He's So Fine

by Jill Shalvis

  “We can’t,” she said a little breathlessly, which was damn good for his ego. “We can’t do it here.”

  No, regrettably, they couldn’t. But he intended to chase away the last of her sadness. And he knew a really great way to do that, too. Nuzzling her throat, he opened his mouth, sucking on a patch of her soft skin.

  She melted into him like her knees had liquefied.

  Also gratifying.

  “But someone might come,” she whispered.

  Yeah, he’d like that. He’d like it to be her, coming all over him. “We’re not going to do it now.”

  “Oh,” she said, sounding so disappointed he laughed against her soft skin.

  “We’re not going to do it,” he said again. “Just you.”

  Her eyes flew to his. “What? No, I—”

  He cupped a breast in his left hand, letting his thumb rasp lightly over her nipple, back and forth.

  “Oh,” she breathed softly into his mouth. “Oh, that feels good.”

  His other hand slid down her back to squeeze her sweet ass. “What’s beneath this skirt?”

  A soft huff escaped her, and she dropped her forehead to his shoulder. “I had to be careful of VPL.”

  He had sisters. He knew what VPL meant—visible panty lines. “Are you telling me you went commando?” he asked, his voice as rough as sandpaper. If there is a God…

  “No!” Another soft huff of laughter. “I didn’t go entirely without…”

  Taking that as a challenge, he slid his hand into the skirt’s waistband and cupped her backside.

  Oh Christ, yeah. She was wearing the teeny-tiniest G-string he’d ever had the pleasure of exploring. He let his fingers do the talking, tracing the narrow strip of barely there silk south until she gasped.

  “Spread your legs, Little Mermaid,” he whispered.

  The skirt didn’t give her much room, but he got an inch or two when she did as he’d asked and shifted. He stroked her until she fisted her hands in his shirt at his pecs and was breathing in hot, short pants against his throat, her hips pressing into him with every stroke of his fingers.

  “Cole,” she whispered, voice tight and a little desperate.

  He slid his hand around to her front, letting the tips of his fingers glide beneath the little triangle of silk.

  Thankfully the waistband of her skirt had loosened even more, and with her quickening breath, it gaped at every inhale.

  “Cole,” she choked out. “I need—”

  “This?” His fingertips slid south.

  She moaned.

  And more south, until he was letting out a shaky breath of his own. The silk was drenched.

  Scraping it to the side, the pads of his fingers rasped over her bare flesh now. Soft, wet, heated flesh.

  She said his name again, her fingers tightening on him when he stroked her. “Oh, please,” she whispered, straining against him. “We’ve got to stop, I’m going to—”

  “Come, Supergirl. I want you to come for me.”

  “Oh, my God. I—” Her head fell back, her eyes at half mast, her mouth in a surprised O. Her thighs clamped his hand as if she was worried he’d do as she’d said and stop.

  No chance in hell.

  Leaning in closer, he kept his fingers busy with her rhythm as he took a little tour of her throat, working his way down to her collarbone. Still cupping her breast, he lifted it from the corset and sucked her into his mouth.

  When she came, he surged up and ate her soft, delicious little cries with his mouth. He brought her down gently.

  “Holy cow,” she breathed, finally sagging back. “I can’t believe how fast you can do that to me.” She let out a low laugh, and then shocked him by dropping to her knees and reaching for the zipper on his pants.

  He caught her wrists and she tipped her head up to his, face still flushed from her orgasm. “Turnabout’s fair play,” she said softly.

  The eroticism of having her on her knees, her mouth level with an erection he could have hammered nails with, was nearly enough to tip him over the edge, but he controlled himself.

  Barely.

  With a rough groan, he pulled her up to her feet.

  “No?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. God, please, yes. “Trust me, I need to get you naked in the worst possible way. But it isn’t going to happen in my mother’s pantry. And it’s not going to happen with you in costume. I love it, but this time I want just you. No costume, nothing but Olivia beneath me.”

  She stared at him, looking utterly dumbstruck.

  “What?” he asked her.

  “Nothing,” she whispered.

  It was more than nothing, but there was little he could do to press her here in the closet. “We’ve got to get out of here. I have a feeling our time is just about up.”

  And sure enough, right on cue, they heard footsteps.

