Love on the Boardwalk

by Christi Barth

  “I’m not alone. I’m standing in the sand with a pretty girl. That’s about as far from alone as you can get with clothes on.”

  The junior investigator trainee part of Trina goggled in awe at his effortless evasion of her question. He’d even topped it off with a nice compliment to really throw her off the trail. She could learn a lot from Brad. Maybe, once they were both back home, Joe would let her take a field trip to watch Brad in action on a case.

  But the part of her that was pure woman could tell he was tap dancing around the truth for a reason. Trina had excelled at her five years of tap class. She’d partner him and not let go. “You didn’t start out the night this way. Sure, your luck’s turned around. But half an hour ago you were in a strip club. Alone. In a city known for wild and crazy partying. Spill it,” she ordered.

  Brad sighed. Shuffled his feet like a toddler ‘fessing up to sneaking cookies. Jammed his hands in his pockets. The ocean crashed onto the shore, punctuating his silence. Finally he sighed again, and this time let it out long and slow. “I’m on my honeymoon.”

  Holy crap balls. That was not at all what Trina had expected. The questions slammed into her brain as fast and scattered as shotgun pellets. How had she gotten the signals so wrong? How had he met and proposed to someone else so fast? Why on earth honeymoon in a classically seedy gambling town? Oh, and where the hell was his wife?

  Yeah, that one pretty much overshadowed the rest.

  Unless...appearances could be deceiving. Maybe Brad wasn’t as straitlaced as he appeared. Maybe he and the missus had come to Atlantic City for a very specific reason. Trina didn’t have a judgy bone in her body. Different people liked different things, and that made life very, very interesting. But she didn’t want to participate in some of those...ah...differences. No matter how flattered she was that Brad had found her worthy. Better to send him on his way and go back to her original treat for the evening, boardwalk fries. Also hot and steamy, but not nearly as satisfying.

  “So...you were trolling the strip club for a threesome? To spice up the old honeymoon? What are you—swingers? Into ménage? Or more?” Trina slipped off his jacket and tried to hand it back. “Thanks, but I’ve got a hard and fast rule when it comes to sex. One at a time is enough for me. I don’t think I’d know what to do with all the extra appendages. It’d be like playing naked Twister. Spin the dial and put your left arm on the red—”

  Brad gasped. Coughed. Almost laughed, and then sort of choked while he pushed the jacket back at her. “A threesome? With you?”

  Well, that stung. The utter disbelief in his voice verged on rudeness. She didn’t want to participate, but it’d still be nice to be wanted. Trina let the jacket drop to the sand. Rising temper catapulted her voice at him loudly. “Don’t you dare pretend it hadn’t crossed your mind. I saw you eyeing me.”

  “Because I think you’re pretty,” he yelled back. “Not because I want a threesome.”

  “What, I’m cute, but not cute enough to take home to the wife?”

  “I don’t have a wife,” he burst out. “Dana dumped me, remember? Six months ago. This week was supposed to be our damned honeymoon.”

  “What?”

  “I forgot to cancel my vacation request. The captain thought it’d be better for me to use the down time, since it was already scheduled. So I’m here. Alone.” He held up his left hand and wiggled his empty ring finger. “No wife. Definitely no threesome.”

  “Oh.” That was a relief. It meant he wasn’t a scuzzball for noticing her in the first place. But his outburst didn’t clear everything up. “You really planned to honeymoon in Atlantic City? With the slot machine geezers in velour track suits and puking frat boys?”

  “No. We were supposed to go to Mallorca.”

  Trina could do an amazing amount of math in her head. She’d won more than a few bar bets by multiplying a ton of numbers faster than a guy could add them up on his smart phone. But geography wasn’t her strong suit. There were at least ten states that Trina lumped together under The Middle and didn’t even try to distinguish. And all the Eastern European-i-stan countries confused the heck out of her. But at least she recognized the names. This was a stumper. “Where’s that?”

  “An island off of Spain in the Mediterranean.”

