Back to the Beach (Hunt Family Book 4)

by Brooke St. James

  "Nico and I are taking a walk," I said, smiling at how adorable she was. "You wanna come with us?"

  She looked over her shoulder in the direction of Paige before focusing on me again. "My mom said I only have five more minutes before I have to go in. Can it only take five minutes?"

  "We'll probably be gone longer than that," I said, "but I'll bring you on a nice, long walk tomorrow if that sounds all right to you."

  She smiled and nodded at me before squinting up at Nico. "What's your name again?"

  He stooped down. "Nico," he said, gently pinching at her bathing suit-covered belly.

  "Like Nico-lo-de-on?"

  He smiled. "Yep."

  "Are you my cousin?" she asked.

  "I've been friends with Logan for a long time," he said, still smiling at her. "I think I might be your adopted cousin if that's okay with you."

  She nodded. "Yep it is," she said. "I'm adopted, too."

  "You are?" he asked. "Not by my dad, but by my mom," she said.

  "I figured because I met you and your dad before, but this is my first time meeting your mom."

  "She's been my mom for two years," Ryan said.

  Nico ruffled her hair as he stood up. "That just shows how long it's been since I've seen you," he said.

  Ryan nodded seriously as if she was taking everything in.

  "I guess we'll see you in the morning, peanut," I said, reaching out to mess up her hair like Nico had done.

  "Okay," she said with a huge smile. Without another word, she turned and ran back to the group who was standing near the water. Paige waved at me when she saw Ryan approaching, and I waved back before turning to head the opposite direction.

  "I want one just like that," Nico said.

  "One what?" I asked.

  "A kid."

  "You want kids?" The way I asked the question must have made it obvious that I was shocked by the idea, because it made Nico laugh.

  "Yes," he said as we walked.

  I thought he might elaborate, or at least give me some sort of time frame for when he was interested in starting said family, but he didn't. "You sure you don't already have some out there you don't know about?" I asked, joking around with him. We glanced at each other as we walked, and he shot me a little smirk like I was mean for saying such a thing. I smiled as I fiddled with the end of my braid that was hanging over my shoulder. We walked several paces in silence before he spoke again.

  "I think you might have the wrong idea about me," he said.

  "How do you know what ideas I have?" I asked.

  "Because you just said one of them."

  "What was that?"

  "That I have random children being born all over the place."

  I laughed. "I hope they're not all over the place," I said, in the same joking manner I'd been using.

  "That's the thing," he said. "I'm not sure why you think I have them at all."

  We were both smiling, but I sort of felt bad. "I'm just messing with you," I said. "I thought you knew you were a ladies man."

  He shot me a sideways smile and lifted an eyebrow. "You called me a ladies man just now."

  "It's nicer than calling you a player."

  "A player?" he asked, as if he was surprised and maybe a little hurt by the word.

  "Oh, come on, Nico, don't act like you've ever had a girlfriend for longer than a week."

  "What do you know about my girlfriends?"

  I let out a humorless laugh as we continued to walk. "That they're numerous," I said.

  "Numerous, huh?"

  "Yep."

  We walked for a little while in comfortable silence before I said, "Not that I'm judging or anything, you can have a different girlfriend every day of the week for all I care."

  Why did I say that? Even as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I did care how many girlfriends he had—I cared very much. Anything I said to the contrary was a defense mechanism. I knew it from a Psychology class I had taken in college. I wanted to hurt him before he had the chance to hurt me.

  He elbowed my arm gently as we walked. "I might not be as despicable as you think," he said.

  "You're probably not," I said. "It just makes things easier if I assume you are."

  "Why would that make things easier?" he said. "It seems like it makes them harder."

  I giggled. "It depends on what you're trying to accomplish, I guess."

  "And what is it you're trying to accomplish, Mia?" he asked.

  "Just a nice, friendly week at the beach house."

  "I guess the key word there is friend," he said.

