Finding Summer (Nightwind Book 3)

by Suzanne Halliday

  Summer dragged her boots on the ground to slow the swing as she fought to keep from falling off when laughter shook her body.

  He watched her with a smirking grin. She tried to ignore the way his muscles rippled under his cashmere sweater, but her pulse quickened anyway. A delicious shudder warmed her body when she remembered the gentleness of his kiss and how it felt to have his big, strong hand grip her fragile neck.

  “You have a story for every occasion, don’t you?” she asked.

  “It’s not a bad thing,” he playfully scoffed. “Think of it this way. It means I’ve lived. Had experiences. I could never be one of those guys hiding under a rock watching the world go by.” He looked into her eyes. “I need to be in it.” His voice was rich, deep, and full of meaning.

  The way she saw it, there were only two choices before her. Move on to the monkey bars or jump on him for a bit of freeform exercise.

  With a reluctant sigh, she left the swing set and ran to the impressive climbing apparatus. Years of gymnast training in high school gave her confidence as she went through some familiar moves. Arnie leaned against a ladder and watched.

  Scrambling atop the structure and keeping her balance was not easy, thanks to her skinny jeans and boots, but she persevered.

  “I’m awarding you a solid ten.”

  Acknowledging his praise—snarky as it was—she playfully curtseyed and very nearly toppled to the ground.

  “Whoopsie!” She giggled.

  His expression was easy to read as he moved closer. Arnie was very much the type of man who believed in protection. If she fell, he was going to make sure to catch her. The thought was sobering.

  Feeling a bit audacious after proving her monkey abilities, she considered the dismount possibilities and made an easy decision. Carefully moving to the end bars, she dropped and did a pullover and a wobbly hip circle before ending with her legs hooked over the bar as she gracefully hung upside down.

  Thinking she was all that and then some, Summer wasn’t prepared when her sweater decided to follow gravity and suddenly revealed her bra. Squawking with alarm, she tried to push it back into place. Her awkward rushed movements caused her bent knees to loosen, and the next thing she knew, she was falling.

  She prayed that the thick layer of wood chips in the fall zone was enough of a cushion and braced for impact. Instead of landing on her ass with a thud, she was swooped into Arnie’s arms and held firmly against his chest. The shock of not falling, coupled with some unfamiliar sensations, threw her off.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled without knowing what she was apologizing for.

  When he responded with a grunt and snarled at her, she stopped breathing and stared.

  “Was flashing your bra so horrible? You could have gotten hurt, Summer.”

  The combination of feeling extremely soft and being smooshed against a rock-hard body scrambled her thoughts. Coherence vanished, as did common sense.

  Touching his shoulder, she slid her hand to his neck and stroked. “Yes, but it’s worked out so nicely, though, don’t you think?”

  She had never been much of a flirt, and in all honesty, she learned whatever moves she had from reading romance books. Uncertain what she should do next, Summer lifted her chin to signal her desire for a kiss.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” he growled.

  “Absolutely not.” She winced. “Should I stop?”

  She felt his fingers dig into her flesh as his body tightened, and his hold on her became fierce.

  “Summer.” His groan was husky and deep. “Don’t.”

  “It’s not up to me.” The words came through her without conscious thought. “This feels different,” she murmured softly. “I thought you felt it too.”

  Her fingers caressed the back of his neck, and she held his eyes without hiding her emotions.

  He stayed silent but didn’t put her down. They stared at each other.

  When he spoke, she sensed reluctance—and something else.

  “You know damn well I feel it, but as you pointed out, this could lead to a shitshow.”

  She didn’t care for his reasonable answer and made a face. “Is that really the reason, or are you worried about robbing the cradle?”

  “Honey, men like me eat little girls like you for breakfast.”

  If he thought the caveman grunt and suggestive taunt were going to scare her off, he had another thing coming. Whatever was happening felt bigger than the two of them. She had no idea if being thrown together like this was the hand of fate or the start of a very bad mistake, and right this second, she couldn’t care less.

