Her Hottest Summer Yet

by Ally Blake

  “No. Everything’s fine,” Avery said, while the truth was she now shared Claude’s urge to slap Luke across the back of the head. As for Jonah? Knees and soft body parts came to mind. All four of them at the same table was going to be a disaster.

  Her usual MO would be to bounce about, create some cheery diversion to keep every faction distracted before it escalated into something she couldn’t control. It was what she’d do back home.

  Or she could face the music.

  Taking a deep breath, Avery slipped a hand into the crook of Claudia’s elbow and dragged her inside. Avery motioned to the host so that she could see her dining party and made a beeline for the table near the edge of the room, her heart beating so hard she could hear the swoosh of it behind her ears.

  Luke saw her coming first, and gave her an honest-to-goodness smile that started in his mouth before landing in his lovely brown eyes. She might have forgiven him if not for the fact that she knew the moment his companion noticed it too. Jonah’s buff brown forearm with white shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows moved to slide across the back of his chair, as his head turned and his eyes found hers.

  Nothing like a polite smile there. In fact, Jonah was scowling at her as if the fact that he’d trapped her into a kiss gave him some kind of right to be upset with her for making a date with another man.

  Gripping her sparkly purse so he couldn’t see her trembling, Avery dragged her eyes from his and found Luke standing. Such a gentleman, unlike certain others who were giving her a once-over that made her feel as if her sophistication had been peeled all the way back to skin.

  “Lovely to see you, Luke,” she said.

  “Evening, Avery. Don’t you look stunning?”

  “Thank you. As do you.”

  Jonah coughed beside her.

  With a smile she leant into Luke for a kiss. With a light hand on her hip, he pressed his lips to her cheek. Nice lips, she thought. Firm. The hand on her hip brief but sure. And he smelled great. When he pulled away she waited for that lovely feeling of bereftness that came when a lover was no longer close enough to touch.

  And realised with a sense of impending doom she’d be waiting forever.

  “Good evening, Avery,” said a deep voice to her left.

  Avery looked into the deep grey eyes of Jonah North. He’d stood. Belatedly. And yet she had to knock her knees together to hold back the tide of heat that swept over her at the mere sight of him.

  “Jonah,” she managed.

  All she got for her effort was a flicker of an eyebrow, and a slow smile. She leant in for a perfunctory kiss, trying not to remember with quite so much clarity the other kiss. Failing spectacularly as his hand landed on her hip like a brand. The touch of his stubble against her cheek was a delicious rasp that she felt at the backs of her knees. And when he pulled away she felt not so much bereft as bulldozed.

  She blinked. And when a smile finally reached his eyes, making them crinkle, making them gleam, she realised that she probably looked exactly like she felt.

  “Claude,” said Luke, “looking just as lovely.”

  Claudia stood behind her chair at that, her lips tightening as if she was waiting for the “but.” But when it didn’t come she gave Luke a quick nod. His eyes darkened, before, with a tilt of his lips, he returned the nod.

  Then, Mr Oblivious proceeded to help Claudia into her chair. Meaning Avery had to put up with Jonah doing the same for her, leaving her feeling every inch of exposed skin in her shimmery strapless top.

  Then Luke sat on one side of Avery looking intently at the menu, Jonah sat on the other staring her down, while Claudia’s eyes smiled in relief over the top of a cocktail she must have ordered before she’d ever arrived.

  Oh, well. She’d admit romantic defeat where it came to the estimable Luke Hargreaves, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a very nice catch-up with the boy she’d once known.

  And if that pissed off the man on the other side of the table, well, he could lump it.

  * * *

  An hour later, Avery was so exhausted from being charming she could barely sit up straight. Taking a breather, she let the fifties torch song in the background and the chatter of the three friends float over her.

  “You okay, Ave?” Claudia asked, the second Avery closed her eyes.

  “Shh,” she said, opening one eye, “I love this song.”

  Claudia listened. Then hummed in agreement. “Don’t make ’em like they used to.”