  I didn't answer. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other.

  "If there's one thing I can do, it's take a hint," he said.

  My heart dropped at his statement. Basically, I had just told him I wanted nothing more than friendship with him, and he agreed to it.

  For crying out loud, what had I done? Why couldn’t I go back and erase everything I had just said?

  I spent the next ten or fifteen minutes beating myself up on the inside while holding a conversation with Nico and trying to seem fine on the outside. We talked about everything and nothing as the sun went down and it went from dusk to dark. He was kind and funny, and I was devastatingly charmed, yet again.

  "That's my friend's house," I said, when we came to the stretch of beach where we could see Travis's mansion. It was impressive despite being difficult to see at night. I was secretly hoping to push Nico's buttons by mentioning it.

  "Who? Oh, you mean that guy, Troy?" he asked casually.

  "Travis," I said, trying not to smile at his mistake, which was clearly intentional.

  Nico didn't even bother looking toward the house, and that made me want to smile even more.

  "I can walk back alone if you need to stop and see your boyfriend," he said.

  I slowed my pace as he spoke, and we stopped completely by the time he finished.

  "I was just thinking about heading back," I said.

  The moon was bright, and I could clearly see him even though it was dark. My eyes fell onto the strong bones of his face. I just loved the structure of it. His eyebrows, nose and jaw were sleek and masculine. He had probably turned out to be the very thing his father was hoping for. Flawless. I looked him in the eye, which was a mistake. His light green eyes looked right through me, making me glance away almost instantly.

  "You sure you don't need to stay and say 'hi' to your man?" he asked.

  "He's not my boyfriend," I said, absentmindedly making circles in the sand with my toe. "I definitely don't need to stay." I paused and looked around. "I wasn't even planning on walking this far."

  I glanced at him, and he gave me a little smile before taking the first step toward Dee-dee's. Nico and I walked slowly, and it took us about half-an-hour to make our way back to the house. We told stories about things that happened to us when we were younger. One story would remind us of another, and we'd end up getting completely off track. We talked and cracked up the whole time.

  I could see Dee-dee's house in the distance when Nico reached out and gave a light pinch to my elbow with his knuckles. "We should probably just go ahead and get it over with," he said.

  I glanced at him with a confused expression as we walked slowly.

  "It'll be best to do it way out here where we won't get caught."

  "Do what?" I asked. I glanced at the ground again, thinking he would answer while I was looking away, but he didn't, so I looked at him. We just stared at each other as we walked at a snail's pace down the shore. "What?" I repeated, causing him to smile.

  "Never mind," he said, with a little shake of his head.

  "Never mind what?" I asked.

  "If you don't know what I'm talking about, then it wouldn't have worked out anyway."

  He couldn't possibly be talking about kissing me, could he? It was the very first thing that crossed my mind, but I thought there was no way that's what he meant.

  "Fine," I said, shrugging and doing
my best to call his bluff. "Your loss."

  "How do you know it's my loss if you don't even know what I was talking about?" he asked.

  I smiled and shrugged again. "It's your loss for not telling me," I said. "You should have just gone ahead and done what you were talking about."

  "It's not something you do without permission," he said.

  By this point, our pace had slowed to the point where it could best be described as standing completely still.

  "It's probably best that we don't, anyway," he continued.

  "Why not?" I asked, growing more certain by the second that he was referring to kissing me.

  "One part of me knows you want to keep your distance, and the other part knows there's something going on. I guess I just thought maybe we could try to get it out of our system so we can leave each other alone about it, but it's probably a bad idea."

  My body was buzzing with nervous anticipation. Time had done nothing to weaken my feelings for this man. I was so attracted to him, I felt like I could just burst. Why couldn't I just throw myself into his arms and force him to catch me?

  "Yeah, it's probably a bad idea," I said, dazedly after a few silent seconds.

  "What's a bad idea?" he asked, knowing he never said specifically what he was going to do.

