She could do any of that, but she’d told them all she had plans, that she was having a thing. An alone thing, not that they knew that. Much as she loved her friends and even thought of them as family, when it came right down to it, they had their own.

The predawn air wasn’t that bad, maybe fiftyish, but it was accompanied by a breeze that had the water just icy enough to make her gasp when the first wave washed over her feet.

“Are you crazy?”

She didn’t turn to see who had spoken in that quiet, raspy tone. Her body didn’t move at all, except on the inside, where something odd happened deep in her belly-a sort of quiver that she chose to identify as annoyance.

That her nipples tightened was sheer coincidence.

“I’m trying to enjoy a moment here.” She shoved her hands into her pockets rather than face the urge she had to grab on to him, just haul him close by the ears and lay one on him. It was so ridiculous, this insane attraction she had for him. Seriously ridiculous. It wasn’t as if he was going to give Brad Pitt a run for his money. In fact, he was the opposite of Brad Pitt, not GQ gorgeous at all.

Actually, he looked a lot like Harry Potter all grown up: dark, perpetually disheveled hair curling around his ears to just past his collar. Laser-blue eyes, magnified by the glasses he required to see a foot past his face. A crooked smile that was both self-deprecatory and contagious. He was tall, lean and lanky, and…hell. He was attractive, made all the more so by the fact that he had absolutely no idea how much.

Not that she was noticing.

Nope, that ship had sailed. She’d had him, curiosity over. Hunger sated.

Or so she told herself.

But did he take the hint and leave? No. Anyone else would have sensed something in her tone and backed away, but not Dustin. Somehow she didn’t scare him off. Somehow she didn’t piss him off.