by Serena Bell
The truth was, he didn’t mind losing control when it came to her.
He leaned back against a tree, trying to catch his breath and get his bearings. His knees were water. “Holy shit, Auburn.”
She grinned at him. “Better?”
He tipped his head back. “It’s hard to walk when you’re a limp rag,” he said, but he couldn’t make it sound grumpy, not even to joke around with her. He just felt too good.
“There’s no pleasing some people,” she teased.
It took a while before he could pull himself together, but they made their way along the rest of the main trail and down the nearly invisible, unmarked spur to the secret beach. They came down a series of heavily overgrown switchbacks and stepped off a driftwood snag onto the beach.
“Oh. Wow,” he said.
“Pretty, right?”
It was a white sand beach tucked into a cove, cupped on one side by red cliffs and on the other by hillside ruffed with overgrown green. Along the back edge of the beach were boulders, tumbled probably over thousands of years from the cliff above—some smooth, some ragged, gray, brown, reddish, flecked. He leaned against one and stared out at the water, gray like the sky and capped in places with white. “It’s amazing.”
She took off her running shoes and socks, and he watched as she walked down onto the sand. He knelt and began untying his shoes.
She slung the backpack off her shoulder and began unpacking things from it, then said, suddenly, “Shit.”
“What?”
“I forgot—how could I—how could I forget a blanket?”
“We can sit on that rock over there.” He gestured.
“But—” She raised her eyebrows.
“Oh. That. Well. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And I definitely have the will.”
She laughed at that. “Me too.”
He kissed her. “Mmm. Lots of will.”
“You just— are you always ready to go?”
“Pretty much,” he admitted.
“Not that I mind. At all.”
“I didn’t get the feeling you did.”
He stepped close to her, put a hand on each thigh, and slowly, slowly, slid the stretchy fabric of her dress upward until it revealed a peek of sun-yellow all-lace shorts-style undies. The dark thatch of her mound showed through clearly, and his body bucked at the sight.
“This wrecks me,” he said. He edged closer, giving her a feel of what she did to him, and she chuckled against his shoulder.
“It’s all yours.”
“No one’s going to come down—?”
She shrugged. “Hope not. Don’t care.”
That was even better than no. He wasn’t an exhibitionist, but the faint possibility of getting caught … he didn’t hate the thrill that added to the already sharp brilliance of his arousal.
“See that rock?”
She went, with a coy backward look over her shoulder that made him want to sink his teeth into something.
He was already unfastening his shorts (again) as he came close to where she leaned against the smooth gray surface.
“Touch yourself.”
She watched him from under lowered eyelids as she slid her hand between lace and curls, parted herself, and began a slow circling that he could feel tightening in his balls.
“Are you wet?”
“So wet,” she said.
“I can see how hard your nipples are.”
She moaned.
He slid a hand up her ribs until his hand met resistance.
“Sorry—built-in sports bra—here—” She showed him how to slide a hand under the elastic, and the weight of her breast in his palm made him twice as hard.
He went to work on the nub that was still stiffening against the touch of his palm. “Does it feel good?”
“So good,” she said, her head falling back.
With the other hand, he dipped and tested for himself. She was soft and slick and his patience—not that he’d had much to begin with—flew away. He eased two fingers into her and found her g-spot, stroking until she gasped. Then he slipped a condom from his pocket, stripped the wrapper off, and covered himself.
35
He lifted her like she weighed nothing. For a moment she thought he was going to press her back against the rock, brace her there, but he eyed it gravely and said, “That’s going to scrape up your back. I’ve got you.”
He did, one hand under her butt, the other splayed across her back, so she wrapped her hand around him—eliciting a groan—and guided him into her as he lifted her up. The downstroke was long and blissful. It felt like forever before he was fully seated, and then he felt deeper than he had yet. Like he was touching some part of her no one had.
She put her hands on his shoulders, closed her eyes, and let him rock her up and down. The sensation quickly concentrated itself where the weight of her body met the base of his cock. On top of the perfect friction on her clit, he felt bigger in this position, like he was stretching her to the absolute limit, and her whole body responded by trying to clench back around him.
She was going to come in record time, and he knew it. She wasn’t sure if he saw it in her eyes or felt the telltale flutters and contractions, but the hand on her behind tightened and lifted her, and he held his hips back from her. “Not yet.”
“Trey.”
“I know, baby. I know it feels good. But not yet. You feel too good to me. I don’t want it to be over.”
He took a slow pace, now, giving her most but not all of him, gliding her on her own wetness and turning the whole thing into summery, languid sweetness. Sweat prickled all over her body, in part from the warmth rising off the sand and the heat of his body, but mostly from the loveliness of the sensation. Like sun sparkling on the surface of blue ocean, especially when he angled himself to catch her g-spot with the fat head of his cock. She cried out on every rich, glittery touch. Her body relaxed around him a tiny bit, giving up more moisture, slicking his thrusts, and he groaned with satisfaction. “You’re so tight and so wet and smooth at the same time. It’s crazy good.”
