I bit the inside of my lip. Of course. He had celebrity friends. Parties. Backstage passes. Island trips to the Caribbean. It was naïve of me to think that just because I watched his press conferences I still knew him.
I felt little needles of green envy surfacing at the thought of other people knowing a part of him I didn’t.
“I’d would love to hear you play some time. Will you tell me the next time you perform?”
“Uh, sure. I’ll let you know.”
Under the stars and low lights of the Dock House things should have felt normal. They should have felt familiar, but all I could think about was what had happened eight years ago. How much distance and history there was between us.
And suddenly, I found myself desperate to fix all of it. To discover who he was now. To know the man he had become. The problem was I had no idea where to start. I couldn’t get my bearings when he was near.
One look into those sexy eyes of his and my heart beat faster, my breath hitched, and my core twinged with deep desire. I wanted to know him in so many ways, but I was lost trying to find a starting point.
I cleared my throat. “So, what’s it like being a Thrasher?”
He chuckled over his drink. “Is that your version of an ice breaker?”
I blushed. “Yeah. I guess so. Football is always a winner with you, isn’t it?”
He stretched his legs forward, taking up most of the bow. “Darlin’, I love football. You’re right. That much hasn’t changed.”
“Of course not.” I felt stupid. “I just meant what’s it like in the AFA? Do you like playing in Orlando?”
“Yeah, I like it. It’s Florida. I have a killer team. Coach and I get along. Money isn’t bad.” He winked.
“So it’s what you want? What you’ve always wanted?”
“Hell yeah. It doesn’t get any better than what I have with the Thrashers.”
I liked the Long Island ice tea, the lemon especially. “And you don’t care about the pressure or all the press attention?”
He looked at me from the corner of his eye. Those beautiful eyes. “You know you’re starting to sound like a reporter.”
“Well I am a reporter, smart ass.”
He laughed. The sound was deep and rich. “So let’s talk about that.”
“I took a job in Dallas at a medium-sized station for that market. I was a news coordinator. At least that’s what they called me. It was a total grunt job, but I took any shift they gave me. After a year of proving I could work hard they gave me a floating reporter spot.” I paused to inhale my drink. “Two years later, one of the weekend anchors got food poisoning right before the late show and they threw me behind the desk. I was completely unprepared. I had no idea what I was doing up there, but the producer loved it and offered me one of the anchor slots.” My eyes lifted to his. “So you are looking at the sunny face of Wake Up Big D.” I smiled brightly, playing up the cheesiness of the title. I felt as if I was listing off my resume.
“No shit,” he whispered.
“No shit.”
“And to think you ran the school paper.”
“Oh please tell me the Pelican Gazette is still running.”
He grinned. “Oh yeah. I think it’s online now, though.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course it is. Even on the island.” I sat back, feeling the boat rock slightly in the slip. It was soothing. “Blake, how do you do all this and the AFA? I don’t get it. Why come back here? Why try to blend in when you’re such a huge star?”
He looked at me and I felt a little quake inside.
“It’s home, Sierra.”
I felt the guilt take root under my skin. He loved this place so much. And I couldn’t figure it out. I never had been able to. My eyes drifted to the bar.
“You want to go up there?” He must have noticed me eyeing the dancing partiers.
“Do you want to go up there?” I countered. I remembered having to coax him onto the dance floor at prom.
“Come on.” He took the drink from my hand and lodged it in a drink holder. The next thing I knew he had hoisted me onto the pier, locked his fingers through mine, and was leading me to the music.
10
Blake
The song slowed as soon as Sierra and I were within five feet of the deck.
Her eyes sank into mine and she bit her bottom lip. Fuck. Why was she making this so difficult?
I tried not to look in her eyes. Before the Fin Notes launched into the chorus she was wrapped around my torso, her cheek resting against my chest. This was all more than what I bargained for. It had to be the strong drinks that had her nestled against me.
I let my hand glide down her back until it palmed the curve along the small of her back, fitting her snugly to my body. She felt like velvet under my rough hands. My chest tugged to take a deep breath. What in the hell was happening?
“This is nice,” Sierra murmured.
We swayed slowly, but it seemed as if the world had stopped.
I nodded, not wanting to confirm the words out loud. I reached for her hair and closed my eyes as my fingers coiled along the strands. This was dangerous.
She had always been able to do this to me. Make my cock ache. Make my thoughts turn to images of her under me. I had a strong visual of her lips wrapped around the base of my dick while I pumped in and out of her. And she always gave me what I wanted—she’d let me come deep in her throat. Her eyes misted with the intensity and the pleasure, but she never stopped until she had licked every drop from my head. She always made sure I was satisfied. And, how could I not be with those sweet lips sucking me? She had always been a good girl—a sweet girl—but the night she gave me her virginity it was as if she had given me the keys to an unopened box. A box that contained the most alluring intoxicating siren my cock and my heart had ever known.
The music faded from the stage. The song ended and I backed up too quickly, knocking Sierra off balance.
“Whoa.” I snaked an arm around her waist to steady her. “I told you those Long Island ice teas are no joke.”