  Random. The island part she got, but why go all the way to Spain for an island when the Caribbean was just down the Atlantic coast? When Trina thought of Spain, bull fighting came to mind. And the running of the bulls. Neither activity struck her as particularly romantic. “Why’d you want to go there?”

  “Do we really need to dissect my honeymoon?”

  Interrogation worked both ways. He’d given her the third degree, and Trina wasn’t in any hurry to let him off the hook. This story was just getting good. “Yes.”

  Another sigh. At this rate, Brad would start hyperventilating soon. “Because it was named one of the top ten trendiest honeymoon destinations of the year.”

  “And you’re such the trend follower,” she scoffed. “It sounds to me like that’s why your fiancée wanted to go. But why did you?”

  He picked up his jacket. Shook the sand from it and draped it back around her shoulders. “Because it was easier than fighting with her. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t go. Couldn’t afford it in the first place. Not on a cop’s salary. Dana made all the arrangements. For all I know, she’s there right now, living it up.”

  Interesting that he didn’t sound the slightest bit regretful at the idea. That put him in the totally over her category. “So why are you spending your honeymoon week here? Why not go back to your family beach house in Ocean City? Or stay home and play video games non-stop until you’re literally glued to your chair with a mix of Cheeto dust and soda?”

  His quick, wry grin let Trina know she’d nailed it. “It was my dad’s idea to hit AC for the week. Said I should erase the last of Dana’s memory in the time-honored male tradition of a blitz of strippers and beer and gambling. I was on the fence and mentioned it to Stan, my barber. He comes here all the time. Plays it fast and loose at the crap tables enough that he’s got platinum status. So he arranged for me to stay for free all week at the Atlantic Dunes on his points.”

  “Nice. Cheesy, but nice. Especially if it’s free.” Trina appreciated the score of a good deal.

  “Yeah. I don’t want to blow all my money on the memory of a woman who doesn’t want me. I’d rather save some to spend on a woman who does.”

  That gave Trina yet again the distinct impression Brad was a man finally done moping and ready to move on. Of course, she’d thought that back in the summer, too. Better to be sure than to have him walk away from her a second time. “And you thought you’d find that special someone at a strip club?”

  “Nah. Dana laid down the law that there’d be no strippers at my bachelor party. Not that I ever got one. The trip to Club Eden was my small way of giving her the finger.”

  “Nice.”

  His lips twisted downward. “More fun in theory than in practice. Flying solo at a place like that leans more toward skeezy than fun. I was ready to go after five minutes. Especially once that super tall blonde with the cavewoman costume came on.”

  Deondra wore a necklace of bones and nothing else by the end of her set. “Are you pining for her?” Trina wandered farther down the path, crossing over the top of the dune. She kicked off her shoes to wriggle her toes in the cool sand of the beach. That and a three-hour-long foot rub might be enough to restore feeling to her arches.

  “That stripper?” An emphatic shake of his head. “No way. She scared me. Looked able to take down a T-Rex with her bare hands.”

  “No, your fiancée.” Trina had to know. And when she had to know something, she dug her heels in until she found out. A character trait that should be invaluable as an investigator. “Are you still pining for her?”

 
Brad bent over to take off his shoes and socks. “Nope. Dana kicked me to the curb. I’m not wasting any more time on her.”

  Every question he answered right made her think all systems were go to pick up right where they’d left off at the beach house. But picking up wasn’t enough. She wanted to get some action with the hot cop that kept creeping back into her thoughts at the most unexpected times. Without any chance of embarrassment.

  No point in beating around the bush. Trina dug straight to the question that had bugged her for months. “So why didn’t you kiss me this summer?”

  He neatly piled their shoes at the foot of the railing. “My head was all messed up. Flirting with you was fun, but at the same time, it felt like I was cheating on Dana. Stupid, I know.”

  Ah. Too bad he hadn’t told her that back in June. Then she wouldn’t have spent more than one night staring in a mirror practicing her sexy walk, thinking she’d lost her mojo. “That’s a better reason than the one I came up with.”

  “What was that?” Brad took her hand and tugged her toward the water. Their footsteps crunched along the thin, top layer and swooshed into the deeper sand. It was the only sound besides the surf. All the raucous noise of the Boardwalk and the crowds had disappeared. They were utterly alone.

