mucking boots and paused with her hands on her jean’s button as Jack pulled his pants off. While she stood frozen in shock, he was before her in nothing but his boxers. “Um, Jack?”

He raised a brow. “Yeah?”

“You are a gentleman, aren’t you?”

He laughed, a sound that started deep in his chest and kind of bubbled out. “Darlin’, I’m southern.” And with that he pulled off the boxers and she got quite a view of his white ass cheeks as he ran for the pond.