  “Cole?” Clare called from the kitchen. “Cole, where the hell are you? Mom wants a Cosmo, and you’re the only one who can ever make them to her satisfaction, you suck-up.”

  Cole helped Olivia straighten out her skirt, though there was little he could do about the just-had-an-orgasm glow to her cheeks.

  “I owe you,” she said softly, her voice low and throaty and full of promise.

  “I like the sound of that,” he said, and caught her just before she escaped to give her a quick, hard kiss. “A pirate always collects on his debts.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Olivia was standing at the edge of the makeshift dance floor in the courtyard, watching Cole behind the bar mixing drinks on demand, when someone tugged at her skirt.

  The Lorax.

  He had two fingers in his mouth and was drooling down his chin. With his other hand, he tugged on Olivia’s skirt again. “Up!”

  “Uh…” Olivia looked around for Cindy. She found her not two feet over, arguing with Thing One and someone else who might or might not have been the Cookie Monster.

  “Up!”

  “Okay, okay.” Sheesh. Were all the Donovan men demanding? Olivia obeyed the imperious command and scooped up the Lorax, looking into a pair of eyes the color of the ocean. “Hi,” she said as she felt her phone vibrate again from within her tiny gold purse.

  It’d been doing so with annoying regularity tonight, a flurry of texts from her mother and sister, which she’d been ignoring.

  The Lorax looked at Olivia’s wig, said “Da!” reverently, and put both fists in the red strands.

  “You like the hair, huh?”

  He pressed his face into it.

  “Kyle’s going to be a hair man,” Cindy said, coming over to rescue her. She took her son and expertly shifted him to a hip. “You’re good with kids.”

  “I’ve no idea, to be honest,” Olivia said. “I’m new to kids.”

  “You’ve got the touch.”

  “How do you know?”

  “’Cause you picked him up without worrying about your gorgeous costume,” Cindy said. “And that just bought you the seal of approval from this mom.”

  Olivia was still glowing when she went back to the bar. Cole had shoved up the sleeves of his pirate shirt past his sinewy forearms. The hat had been tossed aside, leaving just the bandana and beaded dreads, and damn.

  Damn if he didn’t look hot as hell.

  When her phone vibrated again, she took a quick peek at it just to make sure there wasn’t a life-or-death situation.

  Jolyn had gotten right to the point.

  Mom says TV Land doubled their offer. Don’t make me come up there and drag you back to LA.

  Oh hell no was her sister going to come here. Except…Olivia closed her eyes. She would. For money, Jolyn would do just about anything. She’d show her face here in Lucky Harbor, smell Olivia’s happiness, and ruin it somehow.

  Panic, unreasonable as it might be, clutched at Olivia’s heart. Cole joked about Clare, Cindy, and Cara being a coven, but he had no idea. None. She looked up and found his eyes on her, narrowed in concern. He said something to Iron
Man, and then he was drying his hands on a towel and walking toward her.

  She forced a smile onto her face and started to take a step back, knowing she needed a moment to gather herself. But she got an unexpected helping hand when Amelia stepped in front of Cole, looking animated.

  Cole’s gaze shifted from his mom to Olivia as he spoke. His mom put her hands on his arms and he cut his eyes back to her. He spoke softly, and with what looked like a great gentleness, and then he hugged her. Amelia cupped her son’s face, kissed both cheeks, and let him go.

  Olivia realized she’d lost her chance to bolt when Cole came right to her. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

  “Yep.”

  “Because you just looked at your phone like you had bad news.”

  He was far too observant, not that this surprised her. Most men didn’t notice the little stuff, but Cole never missed a thing. “What’s up with your mom?” she asked. “She seemed upset.”

  His jaw tightened. “She’s got a problem that is now my problem.”

  “Can I help?”

  He pulled her in and brushed his mouth over her temple. “Look at you, being all sweet.”

  “Don’t get used to it.”

  He huffed out a warm laugh against her. “It’s one of my sisters. She had something to talk to my mom about tonight, and some decisions were made. She needs me. Or rather, my mom needs me to butt into her life.”

  She pulled back and looked into his face. There was regret there, but no anger. He wasn’t doing this to impress anyone, or to gain favor. “You really do love all of them.”

  “Sometimes I have to really reach for it, but yeah, I do. Warts and all. That’s a family, right?”