  “That you were impotent.”

  “No!” And then he dropped her hand with a fast snap. “Shit, Trina, you can’t just say that to a guy.”

  “It certainly would’ve explained Dana leaving you. Along with your reluctance to kiss me.” God, she was glad to be wrong. She couldn’t wait to tell Darcy. They had a two-dollar bet riding on his answer. This meant Trina was two bucks richer and would get smooched.

  Hopefully.

  “Everything works,” he said succinctly. “That’s not why she left me. Let’s leave it at that. Christ.” Brad shot forward to the damp line of demarcation of high tide. Water foamed darkly an inch from his big feet.

  Okay. Trina felt like a pilot readying for takeoff. One final check of all Brad’s systems and then they could lift off. She sidled up next to him. Shoveled a little sand on top of his feet with hers. To, you know, keep him there. Since it was too cold to bury all of him in the sand.

  “So, it’s only Wednesday. I’m assuming you took this day and the next couple off originally to prep for the wedding?”

  “Yeah.” A nod, with his gaze still firmly fixed on the inky horizon. “It was scheduled for Saturday. Today was supposed to be a final tux fitting along with about a thousand other errands Dana had on this multi-tabbed spreadsheet.”

  Yuck. Brad was better off without her. Spreadsheet girls were no fun at all. “On a scale of one to ten, ten being suicidal and zero being ready to twerk some half-naked show girls, how upset are you right now? Being here, in the land of slot machines and all-you-can-eat buffets instead of knocking things off the spreadsheet?”

  “I hated that damn spreadsheet. We’ll call that a big ole zero.”

  Whew. But still not quite enough of an answer for her. Sure, this was a heck of a conversation to have with someone she’d only known for a whopping total of four days, even though those four had been pretty darn intense. But maybe their weird mix of closeness while still being almost strangers would make it easier for him to open up. Trina had no pre-conceived notions about Dana, or their relationship. No judginess. And she had nothing to lose.

  “The point is more about your fiancée,” she prodded.

  “Ex-fiancée,” he corrected with a snap. “I’m not sad that Dana and I are over.” Brad’s voice dropped to a near-murmur. As though he was talking to himself rather than to Trina. “More sad that I failed.” Then Brad straightened up, cracked his neck on both sides. That, apparently, was that. “How about we not talk about the past anymore? I’m here to forget it, remember?”

  Good enough. Trina’s heart lurched into a skip. Or maybe that was all the blood pounding straight to her girly parts in anticipation. She curled her hand around his forearm. His thick, hard forearm. “I thought that if you were still at least a tiny bit sad, you might need cheering up. A distraction. Something to make you be glad in the moment. The now.”

  Slowly, his head swiveled until his heavy-lidded gaze latched onto hers. Like a super-sexy and sleek lion sighting its prey. “What do you have in mind?”

  Uh oh. She’d barreled ahead this far. Still had plenty of motivation. It was the execution that stopped her cold. Trina had never made the first move on a man before. Momentum gone, she paused, feeling awkward. Now, with her in bare feet, Brad was so much taller. Unless she took a running leap and latched onto him, there wasn’t a smooth way to get at his lips. This was why men historically took the lead. All they had to do was bend down. Trina would have to shimmy up him.

  “I just want to cheer you up. Make you, um, feel better,” she said softly. Lifted her chin just a little. Licked her lips. And hoped like hell he took the hint.

  “There’s one sure-fire way to do that.” Brad bent down, his head suddenly blocking out the full moon.

  Which was the last thing Trina saw because her eyes fluttered shut the moment his mouth touched hers. Softly. Skimming over her lips and then off smoother than a pebble being skipped over the surface of a pond. Trina could interpret it one of two ways. Either a polite, hi—may I proceed to kiss you senseless query...or a cautious, am I really, finally doing this with another woman kick-start to either regret or a freak-out.

