by Serena Bell
No one does the 4th better than Beachcrest, she said, because she was sure about that. And pretty much nothing else.
The fact that she was helping Carl get resettled at Beachcrest had forced her to cancel the beach walk she’d had on the schedule for Trey. Which was maybe okay? Because she was still really confused about what had happened last night at the street dance. The dancing part.
If either of us talks, we’ll probably say something we’ll regret, don’t you think? And I’m enjoying this way too much for that.
She’d felt such a rush at that—as if he’d confessed way more than just that he liked dancing with her. And the way he’d looked at her a moment later, when she said, Do that thing again. Like she’d just asked for something dirty and perfect, something he’d been wanting to do for days. Her whole body had gone hot. Liquid.
He was sitting a short distance away. He’d arrived on the beach with his sister and the two boys in tow. He was wearing some of the clothes she’d picked out for him yesterday. And something had softened in his walk too. It wasn’t so much of a stride. More like a lope, now. Relaxed. He looked like a man on vacation.
He’d accepted a beer and a hot dog—speared it with a male wince on a long-handled barbecue fork—and thrust it into the heat of the coals. He’d taken a second fork and was fire-roasting two more dogs for his nephews. And he hadn’t even given Auburn a lecture on the dangers of processed meat or fillers. Or the carbs and gluten in beer.
He was smiling and laughing, chatting with the fishermen about how he used to go fly fishing with his dad in Montana when he was a little kid. He finished up his hot dog, tugged it off the fork with a white-bread bun—no griping about the white carbs, either—and took a huge bite.
“Damn,” he said to no one in particular. “I forgot how good these are.”
Part of her was elated. She’d done exactly what she’d set out to do. She was maybe even a little ahead of schedule, since he was already in an expansive mood and they hadn’t even broken out the marshmallows.
She’d turned a businessman into a beach rat in seventy-two hours.
And unless she was very much mistaken, she had at least a fighting chance at convincing Trey that Beachcrest belonged right where it was—and right as it was.
Then why was she all churned up inside? She was accomplishing just what she wanted.
And yet she wanted something else, too. For his attention to leave the hot dogs and his nephews and the fishermen and settle on her. For him to stand up from the log where he sat, cross to where she was, and sit too close for casual conversation. Close enough that the heat of his body would outshine the heat of the fire.
She wanted him to linger at the fire after the other guests left and—
And more.
All she had to do to get Beachcrest was to stay the course. Pretend that dancing and toasting marshmallows with him was enough.
But it wasn’t.
And that scared the living shit out of her.
Her face was flaming hot, and the smoke had changed direction and was blowing in her face. She stood up and moved into the shadows.
Chiara, who’d also come down for the roast, joined her.
“What’d you do to him?” she asked her sister. “It’s like he was under the curse of a wicked witch and you kissed him and saved him.”
“Er,” Auburn said. “There hasn’t been any kissing yet.”
“Yet?” Chiara was all wide-open eyes and mouth.
“There isn’t going to be any kissing. At all.”
“You said, ‘yet.’ I heard you.”
“It was a slip of the tongue.”
“It sounds like tongues might start slipping any moment.”
“That would be a very, very bad idea.”
“And yet—yet—I’m getting the distinct feeling you haven’t dismissed it as a possibility.”
“I’m trying to do a business deal here. I can’t imagine this could possibly help.”
“You’re trying to get him to fall in love,” Chiara said. “Kissing always helps with that.”
“With Beachcrest,” Auburn said. “I’m trying to get him to fall in love with Beachcrest.”
“I hate to break it to you sis, but you are Beachcrest.” Chiara’s face was all mischief, but before Auburn could protest, they were joined by Brynn; Auburn introduced the two women.
“I need to get myself a s’more before they run out of marshmallows,” Chiara said. “Anyone else?”
“I wouldn’t turn one down if you arranged for one to be made for me,” Auburn admitted.
“I’m good,” Brynn said, waving a hand. “Hey,” she said to Auburn, as Chiara stepped back toward the fire. “I just wanted to say that I’m on your side. About the inn. I’m opposed to this whole retirement development thing. I think Trey should let Beachcrest stay, and Carl should come live with me. But Trey’s against that.”
“Against Carl moving in with you?”
“He’s got a bug up his ass about stuff like that. He doesn’t even want me living where I am, let alone Carl moving in there. He tried to buy me a new place. I told him where he could shove that.”
“He tried to buy you a new place?” Auburn could feel her mouth fall open.
“Yeah. He hates my house. And to be fair, it’s a little bit of a shit heap at the moment, but it’s my shit heap, you know? I earned it with my own damn money after I got myself back on my own damn feet after I made my own stupid-ass mistakes.”
That made Auburn smile. “Funnily enough, I do know.”
Brynn smiled back at her. “Yeah, well, tough to get my big, bad brother to grok that. He needs to save all of us with his bajillions of dollars.”
They both turned and looked at Trey, who at the moment was spearing a marshmallow on a fork and looking a lot more like the small boys surrounding him than like a rich man with a savior complex.