She giggled and looked up at me. Those blue eyes stopped me in my tracks. She was drunk. She never could handle those drinks. But that wasn’t the only thing I saw in her eyes. Thirst. Hunger. Lust.
Fuck.
“I’m getting you home.” I ushered her along the boardwalk.
“So you do want to take me home?” she purred.
She looked happier than I had seen her since we’d run into each other again. The drink must have had a way of softening her. Maybe it was the drinks or maybe she was starting to have fun with me. I wasn’t sure.
“Already?” She pretended to pout.
“Yes, now.”
“I’m totally fine.” Sierra giggled.
“You’re drunk. Time to go.”
“But we just got here. One dance and you’re done?”
“Something like that.”
I hauled her down the boardwalk and lifted her into the skiff.
I sat her in the seat next to me so I could keep an eye on her. The last thing I wanted was for her to tip overboard. I kept one hand firmly planted on her hip. She sighed at my touch.
I shook my head and cranked the engine.
She was either making this way too easy or way too hard. With her nuzzled into my chest, I couldn’t decide which.
***
I didn’t say a fucking word the entire ride home from the boat.
I parked just off Lindy’s back porch and carried Sierra inside. I deposited her onto the couch in the living room.
She moaned lightly and smiled. “I had fun. I think I feel another dance coming on.” She tried to stand.
“Whoa darlin’. You’re going to take a nose dive if you do that.”
It was hard not to laugh at her. She was blitzed from only one drink.
“Me too. Get some sleep.”
Her hand flew out and latched on to my leg when I tried to turn. “Are you leaving?” she asked.
I t
hought about how Sierra’s hair had felt. How she’d melted into my chest. How she’d wrapped her hot little body around me when we’d danced. Damn it.
“Yeah. I think so.”
“Why?” Her eyes had a way of pulling me in.
“You’re drunk.” I pointed at her.
“So?”
“So. Even if I was thinking about taking you to bed again, it wouldn’t be like this.”
Because that’s what she was thinking. One drink. One slow dance. One cruise alone and she’d have me back where she wanted. In her bed. That she would be the one to fucking seduce me.
That wasn’t how this was going down.
“Didn’t we used to have amazing sex?” Her words were slow.
My cock twitched slightly. “Yeah. We did.”
My head flashed with an image of her tits. They were fucking incredible. I used to suck and bite them until she screamed my name in the back of my truck and my ears echoed with her voice.
That was when we had to sneak around. Sex in my truck. Sex behind a hidden sand dune. Sex on the boat if we could get out for the day.
But never this. Never in a house when we were the only two home. It was what I’d always wanted—to fuck her epically. To take her on her knees. To fuck her every which way I had invented and some I hadn’t yet. Alone, where she could suck my cock all night and I could bury myself inside her over and over again until the sun rose over the water. I’d had it so bad for this girl.
Her eyes lifted to mine. “Have you thought about what it would be like now?”
I knelt next to her, close enough my lips almost touched her ear. I brushed her silky hair to the side.
“It would be so fucking epic you’d never want another man inside you.”
She whimpered.
I stood, her eyes following me.
“Good night, Sierra.”
I walked out, letting the screen door creak behind me. I tried to rub the throbbing ache out of my cock as I strolled to the truck. I was so fucking hard I didn’t know how I managed to put one foot in front of the other. That girl was killing me.
11
Sierra
The next morning, I brushed my teeth with a tightly wrapped towel around my body. The hot shower hadn’t exactly washed away the humiliation or the hangover. I was pretty sure I had thrown myself at Blake last night.
I spit into the sink and rested the toothbrush in the holder. What in the hell was I thinking? I was mortified. And part of me was still turned on. Did he want me? Was it possible that he still wanted me after all this time?
His words still buzzed in my ear.
I retrieved a pair of tweezers from my cosmetic bag and critically studied my brow line. I had let my time in Aunt Lindy’s house get to me. When was the last time I had a facial or a wax?
I exhaled into the mirror as I wiped on a second layer of mascara.
Had he taken any of it seriously? I doubted it. Women were always throwing themselves at him. I saw it after every game. He had websites dedicated to him, created by a hot female fan base. There was a reason he was one of the AFA’s most notorious bachelors—he refused to get serious with any one person, and was known for sleeping around.
He wasn’t the sweet guy I had once known. I had to remember that.
But, I had seen a glimmer of the man I’d once known last night while we’d been dancing. His fingers had wound through my hair. He smelled like the old Blake I’d known—like a mix of juniper and mint. I’d always thought he smelled that way because of working with the wood from the boats, but now I knew it was him. That heavenly mixture that made me lose all logic and rational thought. As my cheek pressed to his T-shirt it had all come rushing back—the way we used to be.
He’d held me close, as if he cared. As if the past eight years weren’t a huge wedge between us. As if somewhere under his tough exterior he was still the first guy I’d ever loved. The one I’d given myself to.
He had to be in there somewhere.
