Welcome to My Arms

Chapter 3, Welcome to My Arms

"So, again, tell me how you don't know him?" Paige said.

Chelsea kept both her hands wrapped around the steering wheel of her dad's pickup. The air conditioning was blasting, and she shivered in her bulky white T-shirt and cut-offs, feeling gritty and sweaty on the soft leather seats, wanting a cool shower and some quiet time to digest what had happened.

She didn't have to look Paige's way to know that she was thrown, considering she hadn't stopped with the accusations for the whole ride.

"I don't know him!" Chelsea said. "I swear I've never seen him before."

She was still rattled from all of it: his kiss, his touch. She could say without a doubt that she'd never been kissed like that, ever! Even the way his hand had so intimately traced its way over her bare skin, her arm, her shoulder, her lower back, and her ass, it was as if he'd touched her countless times, like a fiancé would have.

"Then explain to me why a total stranger would just step in the way he did and basically save your ass. I mean, did you see him? He was totally ripped, fucking ripped—a Greek god who would have and could have easily kicked Boone's ass and not even broken a sweat! And did you see the way Boone slinked off? Even his friends, every one of them. That guy totally and one hundred percent shut them all down, like in two seconds flat."

This time she did glance to Paige, whose expression was showing the same shock Chelsea was very much still feeling. It was taking everything she had to keep herself in this seat and at the speed limit without going on and on like Paige was.

"I know. I was there with you, remember?" Chelsea said. "I did see the way he looked. In fact, I was the one in that kiss. Did you see how Boone and his friends packed up and left? I honestly don't know why that stranger would step in and do what he did."

That was another reason she was the mess she was, being touched like that, kissed like that. She still didn't even know the guy's name.

"And then he just left—left!"

Yeah, she'd seen that. After she pulled her gaze away from Boone and his friends, who'd jumped off the dock and headed to the parking lot, the stranger had stepped back, leaned down, picked up her journal, brushed it off, and handed it to her. He hadn't removed his shades and never even offered her a smile, a name, a hello, nothing! He'd stared down at her through those mirrored shades, his face completely unreadable, before turning and walking back to where the boats were on the other side of the dock, disappearing into a crowd of strangers.

She'd just stood there like a frickin' idiot, unable to say a word, to move, as she clutched her big bulky journal. Basically, she'd been shell shocked.

"Did you see which boat he got into?" Paige said. Her energy was still ramped up, and Chelsea had to fight to keep her eyes on the road as she slowed for the turn to the ranch, where Paige had left her little red compact.

"Actually, he didn't get on a boat. I saw him head toward the condos. You should've gone after him, that fine piece of male—"

"Yeah, no!" She cut off her friend, who was now laughing, knowing exactly where this was going. There was no way she was chasing down some stranger who'd basically saved her and given her the kiss of her life. She was angry at herself because the way he touched her, kissed her, she was wanting it again.

"So you don't know his name?" Paige said.

Was she serious? Chelsea glanced her way and watched as she lifted her hands in the air, and she spotted the humor on her face.

"Sorry, okay, but you know what? I bet his name is, like, Deke or Damian. Yeah, Damian... That is such a hot guy's name." Her friend was fanning her face with her hand.