Barefoot in White (Barefoot Bay Brides)

by Roxanne St Claire

  Again, he got a raised eyebrow that would only be directed at an idiot, which he no doubt completely deserved. “That’s your secret? That I…” He didn’t want to say it. He’d already explained and apologized. “I turned you down?”

  She sighed into a soft laugh. “Yeah, that’s my secret. I never tell anyone that horrible story.”

  “Which means it is not a secret from me.” He wrapped his arms all the way around her. “So there must be something else, right?”

  “Let’s forget it, okay?” She tried to step away, but he still had her in his arms and moved with her like they were dancing. “You should write. You do your best work at night.”

  “Do you really think there’s any possibility of my writing a single word while I’m trying to figure out what your secret is?”

  She tried another step, this one taking them closer to the edge of the pool. “You have to.” She moved again, and he came with her. “You have a month here and you’re going to finish”—one more step for both of them—“your book.”

  He glanced at the pool, now less than a foot away.

  She immediately read his mind. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I might.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” She jerked away, but he was too fast, scooping her right off her feet to cradle her in his arms.

  “Nick!” she shrieked with a laugh and a powerful kick. “Don’t!”

  He easily subdued her, taking the last step right to the deep end. “Tell or swim.”

  “Nick!” She dropped her head back, laughter caught in her chest. “Don’t you dare!”

  He leaned over her and peeked at the water. “You have a cell phone?”

  “It’s in my purse, but Nick…” She tried to wiggle out of his hold, laughing too hard to have any strength, clinging to his neck.

  “Wearing a watch?”

  “No, but I swear to God, Nick, if I go in, you go in.”

  That made him laugh. “Have you met me? I’ve been dying to get wet with you for days.”

  “But…I…”

  He quieted her protest with a kiss. The angle was awkward, and his balance was precarious, but she tasted good. Their tongues touched and grazed, and she lifted her whole body higher to get more of him.

  “I might fall into the water if we kiss any more,” he warned.

  She let out a soft whimper, her eyes still closed. “I guess that would be okay.”

  “To go in the water?”

  “To kiss some more.”

  He obliged, longer, deeper, harder…and leaning closer and closer to the edge. It would be so easy to take one step, and they’d be in the pool. Clothes would come off, skin would melt together, and he’d be inside her before they could stop to think. One step. One little step.

  “Nick,” she whispered into the kiss. “Remember that night? In the lounge?”

  He lifted his head to look at her. “Yeah.”

  “I told you that I wanted you to be my first.”

  He nodded, still shamed at the honor of the request and how shitty he handled it. “I remember, Willow. And I’m—”

  “I’m asking again. The same thing. Be my first.”

  The words sank into his brain with a thud. “What?”

  “I never did unload that pesky virginity of mine.”

  He couldn’t even think of an answer, he was so stunned. He did the only thing he could do and walked right into the pool with Willow still in his arms.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Willow stayed under long enough to hopefully let the shock of her admission wear off. Before that could possibly have happened, Nick dragged her to the surface.

  “You need to take your jeans off,” he ordered.

  She sputtered out some water. “Well, that didn’t take long.”

  “Or we can go in the shallow end, because they are going to get very heavy, and I don’t want to have to save your life.”

  “Nick, we’re in a backyard swimming pool.” She tried to kick away, but she could barely move. “Oh, you’re right.”

  “Want me to help you?” To make his point, he hoisted up soaked camo pants and flung them to the side of the pool, where they landed with a thunk.

  She glanced down at the dark water separating them. “I’d put my money on commando, right?”

  “What difference does it make?” He gave a sly smile. “Of course it all came off at once.”

  Laughing, she managed to kick away, but the weight of wet jeans was too awful. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “I can’t believe…” He stroked the water, staying a few feet away in the deep end. “I can’t believe what you told me.”

  “Well, believe it, and don’t make me feel like a freak.”

  “You’re not a freak, Willow. You’re…you’re…”

  “A virgin. At twenty-”—she battled her way to the shallower end until her toes finally touched the pool bottom—“nine.” Oh, God, these jeans! She fumbled with the button, but it wouldn’t go through the hole. “Damn it, how did you do that?”

  He didn’t move. “How did you?”

  “It was remarkably easy.” The jeans practically pulled her under. “I can’t get the zipper, either. I’m getting out.” She turned and tried to take a step, but she might as well have been in quicksand. Cursing softly, she used all her strength to move her leg.

  Behind her, all she could hear was his soft laugh, a splash, and then Nick popped out of the water a foot from her face. “Don’t leave.”

  “I can’t…” His hair was wet, leaving rivulets down his face, the water glistening in the moonlight. He looked so hot and sexy and wet and dreamy. His gaze burned on her, staying on her face before he slowly, slowly dropped it to her very clingy tank top.

  Heat coiled through her and squeezed, and every single cell in her body did a little dance of desire.

  “I can’t”—resist you. She yanked the stiff zipper—“manage this.”

  “Let me help.” He floated closer and got his hands on the button, releasing it with a single move and then thumbed the zipper. The whole time his face was inches from hers, his gaze locked on her eyes. “I think I…”

  His words caught in his throat as if he was speechless.

