Sandpiper Island (The Bachelors

by Donna Kauffman

  “So . . . maybe you need to schedule more stowaway time on my boat,” he said, a hint of something lighter in his tone, but his gaze searching hers, still quite serious.

  “I . . . don’t know, maybe I do,” she said, trying to joke, but she was too hung up on the message she thought she might be seeing in his eyes to think straight.

  “You know, one thing I’ve noticed, if it helps—” He broke off, and there was a brief twist of a smile at the corners of his mouth, a mouth she was trying desperately not to look at. “And yes, I’m aware I’m about to offer unsolicited advice, but this is actually more of an observation.”

  “Well, doctor, you’re paid to observe,” she said, grappling for the same light tone, even as she felt as if the very ground was shifting beneath her feet. “What did you notice?”

  “What you said to Grace about not being sure what your future held, if you wanted to save the diner. For what it’s worth, as overwhelmed as you’ve been, stressed out, exhausted, by whatever questions you’re trying and failing to find answers for . . . I just thought you should know that every time you’ve mentioned your diner, or cooking, or the townspeople who are your regulars, well . . . you beam. Hell, you almost glow.” He gently squeezed her arms, his gaze so intent it felt like an additional caress. “I guess what I’m saying is, it doesn’t look like you’ve lost the desire to do what you do best. Maybe that’s the place you start, and figure out what’s next from there.”

  “I . . .” She had no idea what to say to that. Or how it felt to know he’d paid such close attention to her, that he was so aware of her. She’d been kidding about him being paid to be observant, but the truth was that was his field of expertise, so maybe she shouldn’t be surprised after all. “Thank you,” she said, softly. “I think that does help.” At least as it pertained to what her next step might be professionally. All it did was muddle her brain further about what steps she might want to take personally.

  Maybe it would have been better, or at least easier, if he had said something insensitive or stupid, instead of something so thoughtful and insightful. Then she could convince herself she’d been foolish to consider, even for a second, that she might want to risk the one part of herself that she had permanent, incontrovertible rights to: her heart.

  “Good,” he said. And she swore he gave a little sigh of relief, as if he’d been worried she might take it wrong.

  “I am grateful,” she said, needing him to know that. “That you stayed. That you tried to help.” She tried to keep looking into his eyes, but it was all too much, so she darted a look downward, but got caught up with looking at his big hands, so gently holding on to her arms. And how close they were standing to each other. “That you stood up for what you thought was the right thing to do, and that was to help me . . . thank you for that. I wish . . . I’m sorry I don’t have my act more together, so your efforts weren’t wasted.”

  He jerked a little on her arms, surprising her with the sudden tension she felt in his fingertips. She looked back up to find those dark eyes of his so intent on hers that she thought she’d simply fuse to the spot where she stood.

  “It wasn’t time wasted. Any more than your time was wasted out here today.”

  “But here we did something, fixed something. With me, I’m just—”

  “Worthwhile,” he said. He let go of her arms and tipped her face up to his. “You told me my friendship was worthwhile. Spending time trying to help you, whether or not it gets immediate and direct results, is worth it because you’re worth it. Do you think that if that baby chick hadn’t made it today, I’d just write off your help and assistance as worthless?”

  “No,” she said, eyes widening. “That’s not what I meant, I just—”

  “You just try to downplay yourself right out of the conversation, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. And it’s not just about giving and taking and needing all things to be equal. You make it so damn hard for anyone to get close. Maybe it’s just me you don’t want help from. If so, just tell me to back the hell off.”

  “I thought I did!” she exploded, in utter terror that her worst fear was about to manifest itself before she’d even figured out how to go about trying to reach out to him in the first place.

  “Well,” he said, then lifted his hands from her and took a step back. “Pardon me, then. Pardon the hell out of me.”