  Brad was an utter gentleman. One of the good guys who opened doors and refilled a water glass without being asked. Trina was okay with the first option. Didn’t even want to think about what would happen if the reality was option two. Not now that they were finally on the brink of really making out. When she’d be able to finally run her hands through all that thick, slightly wavy mane of hair. Rub up against that chest she’d seen at the beach glistening with the sheen of sunscreen and sweat that made her drool every time the memory did a fly-by.

  So when he skimmed back across, Trina opened her lips just enough to catch his. To stop them mid-swoop. Then captured his bottom lip with her teeth. Tugged just a bit. Kind of a you’d better stay right damn here twist on a kiss.

  It worked.

  The polite, introductory nature of the kiss vanished. Brad cupped his hands around her ass and lifted her up. Angled his head to slant his mouth better across hers. His tongue delved deep.

  Trina tried to take it all in. The way his hands kneaded her in close. Right onto an erection that proved he was definitely both interested and very able. The feel of her breasts smushed against the broad plane of his chest. But with every inch of her skin on fire, it was just too much to try and catalog each different and awesome sensation.

  She fisted her hands in the improbably silky and thick hair. Didn’t even care that his jacket slid from her shoulders. Brad was generating more than enough heat to keep her warm. And then she moaned as his tongue tangled with hers in a dance that woke up every nerve ending from her scalp to the tips of her toes.

  This man knew what he was doing. He knew how to kiss. How to probe and taste. Trina broke away. Licked her way down his neck to suck hard right at the spot where his pulse throbbed against the skin. Brad growled. Growled! A chirp of delighted laughter spilled out of her. She loved that this was now a two-player game. That she could give as good as he gave to her. Make him just as crazy and needy and hot and bothered.

  “Bend your legs,” he muttered hoarsely. Trina obeyed. The next minute, he dropped to his knees and gently set her on the sand. This allowed him to—sadly—move his hands off her ass and—happily—smooth them up and across her back, left almost bare from the sequin and vine bra that masqueraded as a top. Skin on skin, man to woman...was there anything better ever in the whole world? She wriggled against him, arching her neck as he nibbled on her earlobe. Oh, the shivers and chills that cascaded through her body. Trina could practically see fir
eworks when he moved back to her mouth.

  Then a crack. No, a hiss, crackle and a loud bang. Her eyes flew open. It was actual fireworks. Little ones, being set off just down the beach. A pinwheel of light catapulted at the ocean.

  “Do you see that, too?” Brad asked in between kisses.

  Innocently, she replied, “See what?” And then giggled as he pulled back with a look of alarm. “The fireworks? I see ’em and feel ‘em.”

  “Whew.” He brushed a long lock of hair away from her face with surprising tenderness for all the fierce passion he’d unleashed moments before. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re one hell of a kisser. I feel like I just broke my drought by downing Gatorade mixed with champagne.”

  Ooh, that was a good compliment. He got extra points for that one. “No worries. It took me a second to realize it wasn’t just your mad skills making lights explode beyond my eyelids, too.”

  High-pitched laughter echoed down the coast, along with another round of explosions and lights. Kisses and a show. Nope, Trina didn’t miss those fries she’d skipped one bit.

  “We should probably go. You know what they say. It’s all fun and games until somebody gets nailed in the ass with a Roman candle.” Brad planted a foot, and with only one arm wrapped around her waist, lifted them both to a standing position. He made her feel dainty. Weightless. And in oodles of awe of his bulging muscles.

  “Safety first,” she said as he retrieved his jacket and slid her arms into it. “That goes for sex and sparklers.”

  They walked a few steps, Trina tucked against his side. She really, really liked it there. But she’d used up her dose of boldness for the night. If Brad wanted to see her again—

  He talked right over her thoughts. “Can I see you again?”

  What Trina wanted to do was a little victorious booty shake. And then call Darcy to let her know that she’d finally gotten asked out by the hot cop. Good things did come to those who waited. Although really, four months was pushing it. So what she actually did was walk ahead of him with just a little extra jaunt. Enough to make sure he watched every step. As coolly as possible, she said over her shoulder, “That depends. I don’t want to waste your time. So I need to know if I managed to cheer you up at all?”