I turned off the light and walked downstairs to make a pot of coffee. The house was a complete disaster. The beach charity foundation was supposed to be here before lunch to take the furniture in the front room. Aunt Lindy had one of those ridiculous church organs that weighed a thousand pounds. I had to get it out of here.
There were a dozen other pieces I was going to send with them too. I started tagging the furniture that was mismatched. Some I didn’t recognize. She had added many things to the house over the years.
It wasn’t as if there was a handbook to guide me through this process. I was overwhelmed with the house. My aunt had been a packrat. Only, I never realized it until I started opening cabinets and drawers. She had hidden her secret for years. I was only now realizing what a serious problem it was.
But she wasn’t here to lecture. She wasn’t here to tell me what was valuable and what wasn’t. I couldn’t ask her what I should keep. And maybe if I had been a better niece I would have known all these things.
I would have known her wishes. I would know what to do with her rhinestone jewelry and the enormous collection of silk scarves that filled a trunk in the attic.
Instead, I was the girl who had let Roger Wyatt scare me off this island. I had let that man keep me away. The fear he’d planted in my soul had separated me from the only woman who had cared enough to take me in and raise me.
And he’d kept me from the only person I’d ever truly loved.
I filled the coffee pot and poured the water into the tank in the back. Within minutes the kitchen smelled like fresh-brewed coffee. I inhaled a cup while I sat at the bay window, looking out over the sound.
He had stolen so much from me that day. What was worse were the seeds of doubt he had sprouted in me about my family.
I knew exactly what he had tried to imply. That Aunt Lindy wasn’t my biological aunt. That the entire story of how I ended up on this island was just that—a story—another ghost tale passed down to a scared child.
He stole my courage that day. I had never asked Aunt Lindy the truth. I didn’t want to know, even though in some deep crevice of my heart I did. But it wasn’t any of his damn business. He had no right to throw that in my face, or undercut my aunt. All she had ever done was love me.
I sat at her table, surrounded by her things. All I could think about was when she’d sat in the front row of church for the Christmas pageant. How she’d stitched my fairy Halloween costume together by hand. She had tried to teach me to bake and the art of making sun tea. She showed me the best times to find sand dollars on the Cape and how to coax a hermit crab out of its shell. During the summer, she helped me line the bookshelf in my room with fireflies in Mason jars. We would always let their sluggish bodies out in the morning.
I felt the well of tears.
Somewhere in this house I would find the answers. My history was here.
But it was never up to Roger Wyatt to hand me those answers. Never.
Things could have been so different if I hadn’t left. If I hadn’t been a scared little pregnant girl.
But that man had scared the hell out of me.
I put the mug down. Maybe it was time I paid him a visit.
I grabbed my bag and keys and drove toward Roger Wyatt’s house.
12
Blake
I heard wheels crunching over the gravel and stepped out onto the porch to see who was pulling up the drive. I had a hot cup of coffee in my hands.
It was Sierra. I felt the jolt between my ribs.
She stepped from the car. “Good morning.”
“How’s your head?” I grinned. She looked fucking adorable. Her blond hair fell over her shoulders. She was wearing cut off shorts, so short that if she bent over I’d see my favorite slice of heaven. My dick hardened instantly. She was a damn she-devil that one. All she had to do was show up and instantly I wanted to kiss her until I had her stripped bare. I wanted to kiss her lips, her tits, her sweet skin and her legs all the way to that honey-soaked paradise.
> “Are you staying here?” she asked. “Is this where you are for the summer?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Why?”
She looked confused. I saw her eye the boat barn.
“I actually wasn’t expecting to see you. I came to talk to your dad, but maybe another time would be better.” She stepped back toward the driver side.
“Hey, wait.” I jogged down the stairs. She stopped. “That’s going to be nearly impossible, darlin’.”
“Why?”
“My dad died three months ago.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “What? I hadn’t heard.”
I shoved my hands in my front pockets. “Yeah. Heart attack while he was running the sander. Uncle Billy found him.”
Her eyes softened. “I’m sorry, Blake. Really I am.”
“Thanks.”
We walked to the porch and sat on the top step.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“It’s not like you’re around here. How would you have known?”
“The news, maybe?” She looked at me and I saw the concern in her eyes. I didn’t want pity from her. I’d had my share of condolences.
“Happened during the draft. It didn’t get any coverage. I wanted it that way. I hate it when the press follows me. And they aren’t welcome on the island. I didn’t need any damn reporters at the funeral. He wouldn’t have wanted that either.”
“Right. I get that.”
“It was simple.” I didn’t know why I started in on the details. “He wanted a plain juniper box. He’s in the family cemetery next to my mom.”
Her eyes flashed with pain at the mention of my mother. I swore it was like one minefield after another between us. We couldn’t get away from the explosives before another one was set off. And we did it too each other, reminding the other of the pain from when she had left.
“God, your mom, Blake…” She hung her head. “I always liked her. She was always so sweet to me.”
“Probably because she needed another girl around here,” I joked, but I didn’t feel the lightness of it. My mom had loved Sierra. She had been crushed when Sierra had taken off and then we’d gotten her diagnosis.
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