  “Ooh, that sounds yummy. Being eaten,” she cooed, “for breakfast.”

  They were the most brazen words to ever come out of her mouth, and she couldn’t be more delighted by his shocked reaction.

  Incredibly, his grip on her body got even fiercer. “Be smart, Summer. Slap my face and tell me to fuck off. Run away from here, from me, and save yourself before—”

  “Before what?”

  His jaw tensed, and the crystal blue in his eyes darkened. Her breaths came in shallow pants as she hung on the edge of a desire so strong she trembled from its power.

  He growled. “I’m only asking this one more time. Do you know what you’re doing?”

  Shifting in his arms, she pressed into his chest and circled his neck with her arms. “And I’ll answer one more time that I absolutely do not know what I’m doing.”

  “I don’t know how to take your response.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. There’s just no cool, nonchalant way to tell you I’m not at all experienced.”

  “Uh, what you mean? Not at all experienced?”

  “Are you gonna make me say it?”

  He scowled. “I think so.”

  Well, shit. This wasn’t how she imagined he’d react. Annoyed, she snatched her arms from his neck and harrumphed in his embrace as she disengaged and sulked. “Put me down.”

  “No.”

  She gasped and met his gaze with a sneer. “Put. Me. Down.”

  “Say it, Summer. Say it, and if you really want me to put you down, I will.”

  “Fine. Here it is. It was senior week. Evan Murray was my date and designated cherry popper. We’d been going out for five months—five months of him endlessly trying to get into my pants. Senior prom and going all the way was the plan. I’ll spare the details except to say a flower shop delivery van might smell nice, but it wasn’t romantic or comfortable.”

  “Fucking shithead.”

  “Yep,” she agreed. “Anyway, here’s how it ended. Never got naked, not even close, because the first time his fingers made it to the promised land, he lost it and ended up coming in his pants. I’m serious,” she pouted when Arnie started to laugh.

  “It wasn’t funny,” she pointed out. “I never even got to see his thing.”

  “His thing?” The man holding her was laughing so hard she had to clutch his shoulders for fear of falling.

  “Arnie,” she pouted. “Come on.”

  “What? It’s funny.” He squeezed her and chuckled despite the serious expression he put on his face. “So is that it? Denied entry?” He laughed harder, and she punched his shoulder.

  “No!” she shrieked. “I gave it another shot a couple of years later. After my dad died. Another bonehead move on my part. Never try to use sex to blunt grief.”

  “Oh.” Her laughing captor sobered right quick. “I’m sorry about your dad.”

  “Yeah, well, so was I.” She shrugged and let the embarrassing memory sweep into her thoughts. “Met a guy who wasn’t immediately gross. I knew he was just being nice so he could get laid.” She groaned. “God, I was so dumb.”

  Without hesitation, he placed her on her feet and searched her face. “You weren’t dumb, honey.”

  “Sure, I was,” she replied defiantly. “Where does it say letting some random nobody use you to get off is the cure for sadness? Was I going to magically feel better after opening my legs?�
�

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s the truth. For a woman, it’s always the truth. Hey, I feel like shit, so how about you grab a condom and hop on? I’ll pretend to be cool while you grunt your way to coming. Then afterward, you can feel good about yourself while I feel like a trash can.”

  Her words were brutal, raw, and honest. She hadn’t meant to go off like that, but her normal filters were off.

  The conflict on his face let her know he heard her and understood.

  His hand moved slowly to feather her hair behind an ear. He gently stroked her face, and her untried senses throbbed to life.

  “It’s never supposed to be like that,” he murmured.

  “It wasn’t,” she admitted with a heavy sigh. “I couldn’t do it. I wanted to feel better, and he wanted to fuck. The idea of intimacy with someone who wasn’t going to remember my name in a few hours shocked me back to reality. My change of heart was not met with gallantry,” she snarled. “In the time it took to get dressed and find my keys, I was called a lot of disgusting things. The whole ugly encounter was a harsh wake-up call.”