  When the men had nothing to say to that, Claude jabbed them both in the arm. “Talk about not making ’em like they used to... Come on. One of you please ask the poor woman to dance.”

  “Claude—” Avery blushed. And blushed some more when Luke pushed his chair back and held out a hand. With a cock of his head towards the dance floor he invited her to join him.

  She felt Jonah’s eyes on hers, but stopped herself from looking his way. With a smile she put her hand in Luke’s and lifted to her feet before following him to the dance floor to find they were the only ones there.

  Without preamble he swung her out to the end of one arm before hauling her back. She grabbed him tight, breathless with laughter, her fingers gripping his upper arms. And then with a grace she couldn’t have hoped for he calmed them into a perfect sway.

  She glanced over his shoulder to find Jonah watching her, his white shirt doing its best to cage all that well-earned muscle, the collar slightly askew as if he’d torn the top button open in a hurry, his eyes dark and shadowed in the low lighting. Her stomach sparked, her skin tightening. When he lifted his drink in salute, she knew she’d been staring.

  Luke felt...nice, safe. He smelled...clean. He danced...really well. The tiki torches about the edges of her vision wavered and gleamed, catching on jewellery, on sparkles in women’s clothes. It would have been such a nice story to one day tell their grandchildren...if only she didn’t find it easier to wax lyrical about her surroundings than the man in her arms.

  Luke started, and turned them both to find Jonah behind him, a finger raised to tap Luke’s shoulder. Yet the interloper’s deep grey eyes were only on Avery’s as he said, “May I cut in?”

  Eyebrows raised, a not-so-surprised smile on his face, Luke turned back to Avery for an answer. “What do you think?” he asked. “Should I release you into the clutches of this ragamuffin?”

  Should he? Avery felt as if her world were tipping on its axis. But when her eyes slid back to Jonah’s and she felt her entire body fill to the brim with sparks, she knew with a finality that tightened her stomach into a fist that nice and safe weren’t in her near future.

  She must have nodded, or maybe she simply drifted into Jonah’s arms. Either way, she didn’t even feel Luke slip away, just that Jonah was there. She had one hand in his, his other hand burning a palm-print into her lower back—her whole body melted.

  On the edge of her consciousness, the song came to an end. But they didn’t stop swaying. Her eyes didn’t leave Jonah’s. And his didn’t leave hers.

  He pulled her closer still, till—without either of them breaking any indecency laws—every bit of her that could touch every bit of him did. When he lowered his hand so that his little finger dipped below the waistline of her pants, her breath hitched in her throat.

  “Avery,” he said, his voice rough and low.

  “I know,” she said, and as his arms folded around her she leant her head on his chest, the deep thundering of his heart more than a match for hers.

  * * *

  Whether it was the cocktails Claude was knocking back or Avery’s sudden rose-tinted view of the world, she couldn’t say—but the rest of the night Luke and Claude seemed to get along without sniping at one another. Which was nice. Or it would have been if Jonah hadn’t kept finding ways to touch Avery. The slide of his foot against hers, resting his h
and on her knee, drifting a finger over her shoulder. At that point nice was no longer in her vocabulary.

  When the last dessert plate was cleared, and the bill had been paid, Claude sat back with a hand over her stomach. “Who’s going to roll me back to my big beautiful home that I adore so very much?” She glanced at Avery before her gaze slid to Jonah. “Forget that. I’ll be just fine on my own.”

  With a sigh, Luke pushed back his chair before collecting Claude with a hand under her elbow. She whipped her elbow away as if burned. But Luke took her hand and threaded it through his elbow and locked it there tight. “Come on, sunshine. Let’s get back to our crumbling white elephant before it falls into the sea.”

  “She’s not crumbling. She has...elegant patina.”

  Luke shot Avery a smile, Jonah a told-you-so look, then, with Claude babbling about fresh paint and passion, they disappeared through the door.

