Finding Bliss by Dina Silver Read Free Book Online Page A

show up or not. Double yawn.
    At 12:20 a.m. I woke up and leaped out of bed like a jack-in-the-box. My body shook from suddenly disrupting its brief slumber. I grabbed a cardigan, slipped on my flip-flops, and walked gingerly through the kitchen and outside. He was there. That massive shadowy figure sitting down at the end of the dock could only belong to one person. I closed the screen door behind me slowly so as not to rouse the rusty hinges. If I’d had any intention of blowing him off, ignoring his handwritten distraction, and moving on with my life, there was no trace of that reasoning as I skipped down the hill and padded toward him with anticipation. Once again the moon wasfull. He stood when he heard my flip-flops slap against the wood surface of the dock.
    “I thought maybe you were playing hard to get,” he said.
    “I fell asleep.”
    He smiled and took my hands in his. “Are you nervous?” he asked.
    “No,” I lied.
    He ran his thumb over my knuckles. “I know you asked me to leave you alone, but I felt that I owed you an explanation and an apology,” he said. “I was planning to bring Sadie up all along. What I hadn’t planned on was you.”
    I looked up at him, and our eyes clicked like magnets in the dim light of the midnight sky. I’m the crazy one , I thought to myself. I was falling in love with this boy I barely knew…and boy, was I in trouble. All I could concentrate on was the pattern of his thumb stroking the back of my hand like a pendulum sending shock waves from my wrist to my heart.
    “When I heard you were going to be here with the kids this summer, I changed my initial plans and decided to come a week earlier, alone.”
    The cheetah.
    He continued. “I know a lot about you, Chloe. My mother talks about you all the time. How sweet you are, how smart you are, how strong and determined you are. I had to find out for myself.”
    The gazelle.
    “And?” I said.
    “And she was right for once. But she hadn’t mentioned how pretty you are,” he said. “I enjoy watching you play in the lake with the kids. You always take a few extra seconds to let your hair down and adjust your suit before diving in the water.”
    “So you’ve been staring at me ?” I smiled.
    “And those legs of yours.” He paused and looked down. “Maybe I’m selfish, but Mom—and you—had me intrigued,” he said, taking a step closer. He wrapped his arms around me and rested them on my behind. His shoulders were back, and his head was tilted forward gazing down at me. All I had to do was lift my chin and we would kiss. I had his undivided attention, and his lips could be mine again for a moment. It was my move, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
    I averted my eyes. “I may be all of those things, but I’m also afraid,” I said. “I’m a little out of my comfort zone with you.”
    “What are you afraid of?”
    “Of being naïve, of looking stupid, of getting hurt.”
    He bent down to my ear and whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you. I want to kiss you.”
    My best friend, Grace, used to tell me I had no filter when it came to expressing something I felt passionately about. That I never possessed the ability to repress my thoughts or emotions, and I could tell that lack of restraint was about to become an embarrassing problem.
    “I want to kiss you, too, Tyler. I’ve wanted to kiss you since before I met you.” I paused. “But I know how this is going to end. I’ll be left wanting more—more than you can give, most likely—and you’ll be with Sadie by the time the sun comes up.”
    He shook his head. “Sadie and I are just friends.”
    “Just friends? It seems like more than that to me. Does Sadie know how you feel?”
    “Yes.”
    “Does your mother?” I asked.
    “Sadie and I hang out, that’s all.”
    “Well, you should probably continue ‘hanging out’ with her since she’s your guest and your mother has your china pattern picked out already.”
    “Then why did you come down