  Their gazes met and held.

  “You make me feel different,” she whispered. “This is different. I can’t explain it any other way.”

  He pulled her into a hug. She melted in his arms and breathed him in. The difference in the height made for a comfortable embrace. He was solid and warm. With her cheek pressed above his heart, she listened to the steady beat and ceased to question what the hell she was doing.

  “I wanted you the minute I heard your voice. And I’m not talking about bending you over the table to do you from behind although the thought did have promise.”

  She raised her head to look at him.

  “This is going to come off like the height of arrogance, but it’s true, Summer. I’ve never had to seduce a woman into my bed, and yes, I know what it says about me. Every partner I’ve ever had was willing and, damn near most of the time, the aggressor. Don’t shoot the messenger, but I’ve been assured countless times of my pre-approved spot in the Cock Hall of Fame.”

  “Wait. There’s a hall of fame for cocks?”

  “So it seems, but we digress. My point is, I’ve been plotting your seduction since the minute you challenged my footwear. I knew you were different then, and I sure as shit know it now. The virgin reveal has taken me by surprise, but when you think about it, isn’t it just the kind of thing the universal jokesters love to throw into the mix?”

  She smiled, slowly at first, until her face was stretched from the effort.

  “Oh, my god. Arnie! Are you planning to make love to me?” She probably shouldn’t have laughed or sounded so excited and gleeful, but there you had it.

  He chuckled. “I don’t think I made the distinction between fucking and making love until you gave me a reason to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It means, Miss Giggler, that in this regard, we are both untried novices. I’ve never made love to anyone. Ever.”

  “How the hell did we get here?” she asked.

  “As already pointed out, it started with a shoe insult then, boom! Took off from there.”

  “So now what?”

  “Ah, the million-dollar question. I don’t know,” he admitted with a shoulder roll. “Planning to seduce you was fun and games, but now? Now we’re looking at something different. Something with repercussions.”

  “Because I live here, and you don’t?”

  “Yes,” he agreed with a nod, “and the fact there’s more with us than meets the eye.”

  There was a lot to think about. Wasn’t there?

  She eyed him up and down. Excitement lurched inside her. He was so strong, so compelling, and she was drawn to him like a magnet.

  An otherworldly sensation swept her along. Tingles of awareness danced along her nerves, and she placed her hand in his.

  “Am I still in charge of our first date?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered warmly.

  “Then come on. Let’s go to my place, and maybe if you play your cards right, there’ll be some bent over the table action.”

  His laughter rang out in the night. “Uh, no to the back door entry. Too advanced. We’re barely in the introductory phase, and there’s a, uh, physical consideration we should probably talk about before the kinky shit breaks out.”

  What? Intrigued, she asked, “Physical consideration?”

  He pointed down. “Big feet.” Then he placed their hands together—palm to palm. The size difference was obvious. “Big hands,” he proudly declared. She was thinking about how cheeky he was when he took her hand and used it to cup the bulge in his pants. “Big dick.”

  Oh.

  “Should I be worried?”

  “It’s all in the foreplay.” He chuckled. “Preparation is mandatory.”

  She didn’t know exactly what he meant, but it didn’t stop her from trembling with excitement.

  4

  Arnie’s brain was moving too fast to pin anything down except lust and need. Summer affected him on a primal level. Her enchanting blend of innocent naughtiness and the joyful way she approached life was rearranging the emotional furniture inside him. She wasn’t immune to bad shit happening and hadn’t turned bitter because of a runaway mom and deceased father. Her spirit was stronger than what life threw her way.

  When they made their way back to the car, and he held the passenger door open, she smiled shyly, and her cheeks flushed with color.

  Without the background guesswork of “will they, won’t they,” there wasn’t any need to pretend. He wondered if anticipation would make her drip with need and had his suspicion confirmed by her sweet blush.