  Jonah stood and held out a hand. This time there was no hesitation as Avery put her hand in his.

  Outside the air was still and sweet, the road back from the beach devoid of crowds, the moon raining its brilliant light over the world. And as soon as Avery’s eyes met Jonah’s they were in one another’s arms.

  The moment their lips met, she felt parts of herself implode on impact. Heat sluiced through the gaps, her nerves went into total meltdown until she was a trembling mass of need, and want, and unhinged desire.

  The sweet clinging kiss of the day before was a mere memory as Jonah plundered her senses with his touch, with the insistent seduction of his lips, the intimate rhapsody of his tongue.

  Desperation riding them both, Avery’s back slammed against a wall, the rough brick catching on her top, her hair, her skin. But she didn’t care. She merely tilted and shifted until the kiss was as deep as it could be.

  It wasn’t deep enough.

  All those clothes in the way. She tugged his shirt from his jeans and tore the thing open, her eyes drinking in the sight of him as her hand slid up his torso, through the tight whorls of hair, palming the scorching-hot skin, loving the harsh suck of his breath and the way the hard ridges of muscle jumped under her touch.

  With a growl he lifted her bodily, till she wrapped her legs around him, her head rolling back as his mouth went to her neck, to her shoulder, the sweet spot behind her ear.

  When he tugged her top down an inch, his nails scraping her soft skin, his tongue finding the edge of her nipple, she froze, the tiniest thread of sense coming back to her from somewhere deep down inside. It might be near midnight, but they were in a public place, her legs around his waist, one arm cradling his head, the other beneath his shirt and riding the length of his back.

  “Jonah,” she said, her voice a whisper on the still night air.

  She felt him tense, then relax, just a fraction, but enough that he lifted his head to rest it against her collarbone, his deep breaths warming her bone deep.

  Avery opened her eyes to the sky.

  When Jonah had asked her to dance Luke hadn’t been surprised. He’d been waiting for it. Which meant it hadn’t been spur of the moment. Hadn’t been some kind of He-Has-Girl-So-I-Want-Girl reaction.

  This big, beautiful, difficult, taciturn, hard-to-crack man had staked his claim.

  And scary as the feelings tumbling about inside of her at that knowledge were, the brilliance of them won out.

  “Take me home, Jonah.”

  He held his breath, his chest pressing hard into hers so that she could feel the steady thump of his big strong heart.

  “You sure?”

  She slid a hand into the back of his hair, the tight curls ensnaring her fingers.

  He growled, and she trapped the sound with her kiss as she strove to make the best mistake of her life.

  SEVEN

  Avery’s first glimpse inside Jonah’s place—a shack tucked away in the hills behind the cove—held no surprises; the place was a total man cave.

  Surfboards and a kayak lined up on hooks in the entrance hall. Battered running shoes lay discarded on a small pile of sand under a top-of-the-range road bike. A slew of mismatched barstools shoved under an island bench in the utilitarian kitchen the only dining option, and along with a big dark sprawling lounge were a recycled timber coffee table covered in boating magazines and mug rings and a projector screen taller than she was.

  Avery glanced back towards the front door; but as the last time she’d checked there was still no sign yet of the man himself.

  Right in the middle of a pretty full-on make-out session on his porch, Hull had let out a gut-curdling yowl before taking off into the forest. And if Avery’s heart hadn’t already been racing like the Kentucky Derby from that kiss, the sight of big brawny Jonah staring in distress after his dog—sorry, not his dog—had made her heart flip twice and go splat.

  She’d given him a shove. “Go.”

  After a brief thank-you kiss he’d gone, leaping off the porch, grabbing a man-sized torch from his big black muscle car, and run off into the forest like some kind of superhero.