“Your arms must be tired,” she whispered hopefully, but he just chuckled and slowed the pace even more. The muscles bunched and flared in his shoulders and chest and arms, setting up new tingles in the few spots where bare skin met bare skin.
“Can I do this?” she asked, and leaned back a little.
“Oh, shit, yeah, you can do that. Oh. That angle. Auburn.”
“Me, too,” she whispered.
She became aware that the sensation was building again, in a different way from before. From deeper, and without any tension in her muscles.
And he fucking knew, too, the bastard. He stopped. And held her still.
The silvery, glittery sensation didn’t stop, though. It kept rippling through her. And it kept building. It didn’t need motion. It was feeding on the heat of Trey’s skin and the strength of his arms around her and how much she liked him.
“Trey.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I’m going to—oh, fuck! Ohhhhh. Trey! God. More.”
He gave it to her, tugging her down, surging into her, filling her, stretching her, so the sparkling bliss of the orgasm blended with the sensation of fullness into a perfect storm.
She could feel his thrusts growing ragged and uneven. Then he swelled in her, cried out, and went rigid, his head thrown back, the cords of his neck standing out. Every muscle was hard against her. It was so goddamn sweet, this big, alpha all-businessman, always so tightly in control of himself and everything else he could get his hands on, breaking because of her. It almost made her come again, but there was a little part of her standing apart, watching warily just in case he lost control completely and dropped her.
He didn’t, of course. He held her and held her and held her, and she let him, even though she was so, so afraid it couldn’t last forever.
Afterwards, they stuffed themselves on picnic food—melon chunks, a pasta salad with basil and to
matoes and lots of freshly grated parmesan cheese, sliced veggies in hummus, and a small charcuterie of cured meats and cheeses. Eating together after what they’d done—it was a certain kind of lovely pleasure—the salt and the sweet and the bonelessness of being relaxed together.
Then they packed up—carefully removing all traces of their presence—and hiked back to the car.
They’d brought Trey’s rental—Auburn still hadn’t saved up enough to buy a car of her own—and they slid into their seats and both reached simultaneously for their cell phones, which made them laugh. By agreement, they’d left their phones in the car—Luz was at the front desk of Beachcrest, and Carl was resting but on hand to answer questions if there was anything that Luz couldn’t handle—generally speaking, though, there wasn’t.
He made a small noise of dismay.
“What?”
“Voicemail from my Chief of Ops.”
“Is that bad?”
“No. Not bad. Just—I told him I’d call him when I had news for him.” He tapped and listened, his face tightening as she watched. Then he tapped to end the call and just sat, staring straight ahead.
“What did he say?”
He looked away from her, out the window.
“Trey?”
“Nothing he hasn’t said before. I don’t work for him, anyway. He works for me.”
“You can tell me.”
He took a deep breath. “The crux is that he thinks if you don’t have the money by close of business on the West coast today, you should call Carl off.”
Her stomach clenched. “I thought we had till Monday.”
“He doesn’t want to cut it that close. He says nothing’s going to happen over the weekend to change the dynamics of the situation. He wants papers signed Monday morning. Wants you to have your argument with Carl over the weekend, not haggling while the purchase and sale is on the table.”
“The Bootstrapper—” She watched his face and knew. “You don’t think it’s going to work.”
“I think—I think we might be able to tell by the end of today. If it stands a chance. We can do the math.”
“There’s still Diane Cooper. The other lender.”
He nodded. “Did she call?”
For the first time she looked down at her own phone. And shook her head.
“Not yet.”
“Well,” he said. “There’s still time. It’s barely two.”
“I should call her. I told her I needed to know quickly, but I should let her know I’ve got until end of day.”
He nodded.
She made the call, got put through to voicemail. Hung up.
“It’s not the end of the world …” she began.
“Don’t,” he said. “She’s going to call back, and she’s going to do the loan. It’s just good business. Beachcrest is a great investment.”
She smiled at that. “I’ve really won you over, huh?”
He set his phone on the dashboard. Reached out, cupped her cheek in his warm hand. Leaned and kissed her, soft and slick and hungry.
“You could say that.”
36
The call came at 4:39. They were dozing on Trey’s bed together, boneless and sleepy from their various exertions. He woke fully before she did, grabbed her phone from the nightstand, and thrust it into her hand. He saw her eyes go big and worried; then she took the call with, “Auburn Campbell, speaking.”
He watched her face, saw the moment.
“Yes, of course. No, of course—I understand. Any possibility of—even a few percentage points—no, yes, right. Makes sense. Well. Thank you for considering.”
She ended the call and sat with the phone held tight in her hand, not moving.
“No loan,” he said, just so she wouldn’t have to. None of this was her fault. She shouldn’t be in this situation. She would never have been in this situation if it hadn’t been for him.
“Fifteen percent down is the best she can do,” she said. She seemed to wake up then, suddenly snapping to attention and swiping open the phone again. “We should look at the Bootstrapper. And then—well, we should make a call.”
