Page 25 of Just What She Needed

Rhett stopped with the bottle an inch from her lips. "Pluvio-whats?"

"Pluviophiles." He used the bottle opener on the side of the cooler to pop the top on his beer before he leaned back and smiled at her. "It's someone who likes rain and finds peace on rainy days."

"Well, then. To pluviophiles." She tilted her water bottle toward him, and he responded by clinking his beer bottle against it. The angle of his arm brought the tattoo on his inner forearm into view, and Rhett leaned forward to see it better. "What's your tattoo say?"

"This one is my kids' names." After transferring his beer to this left hand, he extended his arm closer to her, tat up.

It took a minute, but Rhett finally distinguished the elaborately swirled letters from the design surrounding them. "I see them now." She ran a finger over the names, tracing them lightly. "Dax Jameson, and there's Sienna Reese. It's so...Wait. Are you supposed to tell a man his tattoo is pretty?"

Rhys grinned. "Only if it is."

"Well, it's pretty." With reluctance she removed her finger so he could draw his arm back. "You said 'this one.' You have more?"

"Just one." He put his beer on the lid of the cooler and sat up. His hands went to the hem of his shirt, and he turned his back to her as he pulled the soft red cotton up to his shoulders. "Here it is."

Who the hell could ever have imagined that a back could be so sexy? Broad at the shoulders, it tapered down to his waist in perfect proportions. Smooth, lightly tanned skin covered flat muscles that rippled as he turned even more to give her a better view of the letters that marched straight down the middle of his spine. In that moment Rhett wanted nothing more than to run her hands up his back, feel its heat and strength against her palms right before she started kissing her way up, following the path of the tattoo.

Oh, right. The tattoo. A deep breath helped push her more carnal thoughts to the back of her mind, and she leaned forward to see better.

"If it's done right, once is enough," she read aloud. To her mortification, her voice broke a little on the last two words since she was reading them from just above the low-slung waistband of his jeans. And oh, how she wished there was more to read.

"You'll never know how relieved I am that I didn't have the beginning of the quote put on, too." Rhys pulled his shirt down and stretched out again.

"What's the beginning?"

"'You only live once.' If I was running round with YOLO on my back, I'd never take off my shirt." He glanced up as a rumble of thunder sounded over Fort Worth. "Thor agrees with me."

Rhett laughed under her breath and looked west. Her smile faded at the sight of the bank of angry black clouds headed their way. "Thor, nothing. It's about to storm like a big dog." A gust of almost cold wind proved her right as it sailed in ahead of the coming clouds. It picked up droplets of rain and splattered them over Rhett's feet, and she swung her legs off the lounger. "Time to head inside."

"Storm like a big dog, hm? So, does this mean we need to get the lock boxes and head to the storage level?" Rhys asked as they dragged the chairs closer to the wall of windows.

Rhett cast another glance at the sky. "No, that storm isn't tall enough. And that isn't a wall cloud."

Paused in the act of picking up the cooler, Rhys gave her a blank look. "I'm sorry. What?"

Rhett snapped off a salute. "Meteorologist Rhett Davis at your service, sir." She dimpled at his confusion. "It's a by-product of living in Texas for any amount of time. If you do decide to stay here, you'll be rattling off the warning signs of a tornado before you know it."

"I'll just take your word for it." Rhys set the cooler on the floor just inside the door which Rhett shut behind him. "As long as whatever's headed our way isn't one then I'm good. Even though it did fuck up our listening to the rain fall."

"This one's just a thunderstorm. But I am sorry it cut your sweet surprise short." She ran her hands through her wind-blown hair and looked around the living room. Rhys rushed her through it so fast before that she hadn't had a chance to really see it.

The first thing that struck her was how large it was. It stretched along the entire length of the condo, and the furnishings were placed to break it up into three distinct seating areas. The second thing she noticed was the lack of color. Everything was beige, cream or white, and while it made the space airy and bright it all came off a little dull. No wonder it hadn't made an impression earlier. Even the baby grand piano set in a recessed area on the far wall was a gleaming white. She did a double take.

"How in the hell did they get that piano up here?"

"I've wondered that ever since I moved in, and I still don't have a clue." Rhys crossed the room and sat down on the piano bench. "There must be some sort of freight elevator around here somewhere, because I can't imagine them hoisting it up this far on cables."

"That'd be a disaster just waiting to happen." Rhett came to a halt beside the instrument, delighted with the liquid notes that poured from it as Rhys ran his fingers over the keyboard. Balled up pieces of paper littered the floor around the piano, along with a couple of notebooks in varying degrees of decrepitude. A thrill shot through her at the realization that these things were part of Rhys's process while writing. It was almost like being a part of Illicit for minute, and she couldn't stop her inner fangirl from coming out.

"Will you play something for me?"

Rhys looked up at her from under his lashes. "I will if you'll come sit beside me."

There was no resisting that look or that smoky voice, and Rhett slid onto the bench next to him.

"Much better." Rhys continued to play, and Rhett caught bits and pieces of different songs, like someone spinning the dial on a radio. "Any requests?"

She shook her head. "No, just whatever you want to play."