by Jenna Gunn
I pinch his ass, “You might be in the wrong profession.”
“Here goes nothing. Literally, it’s a plastic cup and sea water.” He starts to move, slowly shifting his weight to one hand, then the other. It takes monumental control of his muscles to keep the leg with the cup still and straight. I’m impressed.
Bishop makes it four steps before the glass teeters. I catch it before it hits the sand. He rolls down into a tumble and pops to his feet. “Not bad, I think. Your turn.”
“I’m not slugging my champagne. I get too tipsy. Who’s going to drive?”
“Uber.”
“Hm.”
“Seriously. There’s two bottles of champagne in that basket and I think we should eat and drink, and be merry. Anya and Brandon said Bruno can sleep over.”
I grin. “I like the way you think.” It will feel good to let my hair down after all the stress of the last…the last few years.
I take a drink. “Bishop.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for making me laugh and smile again.”
His eyes are serious as he meets mine. His voice is gravel and heat. “You’re welcome. Thank you for coming home.”
I nod because there are no more words. I take another drink. “Help me finish this?”
He takes the cup from my hand and sips. I watch as he raises the glass to his lips, right where my lip gloss mark is. Something about it makes my heart go crazy.
I shake my head. “Okay, fill that sucker up with ocean and get ready to get your ass kicked.”
He chuckles. “Whatever.”
I’m already in a handstand when he comes back.
“Showoff.”
“Go ahead, put it on my foot.”
He rests it on my heel. “This is the only spot it will go.”
“Fine,” I say as I concentrate on feeling the balance of the cup. Once I have the sensation memorized, I start moving my hands. I walk a couple of steps, then realign my body “Okay, I think I’m ready.”
“Ready, jeez.”
I start walking on my hands, one careful step after another. One turns into two, two into three, then five, then ten, then twenty. “Okay! You win.” Shouts Bishop.
I laugh and kick the cup up in the air. I roll down to my feet and catch the cup as it falls back to earth.
“Now that’s just showing off.”
I shrug. “You show off plenty.”
He wraps an arm around my neck. “Yeah? When do I show off?”
“When you drive me crazy with that big cock of yours.”
He chuckles, “Oh yeah. I guess you’re right.”
“Mmm, hm.” I say as I lean into him.
“I plan on getting to that later, by the way.”
I laugh, “I was hoping so. Isn’t that what date night is for?”
“That and hand stands and feeding each other, and whatever else happens.”
“I love the way that sounds.”
The feast Maddy packed is full of food that lovers can feed each other. And we do. Every last bite of it. The sun sets, and the beach is totally quiet. Candlelight dances across Bishop’s broad shoulders as he leans in to feed me another berry.
“Mmm.”
Bishop’s eyes burn me up. “Yep. Mmm. But I’m talking about you. Not the strawberries.” He reaches out and traces a finger along my off the shoulder top. “You look so hot tonight.”
“So do you.” I grin and glide my hand over his hard abs. “I think you should go without a shirt all the time.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I’m lifeguard and not a banker.”
“Definitely a good thing.”
He grabs me and pulls me onto his lap, wrapping my legs around his lean, muscular middle.
He fists his hands in my hair and kisses me until I can’t breathe, or think. I’m just a flushed, shaky, needy shimmer of light in his arms.
His hands draw me against his hot, pulsing erection. “I can’t wait much longer,” he growls against me.
“Bishop—“My breath hitches as his hand moves to my breast. He kneads me as his teeth bite into the column of my neck.
“Fuck, Mia. You drive me mad. Do you know that?”
I shake my head no.
“You really don’t know?”
I grin against his mouth.
“I’ll show you how fucking mad you drive me.” He’s up and moving fast, me wrapped around his waist. The next thing I know we’re on the deck of lifeguard tower six, deep in the shadows of the structure. He swings me to my feet, but pulls me hard against his side as his fingers work the keypad on the door.
“No, Bish, we can’t. We might get caught…”
His mouth crashes into mine, stopping my words.
He shoves open the door and we’re plunged in total darkness when it closes behind us. I can’t see at all, but I don’t need to see him to know him.
God. I can’t believe we’re doing this. We could get busted….
He strips my tights down with a quick yank. His hands find my top and start working it off over my head. His breath saws in and out of his chest, the muscles flexing beneath my fingers.
He could get fired…
His mouth lands on my nipple, and I almost scream. I almost stop him. This is so reckless and wild…
And I love it.
“Oh! Right there.” I moan.
I hear the sound of a condom wrapper. He spins me around, my hands scramble for something, anything to hold onto. Then he’s thrusting into me. The pain-pleasure makes my heart jackhammer. “Bishop. Yes…”
He doesn’t say a thing, just thrusts and grinds and pushes me against the wall until I’m flat against it, locked between his hard body and the smooth surface of the wall.
He growls. I reach back for his hips, pull him against me harder.
He bites at my neck. “You want more?”
I nod. He grabs me up and spins me around. I thought my eyes would adjust by now, but I can’t see anything. My butt suddenly lands on a cold, hard surface. Something bites into me. “Ouch, is that a clipboard?” He laughs, and shoves it away. “Yep. Now, back to what I was doing. Fucking my wife senseless.”