  "Getting whatever it is out of our system," I said.

  He was standing right next to me, and because he was a good six or eight inches taller, I was forced to look up at him. The closer he came, the more I had to lift my chin. Before I knew what was happening, we were just standing there staring at each other—so close that I could feel the warmth radiating off his body. My eyes were drawn to his lips, which were full, and curved with a perfect little divot at the top.

  "The longer I look at you, the more difficult this becomes, Mia." He reached up and touched my hairline like he might tuck some hair behind my ear. The warmth of his hand had me feeling like I might melt into the sand and slip into the ocean.

  "Maybe we should just get it out of our system," I said. It was hard to find my voice as I made the statement, and it came out as little more than a whisper.

  "What'd you say?" he asked. He ducked and placed his ear near my mouth so I could repeat what I had said. His ear was only an inch or two from my mouth. He smelled amazing, and I was overwhelmed with the feeling of wanting to be close to him—to touch him. I put my hand on his shoulder for balance because I felt I might just fall over any second.

  "Nothing," was the only word that came out of my mouth when I opened it.

  "Because I thought you said we should get it out of our system," he said, pulling back slightly to stare down at me.

  "Then why'd you act like you didn't hear me?"

  "Because I wanted you to repeat it."

  "Then, whatever, I think we should get it out of our system." I said, nervously. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

  He smiled as if he was amused by my jitters. "Just so we're clear, you know that means I’m going to kiss you, right?"

  I started to nod, but he leaned in and put his mouth on mine before I knew what was happening. I had kissed him four-and-a-half times over the years, and it never got less exhilarating. (The time I'm referring to as "a half" was one time when I was sixteen and he kissed my forehead, which was also knee-weakening.) This was no kiss to the forehead, though—this one counted as a whole kiss.

  Nico's lips came down on mine with a gentleness I wasn't anticipating. They only touched mine for one amazing second before he pulled back. A second later, he let it happen again, and then there was a third time—all of them equally swift but tender.

  He let his mouth touch me a fourth time, and I pushed onto my toes to deepen the kiss, or make it last longer, or maybe both. I was crazy about him, and I hated the thought of this coming to an end… at least not quite yet.

  He pulled back a little, avoiding my attempts, and smiling down at me. "Mia, I'm not going to be able to stop if I don't stop now," he said regretfully. He paused for a few seconds. "You have no idea how much I want this to continue," he said, staring at me thoughtfully. "But we're gonna get each other in trouble if we stay out here."

  I glanced down, smiling shyly as I nodded. "You're right," I said, trying to sound casual and unaffected. "We should head back."

  He used a finger to tilt my chin so I would look at him. It took me a second, but I reluctantly made eye contact. "I hope you know that I hate stopping this right now," he said.

  I nodded and smiled, though it was probably laced with shyness. "I know."

  Chapter 6

  Nico

  Nico Torres never ever had trouble sleeping. It was a running joke in his family that he could sleep on the ground with a rock for a pillow and still get a great night's sleep and wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

  This was not the case last evening.

  He was in a multi-million dollar beach house on an extremely comfortable couch, but he tossed and turned all night.

  Mia Hunt was the culprit. She was responsible for his rare bout of sleeplessness.

  He had known her almost his whole life, and had somehow overlooked just how special she was until yesterday. The couch on which she was sleeping was no more than eight feet away from Nico's couch, and the proximity was killing him.

  Several of them stayed up late, playing video games and hanging out in the third-story family room. It was past 2AM when they finally decided to go to bed, and when they did, Mia fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  "How did she do that?" he wondered countless times as he tried to make himself fall asleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about their walk on the beach, which ended with a far-too-brief kiss. It wasn't enough—not even close. He watched her sleep, thinking about how he'd much rather be stretched out next to her. She could use his chest as a pillow. She could rest her head on him and let her long, black hair spread over him like a blanket. Dee-dee had nice linens and everything, but they were itchy and uncomfortable compared to the idea of Mia lying next to him.