  “I’ll get out.”

  “No.” He gripped the waistband of her jeans and yanked her closer. “Stay. Just get”—he worked the zipper all the way down—“safe.”

  Safe? There was nothing safe about this. Nothing safe about a man with a body that could bring a woman to tears standing in three feet of water five inches away wearing nothing but a soaking-wet T-shirt that stuck to him like a second skin.

  He pushed the jeans down, and somehow she found the wherewithal to float back a foot and fight the jeans over her hips. She dragged them down her thighs, vaguely aware that her panties came, too.

  They were both naked from the waist down.

  “How’d you do that?” she asked.

  “I’m a professional.”

  “I bet you are.” She managed to lug the wet jeans from the water and threw them at his face. Of course he caught them, smiling. But not a predatory, this is it, we are naked in the water, baby, kind of smile. Not a smug, I finally got your jeans off smile. This was more of a…shit. A pity smile.

  “And you’re a virgin,” he repeated, as if the hard, cold facts couldn’t be stated enough times.

  “As we’ve established.” Already, her lower half tingled and tightened. Her heart rate was way past normal. And each breath got a little harder to take.

  “But that could change.” Her statement came out as a whisper, not much louder than the soft splash of water lapping against the tiles. She wasn’t sure he’d heard her. Hell, she wasn’t sure she’d spoken out loud.

  He stared at her as a trickle of water dripped from a lock of hair and snaked down his cheek. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”

  The initial chill of the pool disappeared as she got used to the temperature. Or maybe that was her own spike in internal heat w
arming things up.

  She knew what he wanted to hear her say. No, it wasn’t your fault. He wanted a litany of issues—her weight, her broken relationship with her mother, her own insecurities after she lost the weight—that would let him off the twenty-nine-year-old-virgin hook.

  But part of her needed him to know. “After what happened with you,” she said, choosing each word carefully, “I was pretty scared to take that risk again.” Until now.

  “Shit, another bad decision with long-term recriminations.”

  “I don’t think you can compare the two things.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed instantly. “But I’m so—”

  “No, don’t. Please.” She ventured closer, forgetting their lower halves were bare and wet and so dangerously attracted to each other. “Don’t apologize again, and please believe me when I say I’m not blaming you, Nick. I’m the one who held myself back from…life.”

  “From sex,” he corrected. “Weren’t you curious?”

  “No past tense, Hershey. I’m curious as hell. And I have dated guys. I’m not completely a nun.”

  “But you are a virgin.”

  She smiled, because it was a little like he couldn’t stop saying the word. “I try not to let it define me.”

  He didn’t answer for a moment, studying her again, almost as if he saw her differently. Damn it. She didn’t want that.

  “How is it possible you haven’t met some guy that you couldn’t resist?”

  She wet her lower lip, suddenly aware that her throat was parched and her pulse hammered steady and hard in her chest.

  “I have met someone I can’t resist,” she said, taking a chance to lift her hand and place it lightly on his shoulder. His broad, hard, sexy shoulder. “And if he suddenly disappears underwater to hold his breath and come up to dole out more excuses, I will”—Cry. Die. Eat a fracking pound cake—“not be happy.”

  He was fighting the urge to do just that, based on the battle waged on his handsome features, his dark brows drawn, his strong jaw clenched. Even his shoulder tensed, as if his body was preparing to escape.

  “Willow, that’s quite a…” He hesitated for a second. “Quite an honor.”

  “Well, you are the man of honor.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Dishonor, according to my history with you.”

  “Nick.” She took a step closer. “You didn’t dishonor me. If you’d taken me up on my offer and then ignored me or slut-shamed me or scribbled ‘for a good time, call Willie Z’ on the dorm bathroom wall, then, yeah. That would have been a dishonor. But in a weird, twisted way, you respected me.”

  “Yeah, I respected you right into a life of abstinence.”

  “I did that to myself.” She rubbed her thumb over the hard, smooth muscle under his soaked T-shirt. Biting her lower lip, she came closer. “And I’m ready to lose this particular albatross, Nick. So…”

  She saw his chest rise and fall with a slow exhale and his Adam’s apple do the same against a throat she imagined was as desert dry as hers.

  “You have no idea,” he said slowly, “how much I would like to make love to you.”

  She fought a smile, inwardly thanking him for choosing that sweet expression over all the other options he had.

  “But…”

  Her smile disappeared. Son of a bitch, he was going to turn her down again.

  He swiped some wet hair off his face, forcing her to endure the hard, serious stare. “I’m scared,” he admitted.

  “Of what?”

  “Of not being…”

  “Please don’t say good, big, experienced, or sexy enough.” She took a step closer. “’Cause I’ll shove you under water and hold you down for three minutes if you do.”

  He reached out and touched her face with that knuckle caress she was starting to get way too fond of.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  She let her hand slide off his shoulder, down his chest, where his heart was beating as fast and furiously as hers. But she didn’t linger over that confirmation, her fingers traveling south, sliding over one ab muscle. Then another. Then…holy hell. With each cut and dip and rock-hard muscle, she knew she was completely sure. “Yes.”