“He’s in such a good mood today,” Brynn said. “I was shocked when he asked if the boys and I wanted to come to the campfire with him. I was like, who are you and what did you do with my brother? I think it’s the effect of the beach. He always loved the beach when we were little.”
“He was telling me about it. You guys coming here. Playing on the beach together. He said it was a happy time.”
“It was. But then after our mom died and Carl was so angry with dad—” Brynn closed her mouth abruptly. “I should shut up. Trey wouldn’t appreciate me flapping like this about him.”
“Brynn!” Trey came toward them. “Can you Google something for me? Tyler wants to know how marshmallows got invented. He also wants to know what marshmallows are made of, and I can’t say I have an answer for that, either. Actually, maybe I don’t want to know, given how many I’ve eaten.”
“Google it yourself, doofus,” Brynn said.
“I left my phone in my room.”
Brynn’s mouth fell open. Auburn was pretty sure her own was a mirror image.
“You left your phone in your room?”
“Yeah. Can you Google it for me?”
“Sure,” Brynn said. “And while I’m at it, I’m Googling ‘symptoms of alien abduction,’ too.”
22
“Don’t let me eat another marshmallow. No matter how much I beg.” Auburn closed the bag with a rubber band and tossed it into the wheelbarrow.
He liked the idea of her begging. A lot.
There was a smudge of marshmallow just above her upper lip, and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it for the last five minutes or so.
“Was it my imagination? Or were you having a good time tonight?” she teased.
They were the last two people down by the fire. Brynn and the boys had left after a few rounds of s’mores. The romance writers had headed back to the B&B a few minutes ago, leaving Trey and Auburn on their own.
“If I admit I had fun, will you use it against me in the quest to win Beachcrest?”
“Hell, yes. I’ll take any advantage I can.”
“T
hen no. It was a total drag. I hated roasting hot dogs. It gives me the willies—pun intended—to spear phallic fake meat on a long-handled fork. No one likes their meat flame broiled. And s’mores suck, you know what I’m saying? All that toasty marshmallow and gooeyness.”
She gave him a shove and he fell backward onto the sand.
“Okay,” he admitted, climbing back onto his driftwood seat. “It was fun. I like the fishermen. Once you get a few beers into those guys and get them talking—the story about fishing with Barack Obama was great. Do you think that’s true?”
Auburn shrugged. “No reason to doubt.”
“Rick said something about how they’d be back next year, and you should have seen Dewann’s face. I think you might be right. That they’re not going back to their separate corners.”
Auburn smiled. “Told you. Beachcrest magic will get them in the end.”
He frowned. “So, what, how does it work? Everyone falls in love at Beachcrest?”
“Everyone gets what they need at Beachcrest. Love, redemption, friendship, clarity, whatever.”
As she spoke, there was a glow on her face that wasn’t just the firelight. Her hair was a riot in the light breeze, curls everywhere. Her eyes bright. And that goddamn splotch of marshmallow. He made himself look away, because otherwise he was going to do something he’d regret.
“Brynn said you don’t want Carl living with her.”
“I don’t.”
“What’s that about?”
“She has it tough enough, taking care of the boys, without throwing a senior citizen who’s recovering from a heart attack into the mix. Not to mention that her house is in way worse shape than Beachcrest.”
“But if she wants to—”
“People think they know what they want, but they don’t. She doesn’t have the resources to take care of herself and Carl. She’s so stubborn. She’ll take on more than she can handle.”
“She told me you tried to buy her a house.”
“Jesus, Brynn,” Trey said to the sky in exasperation. “Can’t a man have some secrets?”
Auburn smiled. “That was nice of you. To try to take care of her that way.”
“Yeah, well, she didn’t think so.”
“I understand that, too. She wants to do it for herself.” She was quiet for a moment, looking out to where just a few streaks of lighter sky still shone out of the dark. “Trey?”
“Yeah?”
“What happened between Carl and your dad?”
He felt like he’d been smacked in the chest. “What did Brynn tell you?”
“Just that after your mom died, Carl was angry.”
He knew that if he shut her down now, she wouldn’t push. He couldn’t say how he knew that, but he knew.
So he wasn’t sure what made him step into it. Right into the heart of it. Call it beach magic. Or Auburn magic. Because increasingly, he was beginning to think that that’s what it was about. What she called beach magic or Beachcrest magic was really Auburn herself, the way she saw. The way she listened. The way she cared. Magic happened around her, all right, but not because of something outside her. Because of what was inside her.
“I told you my dad drank. Couldn’t hold down a job. Got into crazy schemes.”
She nodded, eyes huge.
“My mom made up for it. Worked two and sometimes three jobs to compensate.”
The old pain had seized him around the chest, tightening like a vise. It was tough to breathe. Like how it must have been for his mother.
“She got sick at one of the factory jobs. They didn’t have adequate ventilation for the particulates, and she ended up with all kinds of breathing problems. They thought it was asthma, but it turned out to be lung cancer. Stage four when they caught it. It was so fast. Less than a month, if you can believe it.”
“Oh. Oh, God, Trey.”
“Working like that killed her,” he said quietly. “He killed her.”
She reached out a hand and took his. Without stopping to think about whether he’d regret it, he turned his hand in hers so they were holding hands for real. Ran his thumb over her smooth skin.