  It was nearly 4AM the last time Nico looked at his phone, and when he woke up it was 7:30. He tried to go back to sleep but just couldn't do it. Mia had turned over during the night, so all he could see was the back of her head. Otherwise, he might have stayed up there a little longer.

  By 8AM, he realized that he wouldn't be able to get any more rest and decided to get up. He could see as he walked to the restroom that most of the other couches were still occupied. He tried his best to be quiet as he showered and got dressed before heading downstairs.

  "Just the man I wanted to see," Cody said from the kitchen the moment Nico showed his face downstairs.

  "Oh yeah?" Nico said. From his experience, when anyone said he was the man they wanted to see, they usually had a question about real estate. Nico was smiling at Cody as he crossed the living room, headed toward the kitchen.

  Cody and Evan were there, along with Cody's wife, Paige and their daughters. Dee-dee and a few others were awake as well and were sitting down at the dining table, drinking coffee with a newspaper spread out in front of them.

  "I didn't think you'd be up," Nico said to Evan (who was one of the participants in the videogame tournament, which lasted till 2).

  Evan gave Nico a slight smile, but otherwise didn't acknowledge his remark.

  "Get you some coffee, sweetheart," Dee-dee called from across the room.

  "Thank you, that sounds great," Nico said, coming into the kitchen.

  "Morning," Paige said sweetly as he passed.

  "Morning," Nico said as he opened the cabinet to get a mug. He expected Cody to start in with the real estate question he wanted to ask, but everyone went on with whatever conversations they'd been having when he walked in. Nico poured coffee into his mug and took a swig of it without adding any cream or sugar as he leaned against the counter. He hadn't slept much at all, so he was content to sit back and not ask Cody what he wanted to talk about until the coffee started doing its trick.

  "Do you
mind staying in here with Ryan while I go out to the deck and talk to Nico for a minute?"

  Nico looked up to see that it was Cody speaking.

  "Not at all," Paige said.

  Nico took another swig of his coffee in preparation for what must be some pretty serious brain-picking. He didn’t mind giving business advice, but it was still pretty early, and judging by Cody's expression, he was really ready to talk. Cody gave a flick of his head toward the deck, assuming that Nico would follow, which he did.

  "You coming?" Cody asked, looking at Evan.

  Evan nodded, and the three of them walked onto the deck together. It was a beautiful morning, and there was a strong ocean breeze. Cody walked to the far side of the enormous deck, and Nico and Evan went with him. Nico expected that they would have a seat at one of the tables or benches, but Cody and Evan both stayed standing, leaning against the rail, so Nico did the same. He took another sip of his coffee before setting his mug next to him.

  "Mia was telling me about your salon," he said, figuring he'd go ahead and get to the point since he thought that's what this was about.

  "That's exactly what this is about," Cody said.

  The problem was that he looked annoyed, which was odd and awkward since he was the one who asked Nico to come out there and give him some advice.

  "You need to stay away from our sister," Cody continued, taking Nico completely by surprise.

  A gut-wrenching feeling of dread washed over Nico as he took in Cody and Evan's grave expressions. Neither of them looked happy.

  Nico smiled instinctually. "Wait," Nico said. "Are we talking about your business?"

  "Yeah, it's our business," Cody said. "She's our sister, and we're not gonna stand by and let her get hurt."

  Nico shot them both a confused expression before smiling at them like there had been some sort of misunderstanding.

  "We saw you guys on the beach last night," Evan explained, trying to be reasonable.

  Nico was silent for a second as he contemplated what to say, but ultimately decided to play dumb. "I thought you guys were bringing me out here to discuss your business investment," he said.

  "My business investment is just fine, thanks to Mia, my only sister, who I love and would do anything for," Cody said. He leveled Nico with an impassive stare. "I'm not gonna stand by and let you do whatever it is you do with girls. Not with her. She's off limits."