Her eyes narrowed and he supposed she read his thoughts. “Don’t think you know me so well,” she cautioned, then surprised the hell out of him.
Because she went up on tiptoe, seizing the initiative to take what she thought she wanted. To take his mouth.
Blow his mind.
His hands squeezed, then dropped lower, from the safety of her waist to the danger zone of her ass. He squeezed there too, then groaned as she sucked his lower lip into her mouth. She bit him there, and he gasped, and her tongue slid inside to rub against his.
A shudder worked its way down his spine.
Somebody wolf-whistled and he remembered the surfers coming and going along the beach, but he didn’t give a shit, not when he could feel her hard nipples through both their shirts. His palms cupped the cheeks of her ass, tilting her hips, and he ground his hard cock into the sweet vee of her thighs.
Audra shifted to make more room for him and he closed his eyes, heat pouring into his bloodstream. Her fingers clutched at his biceps as if she was having trouble standing up, and after another moment, he reluctantly forced their mouths apart.
“We need air,” he murmured at her whimper of protest. “Take a couple of deep breaths, baby.”
She planted her forehead on his shoulder and he ran a hand over the back of her hair as they stayed in place, swaying a little, their chests rising and falling in a fast, syncopated rhythm. He’d run road races that took less out of him than that kiss.
He brushed another along the top of her hair, then Audra lifted her head, revealing her mouth, swollen and rosy, the edges blurred by the whiskers he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. His thumb ran over her lips and they felt as hot as she’d tasted.
“Kane…” she said, then her gaze shifted from his face to over his shoulder. Her muscles went wire-tight and her eyes wide.
“What?” he said, glancing over his shoulder for the imminent danger her body language suggested. Just more surfers.
“Isn’t there a saying,” she asked, still staring down the beach, “that bad luck comes in threes?”
Audra watched the slow-moving figure in the distance, heading straight their way. It was him, no doubt about it. She knew his walk. She knew the set of his shoulders and the leanness of his torso, revealed by the wetsuit pushed down to his waist. The empty sleeves swung at his knees and she recognized his surfboard, one of several he owned.
Her hands tightened on Kane, and he grunted. “Baby,” he said. “What’s going on?”
She’d like to think the man coming toward her was a figment of her imagination, some strange specter brought on in the aftermath of that bone-melting, magnificent kiss they’d just shared. It was a dream in itself, Kane’s taste, his sure hands on her everything she needed to ride the sexual buzz that linked the two of them like spun gold.
But the surfer was very real, and someone she dreaded confronting.
“It’s Jacob,” she said, wrenching her eyes from the other man to look up at the one who continued to hold her, keeping her warm. Secure. Wanted.
He glanced over his shoulder again. “Damn. Your ex?”
“Yes.”
“We could go back to the house,” he offered.
“And look like I’m running away?” She shook her head. “No. I can be dignified.”
Kane smiled, with an indulgence that made her heart flutter. “I don’t know, baby. You look a little mussed. And a lot kissed.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. It felt sensitive to the touch.
“It could be he hasn’t noticed you, anyway,” Kane said. “I’m between you and him. And there’s no way he would expect to see you here and certainly not in another man’s arms.”
True. But in case he could see her, she couldn’t be seen running away. She had more self-respect than that.
Slipping out of Kane’s hold, she used his broad form to continue blocking her from Jacob’s direct line of sight, taking a moment to run her palms over her hair and adjust the neckline of her dress. With a smile, Kane reached down and tweaked her belt, making sure the buckle sat just so.
Beneath it, her belly twitched and she was acutely aware of the dampness of her panties. “Um, thanks,” she said, barely managing to stay still under his ministrations.
She wanted to appear dignified in Kane’s eyes too, maybe more than Jacob’s. He’d been resisting kissing her again, throwing up obstacles and making assumptions, so she’d had to overcome that by…just putting her mouth on him.
The power of it! He’d stopped talking, had quit protesting, and let her be the instigator when she knew it was probably against his big dog-instincts to let someone else take charge. The feel of his hard body against hers—his hard erection!—had made her face flame and her mouth water.
To be honest, she could hardly look at him now, remembering it.