  “Right,” she said as if she knew, when really she had no idea. “It’s Cara?” she guessed.

  “Almost always,” he said. “She needs me to help her move out of her husband’s apartment and back into this house.”

  It didn’t escape Olivia that both of them had family who wanted something from them, and that only Cole was going to jump in and do whatever was needed, without hesitation. “And what do you need?” she asked.

  He stroked a finger over her jaw. “A rain check from you.”

  Chapter 23

  The next day, the bell above the shop door rang and Olivia looked up to see Cindy Donovan. She was carrying Kyle, who gurgled in pleasure at the sight of Olivia.

  Cindy looked around. “Nice place.”

  Kyle said something, too. “Yabbayabbayabba.” Then he grinned at Olivia with pride, and her ovaries actually ached.

  Closing the laptop she’d been working on, she came around the counter. “Looking for anything special?” she asked Cindy.

  Cindy shook her head. “Not really.”

  Olivia took a deep breath. “You’re not here to shop.”

  Cindy’s smile was real enough, but her eyes were bluntly honest. “No. I’m not.”

  Olivia forced herself to stay still, not to fidget or shove her hands in her pockets and give away her nerves.

  Kyle cooed again, trying to get her attention. She smiled at him and he flashed her a toothless grin that had so much charm in it she couldn’t help but melt.

  “I know,” Cindy said. “He’s already a total lady-killer.”

  “It’s not his fault, it runs in his family.” Olivia picked a teddy bear from a bin of stuffed animals and held it out to Kyle.

  His eyes went wide and he snatched the bear, clutching it to his chest as he bounced up and down in Cindy’s arms.

  “Treat it nice,” Cindy told him, and looked at Olivia. “I know who you are.”

  Olivia’s heart skipped a beat. “Do you?”

  “I watched every episode of Not Again, Hailey! fifteen times. I could recite the entire boxed set. I know it’s you.”

  Olivia inhaled a deep breath and confessed to nothing.

  Kyle waved the teddy bear at Olivia and yelled some adorable baby gibberish that she figured meant “thank you.”

  “Look, I’m sure you’ve got your reasons for keeping this a secret,” Cindy said, patting Kyle on the back. “And you know what? I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want to be associated with your crazy past, either.”

  Now Olivia’s heart outright sank into her boots, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. Her wild and crazy days had been well documented. People loved to watch child star meltdowns.

  YouTube was the bane of her existence.

  But Cindy wasn’t done. “Word to the wise,” she said. “My brother’s a very honest sort of guy. To the core.” She paused and gave Olivia a long look. “And he expects the same out of the people he lets in. Trust me, I know firsthand how difficult it can be to live up to his expectations.”

  “I know you mean well,” Olivia said as gently as she could with panic rolling like a greasy wave in her gut. “But your brother and I aren’t—”

  “Don’t,” Cindy said. “Please don’t even try to tell me you don’t have feelings for him. I saw you watching him from the dance floor when he was making drinks behind the bar, like he was the puppy you always wanted for Christmas but never got.”

  True story.

  Cindy pulled out her wallet. “How much for the teddy bear?”

  Kyle had set the bear on his mom’s shoulder, and then his head on the bear, his gorgeous baby-blue eyes drooping.

  “It’s a gift,” Olivia said softly.

  “That’s very sweet, thank you.” Cindy moved to the door, gave Olivia one last knowing look, and left.

  Olivia stood still a long moment, then let out a shaky breath. Sweet baby Jesus, she was in over her head and going down for the count.

  Cindy was right, of course. She had to tell Cole the truth.

  That night Cole boarded the boat, but not for work. Tanner and Sam were right behind him, each of them holding a bottle of their poison of choice.

  None of them prepared the boat to leave the harbor.

  Tonight it wouldn’t be safe sailing. Not because of the weather—it was actually a hauntingly beautiful night. Crisp sky so clear that the stars looked like scattered diamonds on black velvet. No wind. Barely a swell on the water.

  The three of them sat on deck, sprawling in various positions. Tanner knees up, leaning back against the bolster. Sam on the bow.

  Cole at the helm.

  In silence, they lifted their bottles to each other.

  “To Gil,” Cole said.

  “To Gil,” Sam said.