No sex. Not now, at least. And I’d do better with remembering that if I wasn’t staring at her breasts and ample cleavage.

“Come on in.” I pointed to the bench where I’d folded and laid out a towel for her.

“This feels like the Seventh Circle of Hell.”

“Nice, right?”

“It’s incredible. I’ve wanted to sneak in here and use this so many times.”

“You could have. Why didn’t you?”

“Because it’s your space and I hadn’t been invited.”

I opened my arms wide. “Consider this your invitation, and some pics of you in here, preferably without the swimsuit on while I’m on the road wouldn’t upset me either.”

That earned me a snort, and she tucked wisps of hair behind her ear. She was still getting adjusted to the heat, and by the way she fidgeted, trying to get comfortable not wrapping her arms around her stomach to hide herself from me.

I bit my tongue. I’d told her enough for a day that she didn’t need to hide herself from me. The rest would come with time.

“Tell me something.”

“What?” she asked.

“You told me you went to school for education, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So why didn’t you go into teaching?”

Her hands curled around the edge of the wood bench, flexed. “Who said I didn’t?”

That had me sitting up straighter. All she’d told me was that she did volunteer work. “You did?”

“Yeah.” She huffed a laugh and rolled her lips between her teeth. “It always feels like I’m such a rich bitch when I explain, but I quit after my first year.”

“Why?”

“Because teachers needing the work needed the money more than I did. The schools did. So I quit after my first year and started subbing.”

“So when you said you did volunteer work, what did you do?”

“I meant substitute teaching, at least partly. Whatever money I make I put back into the schools where I spent time. I did other volunteer work, though. At homeless shelters and food pantries. I’d serve meals, help package sandwiches that would be delivered to people on the street who wouldn’t come to the shelters. I stocked shelves, I don’t know. Whatever needed to be done, I guess. I also spent time on some local campaigns, going door-to-door, that kind of thing.”

She shrugged like it was no big deal, but it was. She would someday be so damn fucking rich she’d never have to lift a finger and could pay or hire anyone she wanted for anything. Hell, she could have personal shoppers delivering food to her home, a private chef, a housekeeper, and yet I hadn’t missed the fact that when I came home, my house was cleaned. She was trying to cook. She would do my laundry and leave it in a basket outside my bedroom.

She might have been given the gift of privilege, but she didn’t take it for granted like so many others.

“What do you like the most?”