Page 25 of No Judgements

I rolled my eyes at him. “Thanks a lot.”

“And a real addict would have gone to Miami. Or Key West. There are no drugs here in Little Bridge. At least, no hard stuff.”

Frowning, I stared down at his fingers. In the misty light from the streetlamp, I could see that the knuckles were still raw from where they’d come in contact with Rick Chance’s jaw.

The back of his hand was also lightly furred in dark hair, the same finely textured hair I’d seen when he’d lifted his shirt that morning, making a vee down his taut stomach before disappearing beneath the waistband of his shorts.

Just the reminder caused a tingle in a place I’d sworn to keep away from men for the foreseeable future.

And yet all I could think about was how those hands might feel on my bare skin.

“Let go of my bike,” I said in a strangled voice, lifting my gaze to his.

“No. Look. I’m sorry about your father. I didn’t know. I just... Bree—” His voice sounded as choked as my own.

Suddenly, one of those warm, calloused hands closed over my own. The second his skin touched mine, I felt something akin to an electric jolt course through my body.

Except it wasn’t electricity. It was desire.

Oh, no. This couldn’t be happening. I could not want Drew Hartwell. I could not.

Who knows what might have happened next if the street hadn’t been abruptly lit up by a shaft of lightning so brilliant, it cast everything into stark white relief, bright as daylight. For a split second, I could see every smile line in his darkly tanned face, every threadbare patch on his faded blue shirt, every dark eyelash rimming those ocean blue eyes.

Then we were once again plunged into semidarkness, and thunder crashed so loudly that I started, ripping my hand from his and nearly dropping my bike in alarm.

“Wow,” Drew said, looking up. The clouds overheadwere racing by at a noticeably more rapid pace, while the leaves of the gumbo-limbo trees had begun to tussle along with the palm fronds in the wind. “Something’s on its way, all right. Must be one of the first—”

Feeder bands, is what he’d probably been about to say. They were the outermost rain bands of the hurricane, and the meteorologists had been telling us to expect them all day.

But another crack of thunder, so loud and long it seemed to reverberate in my chest, cut him off.

When it was finished rumbling, Drew glanced at his wrist. Like many islanders, he wore a heavy, water-resistant dive watch on an ancient-looking leather band.

“Right on time,” he commented.

I looked up at the sky, and the dark clouds sliding across it, and felt relieved. Not only because now I had a perfect excuse to escape—him, and whatever that white-hot flash of yearning had been that had shot through me at his touch. I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready. Not for this. Yet.

“If you mean rain, I’m out of here,” I said. “This dress is dry clean only. Good-bye.”

I tugged on my bike to get him to release it, but he only held on tighter.

“Come on,” he said. “Don’t go. You did do me a solid tonight, so allow me to return the favor. I’ve got my truck here. Why don’t you let me drive you home before it starts to pour?”

I burst out laughing.

“Just how much of a Fresh Water do you think I am,anyway?” I asked, thinking of all of Angela’s warnings about him—that pickup truck of his, never parked in front of the same woman’s house twice. This was exactly the sort of offer a player like Drew Hartwell would make. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m going home, like I said. By myself.”

I reached out to pluck his fingers from my handlebars, and this time, he did let go.

“See you later, Drew.” I swung my bike around and began pedaling.

He let me go. But not without trying to get the last word.

“Phone my aunt when you get home, so she knows you got there safely,” he called after me.

I waved—without looking back—to indicate that I’d heard.

I was grateful my back was to him, though, so he couldn’t see through the thin material of my dress how hard my heart was hammering.