  On a scale of one to ten, his smooth factor stalled near the bottom due to his being a cocky fuck at heart. He leaned close and growled in her ear, “Charming blush, golden girl. Are you imagining what my cock will feel like inside you?”

  She proved herself a wanton witch when she fluttered her eyelashes, bit her lip, and moaned. “You’re reading my thoughts.”

  The smoky gleaming in her eyes offered a beacon of hope and maybe, just maybe, real love.

  After strapping in and entering her address into the navigation system, she touched his wrist to get his attention.

  “I, um, don’t have condoms at my place.”

  He blinked. Twice.

  Right, right. Condoms. “Is there a CVS nearby? Or a Walgreens?”

  “Oh, um, yeah. I think. Just start driving and let me see where we’re headed.”

  Fifteen minutes of sexually charged silence later, he parked near the front of a CVS and ran into the store. Spoiled by at-home delivery, he wasn’t familiar with the drugstore layout and marched around for a few minutes like a clueless moron until he stumbled upon the right aisle. And that was when things went wonky.

  The selection was mind-boggling. He searched for whatever looked familiar and gave a self-conscious shrug when his hand snatched a pack of Magnum XL’s off the rack. His eyes caught another familiar sight and quickly added a bottle of Astroglide lube to his haul.

  Heading for the checkout, he veered into the candy and snacks aisle mostly because he didn’t want to deal with the cashier’s smirk. By the time he plunked down an armload of crap at the cash register, he had a little bit of everything—including a can of aerosol whipped cream from the chiller and a silk eye mask he found in the makeup department. All he needed was a few zip ties, and the cashier would have enough Fifty Shades jokes to last a lifetime.

  Stashing the bags in the back seat, he lowered into the car and grinned. “All set.”

  Her answering smile had a wicked edge to it. “I left something in the console for you.”

  She did? His brows went up, and he flipped open the storage space. The usual assortment of crap came into view along with an unfamiliar slash of pink. He looked closer and reached into the console. What he pulled out was her bra.

  “First rule after a long day. Remove the b
ra as soon as possible.” She shrugged. “Since it was going to come off anyway, I just started early.”

  He held the thing up and nodded approvingly. His eyes looked for the tag. Double D. Nice.

  “May I keep this?” he asked with a cheeky smirk but didn’t wait for a reply. He reached for the name tag still on her sweater and made a production of peeling it off. When he was finished and had crumpled the sticky label, he tweaked one of her nipples and grunted. “Fair warning. I have an oral fixation.”

  “Can you teach me?” She giggle-purred. “The oral thing? I think I’d be good at it.”

  He imagined her luscious lips stretched around his fat cock while she gazed up at him with greedy lust in her smoky eyes.

  He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “You’re asking for another lesson from the advanced manual. We’ll start with the basics, maybe my face between your pretty thighs.”

  Her face turned dark red. “You don’t have to. I mean, if it’s something you’d rather not.”

  “Ah, Summer. My sweet innocent. Licking your pussy teaches me what makes you come. How else can I learn what pleases you?”

  She began to tremble visibly. He got off on the power she handed him.

  “How about some music?” He turned on the entertainment system and pulled onto the road. In less than ten minutes, they pulled up to an older two-story apartment building.

  Gathering their stuff took a few minutes. He retrieved her Santa Barbara sunset painting and draped the two drugstore bags on his wrist. When he walked around the back of the car to join her at the passenger door, he got an eyeful of glorious female ass because why? Because his date was busily brushing cracker crumbs off the seat. Each swipe made her body wiggle and tested his swagger. If she kept shaking her butt in his face, he was going to have a hard time walking. Operative word? Hard.

  “Summer,” he ground out. “It’s fine, honey. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I hate leaving a mess.” She straightened quickly and made a face. “Oh, shit. My bag,” she suddenly squawked with a wave of her hands. “Where’s my mind?”