“Is that why you do what you do? Make money so you can keep everyone you love safe in gilded cages?” Auburn paused, pushed her hair out of her eyes, drawing his gaze back to her face. “You don’t want to be anything like your father?”
“I’m nothing like my father,” he said.
It came out harsher than he’d intended—but not as forceful as it felt in his gut.
“No,” she said, thoughtfully. “I don’t imagine you are.”
Her eyes held his until he couldn’t stand the intensity and looked away. “Gilded cages, huh?” The characterization hurt—but he recognized the truth in it, too.
“I’m sorry. That was harsh. I know you’re just trying to do what you think is best. For Brynn. For Carl.”
“No,” he said quietly. “I think you’re probably right. And I probably did it to Karina, my ex-wife, too. She left me a year ago. After I canceled the first vacation we’d booked in two years. Because a deal fell through and I needed to fix it.”
He wasn’t expecting Auburn to be sympathetic. He knew it had been an asshole move. But that deal had been a big next step for him, and he hadn’t been able to walk away from it.
He thought Karina had understood how important it was to him. He thought she understood that it would practically guarantee that nothing could touch them again financially. He thought she understood that literally everything he’d done from the moment he’d met her had been for her. Every hour he’d worked, every dollar he’d made. To keep her safe, make her happy, ensure she never suffered or needed anything.
Auburn’s eyes were soft. “I’m sorry,” she said, and it made his chest hurt like hell.
“I just wanted to make things good for her,” he said. “But I guess it’s like you said. I kept her in a gilded cage.”
She kept her gaze on him. It was too dark to see the blue of her eyes, but he could see their intensity and their clarity. The curve of her cheek, the softness of her mouth. And that tiny splotch of sticky-sweet.
Maybe he just needed to defuse the intensity with which she was watching him. Or maybe it was because it was a small imperfection on a perfect face. But for whatever reason, he couldn’t stand it any longer. “You have some marshmallow. Here.” He pointed.
She tried to lick it away, the tip of her tongue just short of where it needed to be. He reached out and put a hand behind her head, his fingers weaving into her hair.
He heard her breath catch—and felt his own echo it.
He gave her a beat to protest, but she didn’t.
He drew her close, leaned in, and licked the marshmallow from her lip, nibbling to make sure he got all of it. He pulled back and looked at her. Her breath came fast. He couldn’t see the color in her face, but he could see the lust-drunkenness in her eyes.
Come to me. Come to me. Come on, Auburn. You said Beachcrest always gives people what they need.
I need you.
He wondered if it worked even if you didn’t say the words out loud.
He was still wondering when she slid her hand into his hair and pulled him in.
23
The breeze ruffled her hair, and his mouth landed hot on hers, and the combination decked her.
Her nipples, already hard in the cool air, knotted so tight they almost hurt, and she could feel all those sensations—the nibbling at her lip, the tightening of her nipples—arrowing down to her clit and her core.
She kissed him back more or less out of self-preservation, because it was more sensation than she could stand and it had to go somewhere.
He was a good kisser. He gave her slick heat that echoed itself between her legs. He showed her he was in charge, which made her even wetter. He nibbled and thrust and bit and teased, and she whimpered.
“You like that?” He pulled back just enough to ask it.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
&nb
sp; He kissed her again. Their mouths felt made to be together. She was empty and hungry and craving and wanted him to fill her up. Instead, he made her emptier by finding the bare skin at the bottom of her shirt and sliding his hand up so slowly that she wanted to scream. By the time he cupped her breast through her lace bra, she was pushing herself into his palm. Which made him groan, low and rough. He kissed her again. Little kisses. Bigger kisses that invited her to open for him. His tongue, sliding against hers. Exploring her. Owning her.
“God, Auburn, you have no idea how much I’ve been wanting to do this.”
“Me too,” she whispered.
“Tell me you like it.”
All she could do was whimper.
He played with one nipple until there was a line of fire from it to her clit. Then he switched. Back and forth. And then, like he was consolidating his work, he took his mouth away from hers—which made her whimper again—lifted her shirt, and dropped his head so he could work one tight bead with his fingertips and the other with his tongue.
“What do you feel, Auburn?” It was a low, dark tease.
She moaned.
“Do you feel like you could come? If I kept doing this? What if—” he dropped a hand between her legs, cupping her through denim. She could feel the heat of his hand against the seam of her jeans, and she tipped to meet it. The friction over her clit made her cry out, and he moved his hand away, a tease. She clutched his hand and drew it back to where it had been, rubbing herself shamelessly against his palm.
“Kiss me again,” she begged.
He wound her higher and higher, his mouth on hers, his fingertips relentlessly teasing the tip of her breast, his palm cupped tight where she rocked into him. The sensation was drawing into a tight knot in her low belly, so hot and sweet it was calling her name, when the breeze carried voices up the beach.
Trey pulled away from the kiss and touched his lips to her ear. Whispered, his breath tingling everywhere, “There are people walking on the beach, Auburn. Do you want me to stop?”
He had to know the answer. He’d taken her there himself.
“I—can’t—”
