Blog Tour ‘Beauty and the Bayou’ by Erin Nicholas

“Other things?”

It wasn’t so much that she needed to know other ways to keep cool. But she really liked the way he looked when he was mildly amused. It was a very good look on him.

“Lots of water and sweet tea,” he said.

She gave an involuntary shudder.

His amused smile grew. “No to sweet tea?”

“Not my favorite,” she admitted. “But don’t tell Ellie,” she added quickly.

He chuckled at that. “I would never.”

Yeah, the chuckling was nice, too. “I’ve got the water covered though,” she said.

“Good.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, when we get hot there area couple of other things we do,” he said.

Had he moved closer?

Juliet swallowed. “Like what?”

“We take clothes off,” he said.

Yeah, his voice was definitely deeper now.

“I gue—” She cleared her throat. “I guess that makes sense, but there are bugs and sunburn to consider.”

He gave her a nod. “Sunscreen and bug repellent are important. Cora makes bug repellent that’s amazing.”

Huh. Homemade bug repellent. She might have to give that a try. These people intrigued her, she had to admit. “What about the flying debris?”

Sawyer glanced at the boards behind her. “Yeah, well, I guess we do take some risks down here.”

Ah, ha. “I’d rather be a little hot than dealing with an infection from a piece of wood imbedding itself in my skin and muscle tissue.”

Sawyer paused, then shook his head, almost disbelievingly. “Okay, girl. Then that only leaves one other thing to do when you get too hot.”

“What’s that?”

“Swimming.”

For a moment, looking into Sawyer Landry’s eyes, for the first time since she’d been ten years old, Juliet wanted to take her clothes off and jump into a body of water.

That lasted about twelve seconds. But that was twelve seconds longer than she’d considered doing it to that point.

“I don’t have a swimming suit.”

“You don’t need one. The fewer clothes the cooler you get.”

“Skinny-dipping?” she asked.

“Skinny-dipping,” he confirmed.

“You actually skinny-dip?” she asked.

“Of course.”

Sawyer Landry naked.

She just took a few seconds to relish that thought…and the images that went with it. Skinny-dipping with Sawyer might be the one way she would ever even possibly consider any of that. “Do you have a private pool with lots of chlorine and a maximum depth of three feet?” she asked.

She wondered if being naked but with a life jacket on still counted as skinny-dipping.

“Don’t need a pool when I’ve got a whole bayou in my backyard.”

She shuddered. “There is no way I’m jumping in there. Clothes or not.”

“So, the naked part of skinny-dipping isn’t the problem?” Sawyer asked. “It’s the water?”

“It’s absolutely the water,” she said. It was actually all water, but water where she could see the bottom, touchthe bottom, and that was pumped through a filtration system was tolerable. Maybe. For a short period. With plenty of floatation devices within reach. “I mean, other than just the dirt, there are snakes and alligators and fish…and fish and alligator poopin there.” She frowned. “Do snakes poop? I mean, they probably do, right?”

Sawyer blinked at her. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

She nodded. “They almost have to. And they probably do it in that water, too.” She shuddered again. “No, thank you. There are just places I do notneed dirty bayou water.”

“It’s the poop that’s keeping you from skinny-dippin’?” Sawyer asked, clearly trying not to laugh. “You are really thinking about the wrong thing when it comes to bein’ wet and naked, darlin’.”