  “Ford,” she said, when he turned away. “I don’t even know why you’re mad. We were just talking about what I could do next and I thanked you—sincerely—for helping me, for your observations. I meant that. And I’m glad I came out here today, glad I helped. And I’m sorry if I seem at a loss about why you’re so intent on helping me. It’s not that I’m not grateful. I am. How many times can I say that? I’m trying to be your friend, step inside that circle, trying to figure this whole thing out, be more open to taking help when it’s offered, and to—to—” She flailed her hands, as if that would fill in the blanks.

  “To what?” he asked, spinning back about. “You can’t even say it.”

  “Say what?” she asked, truly bewildered. “What do you want me to say? What do you want from me?”

  In an instant he closed the short space and all but jerked her into his arms and up against his body. “I want this, Dee.” He cupped her face, slid his fingers back through her hair. He pulled her mouth, still open from her gasp of surprise, up to his own.

  He paused for a heart-stopping moment, his lips a mere breath away from hers, and searched her eyes like he was hoping to find the answer to all of life’s mysteries in them. Then he took her mouth in a kiss that turned her world on its side, and her heart right over along with it. He didn’t so much kiss her as lay claim to her.

  His lips were hard but warm, and fit hers like they’d never left. She thought she’d romanticized him, how he’d felt, how he’d tasted, how he’d made her feel as he’d taken her. She knew she had turned that night into a fantasy, where every touch had been electric, every sigh had been perfect. She’d been right. This kiss wasn’t the one from her dreams.

  It was so . . . so much better.

  There was no ambivalence, no distraction of grief. His intent was specific, and focused, and all about her. She felt the calluses on his thumb as he stroked her cheek, tilted her mouth up into his, so he could open it, sink inside, and claim her all over again. It wasn’t just her mouth that parted to him; it felt like everything inside her opened as well. He said she didn’t know how to take, but, oh, if this was what he was giving . . . she’d take all that she could get. And the giving she wanted to share in return was going to make it twice as amazing. But before she could gather her senses enough to reach for him, he was lifting his head, and her heart tripped. No, not yet.

  “I want you,” he said. His chest rose and fell, and there was ferocity and fear in his eyes. “Dammit, I just want you.” He let her go, as if suddenly realizing what he’d done, and started to turn away.

  It hadn’t been the ferocity in his eyes that decided her. It had been the fear. She grabbed his arm and yanked him back. “Then do like Eula said. Stand up for what you want,” she said. “For what you think is right.” She reached up on her tiptoes and took his face in her hands, pulled him down to her. “But there’s no turning back, Ford.”

  “No,” he said, hauling her up off her toes, and against his body, wrapping his arms around her. “No turning back.”

  Chapter 15

  The moment his lips had touched hers, his need for her, to have her, take her, to finally, dear God, bury himself in her, was mindless in its all-consuming intensity. Her words jerked some nascent part of him back to the forefront. There’s no turning back.

  No. One night, twenty years in the past, cloaked in grief, then left behind to stand on its own. That’s the only intimacy they’d ever shared. So, no, whatever happened, wherever it led them to, this . . . would not be that.

  From the moment she’d entered his tree house, he’d felt he was climbing out of his skin.
He’d all but hidden upstairs in his office, but when that didn’t help, he’d come back down to the kitchen. She made him laugh, made him think, made him want to wring her neck. Sometimes all in the span of a single sentence.

  And he’d never wanted anything or anyone as much as he wanted her. Now. Here.

  Now that he had his hands on her, he was so caught up in wanting her soft skin bared to his touch, open and willing for him to taste, he couldn’t decide where to begin, where to start. He wanted to strip them both down and take her right where they stood.

  Needs unmet for so very, very long would be an easy excuse for his uncontrollable desire to have every part of her, all at once, and yet he was very well aware that it wouldn’t matter if he’d availed himself of every woman he’d ever met since that single, stormy night. None would be Delia, none would bring him to the brink of what was surely insanity. The demand to sink himself into carnal oblivion with her was so white hot he thought it might just burn him alive.

  He drew her legs up over his hips, groaning when she pressed so intimately against every last straining inch of him. How on earth had he thought he could go the rest of his life without having her again? And how was it he hadn’t known that she was the one he’d been waiting for, the only one he’d ever wait for?