  No telling how long he’ll be, she thought as she distracted her nerves by scoping out the rest of his home. Down the solitary hall was one seriously cool bathroom with a fantastic sunburst mosaic covering an entire wall and an old brass tub—the kind you sat in with your knees up to your chin. Leaning against the doorjamb of his small office, with its big wooden desk, a wall of shelves filled with books and knick-knacks, another covered in old maps, star charts, pictures of boats, she admitted that, while the house might be a total bachelor pad, with not a feminine touch in sight, it was seriously appealing. Simple and raw, woodsy and warm. Lived in.

  It was Jonah.

  Pushing herself away from the wall, she walked unthinkingly through the last door to find herself standing in a bedroom.

  Jonah’s bedroom.

  Her next breath in was choppy, her palms growing uncommonly warm as her eyes skittered over the chair in the corner covered in man clothes. The bedside table—singular—had at one time been a beer barrel, and now boasted a lamp with a naked bulb, a book—pages curled, face down—and a handful of loose change. No curtains shielded the windows, which were recycled portholes looking out over what would no doubt be a spectacular Pacific view.

  Her heart beat wildly as her eyes finally settled on the biggest thing in the room: Jonah’s bed. It was big. Huge. And unmade, the white sheets a shambles. It wasn’t hard to imagine his long brown limbs twisted up in the bedding.

  Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined that she’d be in such a position with a man like Jonah North. A man who made her twitch. And scramble. And think twice. And want. The want she felt around him was crazy, wild, and corrupting.

  A man who couldn’t even commit to a dog...

  Insides twisting, Avery knew the smart thing to do would be to walk away, before the want became something else, something more. She could already feel it happening, encroaching. Heartbreak loomed with this one. Way better to find herself that cabana boy and piña colada and spend the rest of the summer in blissed-out inactivity.

  Too late, she thought as warmth skittered over her skin. Jonah was back.

  She turned to find him standing in the bedroom doorway, his broad shoulders blocking out the light from the hall. He’d ditched his shoes, and his shirt, and his eyes were as dark as coals.

  Any doubts she might have harboured about what she was doing there went up in a puff of smoke. “Everything okay?” she asked, her voice so husky it was barely intelligible.

  “All sorted.”

  “No baby birds to check on? Stray cats to nurture? Just saying I could go watch a DVD or something till you’re...ready.”

  Jonah’s smile was swift. Sexy as hell. And predatory.

  And Avery was done thinking. The sound of a zipper rent the air; and whe
n Avery’s bustier sank forward into her arms she let it dangle from two fingers before dropping it to the floor.

  Jonah’s smile disappeared. And Avery’s stomach quivered as his dark gaze raked her from head to toe.

  When her hand went to the side zip of her floaty pants, Jonah shook his head. Just once, but it was enough for her fingers to fall away.

  All man, this one. Never asked permission—not to rescue her, not to kiss her. The only time he’d asked was when he’d wanted to dance. As if he’d known that her acceptance was as significant as kicking down a brick wall.

  When Jonah took a step her way, her breath caught in her throat, and in the low light his mouth hitched into a grin. She scowled back, which only made him laugh; that deep masculine huh-huh-huh that near took her knees out from under her. Lucky for her, suddenly he was there, an arm at her back, his nose rubbing gently against hers.

  Then with a nudge he tilted her chin and captured her mouth with all the ease and honeyed smoothness of a man who’d done so a million times before.

  Sparks flittered prettily at the edges of her vision before morphing into a deep delicious warmth that curled down her back and into her limbs. And without another thought Avery’s hungry hands roved over all that smooth bare skin. The man was beyond beautiful. He was pure, raw, masculine heat, as if he’d trapped thirty years’ worth of sun beneath his skin, till the heat of it pulsed inside him.

  She moved, just a fraction, sliding her belly against the erection burning between them, breathless with expectation that she’d be thrown back onto the bed and ravished senseless. Then whimpered when Jonah pulled back. Not entirely, just enough to add air between them, allow breath to escape. Till she was left hyper-aware of the smallest touch, every erratic change to the beat of her pulse.

  Then his lips were on her neck, and gone.

  On her collarbone, then gone.

  On the edge of her mouth, coaxing, teasing, then gone.