I freeze for a second…wife.
He said wife.
I swallow hard and bring my focus back to the place where his fingers are pressing into me.
Chapter Sixteen
I might die from all my blood being in my shaft. I’m throbbing like a snare drum. And she’s so tight already. God, we’re going to tear each other down.
I groan as I slide her juices all over, reaching all the sweet holes that I want to drive into. I want her every way a man can have a woman. And I know she loves it all.
“Mia, you’re so fucking wet and tight.” I drop down and shock her with my mouth on her delicious pussy. “Mmmm.”
I could spend all day there, but I’ve got too much of a raging hard on for that right now.
I glide a finger in, then a second, and get my other hand in on the game, slipping it over her clit. She’s about to erupt, but I know she can go higher. I’ve had her there a thousand times before.
I want her to remember.
She curls and shakes against my hand. “Soon, baby, I’ll give you a fucking orgasm to remember.”
Her hands cling to me, her fingernails biting into my flesh as I shift her around and start to press my head against her wetness.
I find her mouth in the pitch darkness as I slide inside. This position… it’s so deep, drawing her hips around mine, my shaft drives in, hilt deep over and over, but I want it deeper. “Give me these legs.” I split her open, shoving her legs wide over my elbows.
She gasps. “Yes, oh, I love that.” Her moans dance around me, driving me on.
I wrap a hand around her neck, pull her mouth to mine. We gasp and breathe against each other. “Mia…You’re mine.” I inhale her scent into my body. “I can’t get enough of this. I want you every minute. I want to hear my name on your lips over and over again as I make you come.”
Mia curls her fingers into my shoulders. Her nails draw blood. My body shudders. She can’t speak—just gasps and moans as I drive her closer and closer to the edge. I’m going to shatter her and me too, heart, soul, and body.
She jolts suddenly. And I know. That’s her tell. She’s there. “Let go.” I whisper.
“B—Bishop. Oh. Bishop. B—“
I drop her legs and fold myself over her on the counter. Drive so hard into her that I see stars in the pitch blackness. She hangs on as I destroy us until I can’t move one more time.
We’re soaked with my sweat. My head spins. I pull her up until she’s sitting. “That was unreal.”
“I’m disoriented.” She laughs.
“Good, because I am too.”
I pull her against me as our breath drops from a hundred times a second back to a normal human rate.
“We should get out of here.” She whispers.
“No need to whisper now. You’ve already screamed my name so loud the whole county heard it.”
She buries her face against my chest. “Oh, no. I’m sorry.”
I tip her chin up. “Don’t be sorry for that. It’s what I wanted.”
I slide her off the counter, lower her to her feet, “Get your bearings. I’ll find our clothes.”
We dress in silence. I find the paper towel rack by the door, and wrap the condom up. I shove it in my pocket. No one will know we’ve been here.
We lock up and walk hand in hand across the sand toward the picnic blanket. The little candles are still glimmering. “I need some sustenance after that.”
Mia laughs, “I can see why.”
We forage in the basket and find some chocolates, and a couple of more little sandwiches. I stretch out on the blanket as my body cools. She feeds me.
“Aren’t you worried about getting caught?”
I shrug. “Not really.”
“But what if you got fired?”
I shrug again. “I’d get another job.”
She shakes her head. “Bishop, don’t you feel some obligation to your family legacy?”
“Of course, but I don’t let it be a thing over my head. I love being on the Ocean Rescue team. But I have seen what the pressures of the legacy do to my brothers. I’m not that guy.”
“I guess you’ve always walked to your own drum… I mean eloping when we were so young sure didn’t fit your parents’ ideals.”
“It’s not an easy road when you have the family heritage hanging over your head, but I am not into intimidation tactics, and that’s pretty much what my father used.”
Mia says softly, “He loves you guys.”
“Of course he does. But he needs to recognize that we all have different lives. He’s starting to let go a lot more lately. Now that Christian left the job.”
“I didn’t realize that happened.”
“Yeah, he and Maddy own a charter yacht now.”
She stretches out on the blanket beside me. “Christian seems really happy.”
“Maddy is his world now.”
She gets stone quiet for a long time.
“Hey, where’d you go?”
“Just thinking about marriage. You called me your wife earlier…”
I blink, “Did I?”
She lays her hand over my heart. “Old habit, I guess.”
“I guess so. I’ve probably said it a million times over the years we were together.”
I rub my fingers through her hair. “Mia, should we get married again?”
Visions of a family wedding have been showing up in my head. This time we’ll be surrounded by family and friends. And Bruno will be a little ring bearer.
She sighs. “Bishop, isn’t it a little early to talk about that?”
Something inside me clicks, locks the door to my heart in an instant. That wedding disappears like smoke on wind, out of my grasp. I force the words out around my raw throat. “If you think so.”
The lights of Lynn’s Cove slide by the window. The Uber driver talks with Mia as I sit and bounce around inside my own head.