  “Hold on to me,” he said gruffly, moving his mouth from hers, nudging her chin up so he could move his lips from the soft lobe of her ear, to the sweet throb of the pulse just below it.

  She crossed her ankles behind him and he moved his arms to support her, wrapping them lower on her back, shifting her up so she could wrap her arms around his neck. She buried her face there, and then started to nibble her way along his jaw, as she raked her fingertips up the back of his head, over his scalp. The sweet pressure of her body against his, the sharp nip of her teeth, the scrape of her short nails, all combined to create a jolt of pleasure so intense, it was like simultaneously putting each one of his nerve endings against a live wire.

  A crack of thunder outside was followed by a tree-shaking bolt of lightning, making the house sway, as it was built to do. Delia froze, her hold on him tightening to a clutch. “Holy—did that strike the house?”

  “We’re fine,” he murmured, continuing to drop kisses along her neck, nudging her shirt collar open so he could move to the curve of her shoulders. He was so used to the vagaries of the weather on the island, they didn’t intrude on his single-minded task of tasting each and every inch of her.

  “Ford—” She gasped as he nipped at her shoulder, and groaned when the muscles running along her inner thighs reflexively squeezed around him. “The house. It’s—moving.”

  He was dying by inches, wanting more, wanting it all, wanting it now.

  “The house is built to move with the trees,” he murmured between kisses. “Storms can be intense, sound intense, but we’ll be okay.” He moved back to her mouth, his lips hovering just over hers. “I seem to remember another storm, another night . . . you weren’t so bothered by the sound and the fury then.”

  He could feel that the tension, the fear hadn’t left her, but she smiled against his lips. “Was there a storm that night?”

  She kissed him, and he groaned, deep in his throat. Playful Delia, with that throaty laugh of hers, just might kill him where he stood.

  “I must have been distracted,” she went on, nipping his bottom lip, making his body leap to painful rigidity.

  “Well, then, let’s see if I can . . . distract you again.” He turned and carried her toward the couch, thinking he’d be fortunate to make it that far when he would have been happy pressing her up against the wall in the kitchen.

  But she wrapped her arms around his neck, broke their heated kiss long enough to press her lips to his ear. “Would you . . . take me upstairs?”

  The hesitant catch in her voice did him in. He’d been so intent, so caught up, he hadn’t thought . . . “I would take you anywhere.”

  He felt her tremble, and swore silently that he hadn’t made her feel she was worth cherishing, worth the comfort of a bed.

  He nudged her face back to his as they reached the bottom of the ladder. “Grab the ladder,” he said, turning so she could slip her legs free and take hold of the ladder. As soon as she did, he turned and offered his back. “Climb on.”

  She laughed. Actually, it was more of a giggle, which was incredibly endearing, and just as sexy as her laugh.

  “I may be a disaster on the rocks, but I’m pretty sure I can handle the ladder,” she said.

  He could hear the breathlessness in her voice, and smiled, knowing he’d put it there. “But then I wouldn’t get to keep you wrapped around me,” he said, and turned to glance at her just in time to see the pupils in her eyes shoot wide and her lips part on a soft gasp. It gave him immeasurable pleasure that he was apparently affecting her every bit as much as she was affecting him. He turned back once again. “Hold on to me, Dee.”

  He might have gasped himself as she slid the palms of her hands over his shoulders, taking the time to run them down over his chest before looping them lightly there. He reached back and ran his hands up the sides of her legs, then all but growled as she began to do amazing things to the nape of his neck with her tongue and teeth. He leaned his head back, giving her greater access, and slid his hands a bit farther up her legs than necessary to get hold of her thighs in order to lift her so she could wrap her legs around his hips.

  His fingertips slid between her thighs as he lifted her and pressed, briefly, between them. She cried out, the sound muffled against his neck, and he felt her muscles clench under his fingers. His own knees lost a bit of their stability in that moment; then her long legs were wrapping around his waist, her hands splaying across his chest, sliding inside his open plaid jacket, grazing across the front of his T-shirt, over his nipples.