He felt like he was standing on the edge of a very high cliff.
She tapped through the app until she brought up what she was looking for. And then she sighed. He felt the sigh to the bottoms of his feet. She handed her phone to him, and he looked. She’d raised fourteen thousand dollars, which was—
“It’s not a bad haul,” he said feebly.
“But it’s not a viral campaign. Or even one that’s about to go viral.”
“No. No, it’s not.”
“So—”
“Auburn—”
“Look,” she said decisively. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. There’s really no choice here. I don’t have the money. We don’t have the money.”
“I don’t have the money.”
“It wasn’t yours to have,” she said.
“But this is happening because of me. Because I made a bad investment. A bad choice. If I’d been a good steward for Home Base, I would never have had to put you in this position. I could have given you weeks or even months to come up with the money. Hell, I could have done a Contract for Deed or even financed the whole purchase for you.”
She made a face at that. “What makes you think I would have let you do that?” she teased, and for just a moment, the levity in her voice helped. Made him feel like things were going to be okay.
“The point is,” she said, “there’s no money.” She made it carefully neutral, like that might make him forget the circumstances. “And given that fact—I think it’s pretty damn obvious that it’s time for me to back down. Call off Carl.”
“I think we should at least talk about the alternative.”
She was shaking her head. “No. Don’t even say it, Trey. I know you’ll hate yourself if you say it. If it were just you, I know you’d do it. You’d do some kind of crazy self-sacrificing grand gesture and give me Beachcrest. But it’s not just you. And I know you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if a hundred and fifty people lost their jobs. You’re not that kind of man.”
“You mean,” he said darkly, “you’re not that kind of woman.” Because right now he had no idea what kind of man he was. Not the man who’d gone toe to toe with her in a hospital room, for sure, but not, by a goddamn long shot, the man she deserved. The man he’d set out to be, the kind who would never steal from someone he cared about the thing that mattered most to her. She was going to lose Beachcrest. The woman in front of him was going to lose the place she lived, her livelihood—her life’s dream because of him.
He was no better than Patrick.
Worse, he was no better than his father.
“There’s only one thing to do,” she said. “We’ll talk to Carl. He’ll understand.” Her eyes flicked to his face, suddenly seeing, with an understanding so instant and thorough that it almost made him howl with grief, what that was going to mean to him. “Oh,” she said. “We’ll have to tell him. What—”
“What I did. That I fucked up.”
“You made a mistake. People make mistakes all the time in business.”
“I got greedy,” he said. “I knew that investment was riskier than our usual tolerance, but I thought—”
“You thought if you grew this company big enough to sell that you’d be in a position to make sure Brynn lived in a bigger house and Carl got to retire in comfort,” she said. “I know that’s what you thought.”
And there she was, giving him the benefit of the doubt because that’s the kind of person she was, one with a heart so big it could hold everything—all the strays who wandered into Beachcrest, all the world’s mistakes, the loss of the thing she’d wanted most.
“I got greedy,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking about Brynn or Carl. I was thinking about me and my reputation and the next big thing. I was looking ahead instead of focusing on what was in front of me, and now I should be paying for it. But—” his chest was
so tight that it came out choked. Strangled. “Instead, you’re paying for it. Tell me how the fuck that’s fair.”
“It’s not fair,” Auburn said. “If you think that’s what I’m saying, you’re way off. But it’s also life. Beachcrest was never mine, Trey. I didn’t have the money. I never had the money, and that wasn’t anything to do with you. It was just the truth of my life. It was crazy, naive, idealistic, for me to think that just because Carl said it would be mine one day that somehow, magically, it would.”
More than anything, he hated the way she’d just said the word magically, as if magic were something she had believed in before but didn’t anymore. Something she’d grown out of.
“You know, and I know, that the well-being of all your employees combined has to outweigh just mine,” Auburn said.
He couldn’t bring himself to agree with her. He just couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come out of his mouth, wouldn’t move past the choke point in his chest.
“Trey.”
People didn’t always know what they wanted. They wanted to live in a shack when there was a mansion for sale, to retire in a hovel when there was a luxury condo in the offing. They couldn’t see that they’d placed their faith in the wrong man, that it was only a matter of time before they’d be worn down to the nub or blown away like dust.
She took both his hands. Hers were warm; he could feel that his were like ice.
“We need to talk to Carl.”
She’d been wrong about Patrick and she was wrong about him, and both times she hadn’t been able to see the truth until it was too late.
He saw exactly what he needed to do.
But he didn’t say any of it aloud, because he knew she’d fight him. She always fought him—it was one of the things he loved most about her.
Instead he said, “He’s at Brynn’s right now. We’ll talk to him when he gets back.”
He’d thought he’d already done the worst thing. He thought he’d ruined everything that was left to ruin. But when she smiled at him and said, “Sounds good,” he knew there was one thing left to destroy, and he’d just signed its death warrant.