I’m confused as fuck. One minute I think things are good. Mia’s home. Bruno is adjusting. I’m learning to feel again, little by little. Then she goes and says something like, “Isn’t it a little early to talk about that?”
What the fuck? Talk about ripping the rug out from under a man.
Living like this is like being a Ping-Pong ball.
And I can’t take much more of it.
Something’s got to give.
Mia sleeps silent and hard next to me. Bruno stayed over at Bryce’s and Anya’s. I had thought maybe we’d spend the night making love, but I just couldn’t get my head in the right space.
Instead, she curled up and like a contented kitten went to sleep.
And I’m left staring at the ceiling fan as it spins its boring circle overhead.
Daylight saves me. I roll from the bed and slip on my running shoes. I’m out the door before Mia even stirs.
Bryce is walking down the sidewalk, shirtless, in running shoes himself. “Good timing.”
I grumble.
“Thought you had a date night last night. You should be in a better mood.”
I shrug as we start down the hill toward town at a slow warm up pace.
“Guess things are tense?”
“Yep.” I speed up. Bryce easily matches my pace.
“Not in the mood to talk?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
We run hard for a few minutes.
“Are we doing sprints?”
I look over, and he’s got a good sheen of sweat on him. “Sorry.” I back off a bit. “I’m just confused as hell.”
We turn the corner onto the drive by the ocean, and veer over to the boardwalk. “What’s confusing?”
“Last night I mentioned getting married again.”
Bryce chuckles as he runs, “Man, you’re burning my legs up. And what did she say?”
“She said it’s too early.”
“I see. I’m glad she didn’t say no, because I think you’d give me a heart attack.”
“Whatever, you run farther and faster than me all the time. Why are you bitching today?”
“Because I usually warm up.”
I drop the pace a bit. “Alright. I’ll give you that. Sorry, I’m just trying to slog out whatever is happening inside my heart.”
“Want my advice?”
“I guess.”
We settle into a more normal running pace, and the burn in my legs subsides some.
“Women need time to adjust in my experience. She’s probably a bit shell-shocked. I can understand her needing to mend her heart.”
“Aren’t you just the relationship expert, now?”
Bryce laughs. “Hardly. Dude, I am fumbling through, Raven keeps me straight. I think things will be okay with you and Mia.”
We continue down the boardwalk as the sun rises higher.
“I worry she’ll bolt. I came home after our garage night and I couldn’t find her. Lost my shit.”
“Where was she?”
I huff, “So that’s a whole other story. She had been crying. Went to the master bedroom so the kid wouldn’t hear her. She hyperventilated, pulled the lamp down on her head, and passed out.”
Bryce puffs out. “What the hell? Thought she was some kind of acrobat.”
“Can you imagine seeing that? I thought someone bashed her over the head, honest to god. I was going to rip someone limb from limb.’
“No shit. That’s intense.”
I blow out my breath. “I just feel this insane protectiveness…more than ever.”
We dodge a group of women running the opposite way on the boardwalk.
“You love her. She’s the mother of your child. I get it. I feel the same about Raven.”
“I do love her. And it fucking hurts.”
“Love is like that. It�
��s razor blades coated in the sweetest sugar.”
Boy, is he right.
We turn toward the house, starting up the long hill that leads to Pelican Point.
“She loves you. Just don’t stop. Don’t lose your determination. I know you’re a tough, bull headed mother. Keep your eye on the prize.”
“The question is whether she’s more bull headed than I am.”
Chapter Seventeen
The sun is shining brightly as I walk toward the beach. Work was a circus and not the kind I’m used to. And I was only there half a day.
Training for the job is going to be intense. There’s a lot to learn. And having a dozen little kids running around my legs at one time might just require me to wear earplugs.
I grin. How does Bishop teach kids swim lessons and never mention the chaos? I’m going to have to tap him for some ideas.
It got to me. By the time I got home, I was zapped mentally. Raven saw how frazzled I was and agreed to let me leave Bruno long enough to hit the Beach Gym for a workout.
I jumped on the idea. Sunshine. Workout. And on the beach. How much better can it get?
There are a few guys and one girl working out at the Venice Beach style gym on the sand. It’s been years since I’ve been here. I take a few minutes to look over the weights. There are also parallel bars, uneven bars, an upright fitness pole, ropes, and a long span of ladder to use for pull ups and other arm work. My heart sings! This is perfect.
I take off my t-shirt and put it in my bag, leaving just my sports bra and shorts.
I start off with some flow yoga. Gradually warmth floods into my joints. I push all the thoughts out of my mind pretty well until I catch sight of a lifeguard tower.
Bishop’s working. Which tower is he in today?
My mind skates across the memory of tower six and the things we did there. Heat floods my face. I bet he’ll feel differently about work when he’s back there again.
I had a few teen-age fantasies about lifeguards. I mean, who hasn’t? But I still smile when I think about the fact that I caught one for real.
When I start lifting, I realize there are eyes on me. I turn and find a thick necked giant of a man watching me. HIs eyes are a little too hot. “Hi.” I say, and go back to doing my thing.
“You new here?” He grumbles in a voice that’s about as low a baritone as you can get.
