Mouth to Mouth (Beach Kingdom 1)

Rory stooped down and picked up the fallen tome, making no effort to hide his perusal of her bare legs on the way back up. They were covered in goose bumps. “You’re making it sound like you hate this book…” he said, stepping close until she tilted her head back to maintain eye contact. “But you were lost in another world reading it.”

“I get lost in magazines at the dentist office.” He heard her swallow. “I just have a thing for words.”

“What else do you have a thing for?”

“Probably other stuff,” she whispered. “But I’m having trouble thinking of them right this second.”

“Why is that?”

“I almost got hit by a bus.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Did you miss that?”

Rory couldn’t stop his grin. “Oh, I caught it.” Up ahead, he could hear the ocean and knew he needed to be at work. He would let down Andrew at some point this summer, no need to make it on the first day. But this girl. He was just supposed to walk away?

His grin faded. “I have to be at work soon. I’m lifeguarding today and we start at eleven. But I have a few minutes before I have to run.” He forced a concerned expression onto his face. “You look shaken up, sunbeam. We should probably get you a coffee and my number.”

A laugh burst out of her, loud enough to turn heads on the sidewalk. She slapped her hands over her mouth but continued to giggle behind them. The sound was so contagious, his own low rumble joined it and he couldn’t help but think, there’s never been a morning like this. There’s nothing even remotely recycled about this.

“I’m actually meeting a girlfriend,” Olive said finally. “It’s a study date.”

“I have great news. No one studies during the summer time.”

“I do.” With a smile that showed off the slight gap between her two front teeth, she pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “At the risk of sounding like a huge nerd, I’m taking a summer class at Stony Brook. I’m going to be a psychology major there in the fall and I want to be familiar with the course materials. And okay…” She blushed to her hairline. “I didn’t risk sounding like a huge nerd. That was full-on dweeb.”

Even though her enthusiasm was adorable, Rory encountered a kick of unease. He’d never been in a serious relationship, but he’d gone out with a lot of different kinds of girls…once. There wasn’t much that could intimidate him. He’d grown up poor and served hard time. But people with book smarts? Yeah, he had the look memorized. That look. The one that said they pegged him as being uneducated with nothing in his future but answering to someone else and making a working man’s salary for it.

On those extremely rare occasions Rory spent time with a book-smart girl, he didn’t really give a shit when she gave him the look. The one that said, I’m going to enjoy tonight and never tell a single one of my friends about it. What did he care? He wasn’t exactly planning on telling anyone, either. It was just a basic need being met. A diversion.

Olive didn’t seem like a diversion. Not even a little bit.

He really didn’t want her to give him the look.

“Uh, right.” Rory winked at Olive, handed her the book and backed in the direction of the beach. “Look, no more walking without looking where you’re going, all right, sunbeam?”

Her smile dropped.

“Don’t study too hard,” he said, punching the crosswalk button. Damn, walking away from a girl wasn’t supposed to be hard, was it? His stomach felt like two stones grinding together. When he glanced back, Olive took a step toward him, then changed her mind and retreated. With a weird tightening in his throat, Rory faced the street again. The light changed and Rory started to cross—

“Wait!”

CHAPTER THREE

Too bad you couldn’t edit real life.

Because she’d definitely just yelled, “Wait!”

At the hottest guy she’d ever seen in person. A hot guy who’d saved her life.

Good thing she’d sounded extra desperate.

Olive Cunningham tried not to cringe at the note of desperation hanging in the warm summer air and watched Rory slow to a stop, glancing back at her over his muscular shoulder. Wariness danced in eyes she knew were translucent green and hardened the strong lines of his back, reminding her of an unbroken stallion. What had she said to make him throw up his guard? Olive was positive it could have been any number of things. Having been home schooled straight through the twelfth grade, her experience with the opposite sex was limited to neighborhood boys and the ones she read about in books.

When it came time for her to start dating, she’d envisioned herself with a starter boyfriend. Someone non-threatening and endearingly awkward who was still developing the fashion sense that would stay with him throughout adulthood. Rory was the least awkward human being she’d ever encountered. His dark brown hair was finger brushed and somehow perfect, offset by his cut jaw and the beginning shadow of scruff. He was smooth and he lived inside his skin like a worn-in pair of jeans. Not a starter boyfriend. Not a boy anything.