  “If you don’t stop that,” he ground out, “we’ll never make it to the first landing.”

  “I’m thinking now that maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” she murmured, then traced her tongue along the side of his neck. “We can work our way up there.”

  And that was all it took.

  He gripped her thighs, held them, and pressed her back against the ladder. “Tuck your hands under one of the rungs,” he instructed hoarsely, then turned within the circle of her legs as she did. “Hold on,” he said. Saying a silent message of thanks that she’d taken off his hoodie, he gripped the front of her blouse and ripped it open. “Sorry about the buttons,” he said, already leaning in and cupping his hands over her breasts, rubbing the taut nipples between his fingers through the thin silk of her bra.

  “I’m not,” she breathed, sounding a bit stunned, but her blue eyes all but glittered into his now. She let her head tilt back to rest on one flat rung, sliding her hands behind and around the one over her head, and relaxed into him as he pressed his hips into hers, pinning her there.

  He gripped her hips, forcing her legs to unhook and drop from his hips, then shifted her up a rung so he could lean in and take one nipple into his mouth, suckle it, then the other. She writhed under his tongue, panting soft little gasps as her heels sought purchase on one of the lower rungs.

  The moment they did, he slid his hands from her hips, under her open shirt, and unclipped her bra, then pushed it aside so he could taste—“Ah,” he groaned as he finally closed his mouth over bare, heated skin, tasting her, drinking her in. She arched against him, her hands gripping the ladder rung as she twisted under his tongue, his teeth. He slid his hands down, around, to the front of her pants, grappling now, wanting, needing—he freed the button, the zipper, and shoved pants, panties, down her legs. She took over, kicking off her leather flats, wriggling, writhing, to fling the garments free as he undid his own belt, his own jeans.

  “Ford,” she cried, and it was a keening demand as she arched her hips, bared to him now, looking to him like a pale, perfect, porcelain Venus.

  He grunted when he finally got his pants undone, shoved down, freeing his rigid,
aching—“Jesus,” he breathed, as she hooked her heels around him, drew him in.

  He gripped her hips, lifting her onto him, pushing into her slowly, then fully in one life-releasing thrust. She growled this time and her heels dug into him as she locked him between her thighs, greedily keeping every inch of him inside her. He thought if a man could die from the intensity of pure pleasure, he’d have gone straight to his great reward right in that instant.

  He steadied himself, or tried to, then lost what little control he had when she tipped her head forward and nipped his bottom lip again. He claimed her mouth like a man starved, letting her take his tongue just as her body was taking the rest of him. She didn’t wait to let him establish the rhythm; she just met him thrust for thrust, no slowing down, no effort to make it last, just a furious, frantic race to nirvana, which was surely right there . . . right there, just one . . . more . . . thrust.

  They both groaned, grunted, shouted, uncaring how loud they were, heedless of any force but the one that bound them together. The fury of the storm outside had unleashed itself in full. Thunder boomed, lightning rattled, but all he heard was the storm going on inside his body, his head . . . his heart.

  He could feel himself gather, feel her shuddering, trembling, and knew the instant she peaked and went over the edge, she would rip him rocketing right past it with her. Some sliver of sanity wormed into his brain as he sought to control the climb, focus on her. “Dee,” he panted against her mouth. “I—we’re not—we didn’t—”

  She shook her head, apparently understanding his meaning. “It’s okay. I’m—it’s—” She let her head tilt back and lifted up just enough that he slid in a fraction deeper. “You can—” She panted, lifting her hips another fraction, then opened her eyes at the last second as he felt the tremors race straight up her legs, and looked right at him, into him. “Trust me, Ford,” she said.

  Then he shuddered, pushed, and she cried out, shattering all over him, her body wracked with almost convulsive spasms, squeezing him so hard he let out a long, groaning shout and went over with her.