  His hand closed over her wrist before she reached her destination, his fingers strong and forceful. Then he leaned closer, and she braced for a kiss, letting her head tilt to the perfect angle. But he kissed her forehead.

  “The first time is too important to be in a pool with half your clothes on,” he said.

  “Then we’ll go inside and take off the rest.”

  He chuckled into her hair, the low, sexy sound vibrating his chest. “We should have a proper date and get to know each other.”

  “You took me out for ice cream, and I already know you.” Who cared if she sounded desperate? He smelled good and felt better, and she was inches away from…paradise.

  He finally let go of her wrist, putting both his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “You’re making this impossible. I’m trying to be a gentleman and respect you and—”

  She cut him off with a kiss, pressing hard against his chest, sucking in a shocked breath when his erection slammed against her stomach, wet skin to wet skin. She nearly bit his tongue, it felt so good.

  And he made it worse by sliding one hand into her hair and holding her head while he crushed the kiss right back.

  If he’d lift her up, she could wrap her legs around him and…

  He broke the kiss first, but she held on for stability.

  “You’re stopping.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I’m thinking.”

  She slapped both hands on his chest. “You’re not supposed to think at times like this.”

  “Let’s make a deal.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. At all. “What kind of deal?”

  “We’ll take it in stages and see how you like it.”

  Was he kidding? “What’s not to like?”

  “You have a point, but…” He threaded her hair, scanning her face with his gaze, looking at her like…like she was precious. “If I’m going to be your first, it’s going to be memorable.”

  Like she’d forget him.

  “And slow.” He thumbed her cheekbone tenderly. “And sweet.”

  “Fast and dirty’s okay, too.”

  He laughed, looking skyward as if he needed help. “Woman, you are killing me. I’m trying to do this right.”

  “Okay. What do you propose? Dinner dates, long walks on the beach, rose petals on the bed, and a hundred flickering candles?”

  He thought about that, nodding. “Exactly.”

  But that would take forever. And she wanted now.

  “I have an idea,” he said. “I need you as my muse. And you need me as your…”

  “Virginity destroyer.”

  He laughed. “Okay, for every five chapters I write, we can take this one step further.”

  “That’ll take so long.”

  “Not if I’m inspired.”

  She rocked her hips enough to press into one very excited man. “You feel inspired.”

  Smiling, he pulled away, his eyes dark, but his expression set. “Look, I really messed up last time. I’m not going to do that again. I’m going to make it up to you with the best, most mind-blowing, most amazing loss of virginity any twenty-nine-year-old woman ever experienced. Let me do it right.”

  How could she possibly say no to that? It was downright heroic. Frustrating as hell, but damn if it didn’t make her like him more.

  “Okay. Deal.” She stepped back, nodding. Very slowly, she walked to the side of the pool to the three steps that would take her to solid ground, away from Nick.

  One foot in front of the other, Willow did something she’d never done in her whole life. She walked away from a man and let him see every inch of her bare ass. As she walked up the steps, she looked over her shoulder.

  He was staring, his jaw loose, his eyes wide.

&nbs
p; “Write fast, Nick.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  After what could be technically classified as a sleepless night—since even when she did drift off, her dreams were full of Nick Hershey—Willow rose early for a run she hoped would burn off some of the…energy.

  If that’s what she could call the achy, hollow, needy feeling mixed with spurts of adrenaline and anticipation. On her way to the kitchen to whip up a breakfast smoothie she didn’t really think she could drink, she heard a knock on the back door and was certain she knew who it was.

  Ari was still in her pajamas, coffee in hand. “Dying to know how it went.”

  Laughing, Willow opened the door wider to let her in. “Where’s Gussie?”

  “I just stopped at her apartment, and she was getting out of the shower and starting her makeup. I can’t wait that long.”

  Willow gestured her to the island counter and pulled out her blender. “How are the bets running?”

  “I bet you told him. Gussie said you chickened out.”

  “What obscure candy did you wager with?”

  “Jujubes.”

  Willow made a face. “Better make an appointment with the dentist, Ari, because you won.”

  Her eyes widened. “Wait a sec.” She pulled out her phone and touched the screen. “I’m texting her.”

  It took Gussie less than a minute to appear at the door, wrapped in a teal robe with giant orange polka dots, a pink wig already in place, and one eye totally made up. The other was bare naked, giving her the look of living, breathing before-and-after pictures. “That’s not the only thing we bet on,” she said, pointing an eyeliner pencil at Willow. “I put good candy on you doing everything but.”

  “My money was on all the way,” Ari admitted.

  Willow rolled her eyes. “Give her back the Jujubes, Ari.”

  “No, we bet the Jujubes on telling him. For the deed itself? Nik-L-Nips. Do you have any idea what they are worth?”

  Wax bottles full of sugar water? “Those are so gross. Why don’t you two eat Hershey Kisses like normal women?”

  “Ahem, speaking of Hershey kisses.” Gussie wiggled her one carefully applied brow. “We saw you.”

  “What?”