But she couldn’t let him see how affected she’d been by a simple kiss. She guessed he’d not welcome the idea she’d been staggered by their meeting of lips. He seemed so protective of her—thanks to those sisters of his?—and it wouldn’t matter that it was her own idea or that it wasn’t a stranger in a biker bar who’d touched her, but Kane himself.
So she’d use her limited acting skills to fake some savoir faire all around.
On tiptoe, she peeked over Kane’s shoulder and saw that her ex was drawing nearer. “You can go now,” she told Kane. “I’ll meet you back at the house.”
“I’m not leaving you alone with him.”
“Of course you are,” she said, her gaze flying to meet his. This impending audience with her ex would be worse with a witness. And what if she cried? Though she wasn’t going to cry, damn it. There would be no crying. Still, she didn’t want Kane observing anything that might compromise the dignity she’d promised herself.
“Baby—”
“I’m a grown woman,” she said, though she loved when he called her that, his voice dark and velvety. “I have to do this on my own.”
He hesitated, took another swift look over his shoulder, then sighed. “I’ll be watching if you need help,” he said, and began striding in the direction of the house without another word.
Without another touch.
God, she wanted his touch.
But instead she turned her back on Kane and dug her feet in the sand, waiting to face down the man who’d rejected her when she was wearing white lace and expecting promises. Lilly had told her that classic song had been written as an advertising jingle to sell checking accounts to young couples, but before Jacob had texted her that it was off, she’d thought her wedding was going to be the moment they’d begin to live.
She stoked her mad as he continued plodding through the sand and she saw the moment that the anonymous woman ahead on the beach became Audra to him. His feet stuttered to a halt and his board slipped from his hold to bang—painfully, she hoped—against his shin. Then he hitched it up and moved forward again, his expression registering emotions she recognized. Surprise. Pain.
Uncertainty.
She knew exactly how that felt. All those emotions and more had gone through her when she’d opened his text and realized her notion of the future was shattered.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she waited until he was conversation-close. “Jacob,” she said.
“What are you doing here?”
She frowned. “I didn’t seek you out if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No, I…” He looked away, looked back. “I’m sorry,” he finally blurted out.
Opening her mouth, she took a moment to gather her thoughts and found…that not one boiled to the top. They remained a simmering mess of resentment, anger, and embarrassment. Then, finally, four words found their way. “At the last minute?” A fifth. “Really?”
Jacob grimaced. “There was a couple of hours before the ceremony was due to start.”
Men were the most annoying, most literal of creatures, Audra decided, stifling the urge to either roll her eyes or slap him upside the head or
both. “We were engaged for eleven months. You couldn’t have found a better time to stop the train?”
“That train was racing, Audie. You know that.”
There was no denying it. The moment she’d told her mom of the engagement, the Montgomery engine had fired up and began hurtling full speed ahead. Still. “You asked me to marry you. Furthermore, you never made a protest or said a single word about the when and how of the wedding.”
“Yeah. Well.” He dropped the nose of his board to the sand and ran his free hand through his damp hair. “What do I know about shit like that?”
“You should have known the state of your own heart!” she said, feeling the traitorous sting of tears at the corners of her eyes, even as she remembered that unspoken, deeply buried relief she’d felt when she’d realized there’d be no wedding.
“You deserve better…more…someone else.” He mussed his hair again. “I didn’t get you.”
“You understood me very well.” She was an open book, everyone said so. Kane could read the slightest twitch in her expression and surmise exactly what was going on inside her head.
Jacob’s voice lowered. “I never got you off, Audie. You…you’re hard to warm up.”
Her heart seized to beat, and her body went cold, like she’d fallen into the icy Pacific. He’d guessed? was her first thought. Her second, I’m hard to warm up?
Humiliation shriveled her insides and stole her voice.
She’d tried so hard, damn it, reading, thinking, seeking. Whenever they were together reaching for that damn glorious pleasure that everybody went ga-ga over. A time or two, she’d thought she’d even grasped the outer rings of it, a pleasing tingle that she’d tried to make the most of before it left her grasping at nothing.
“Or it could be me, Audie. I’m not any good at it with you.”
The way he said that made her think he’d had bed partners he’d satisfied. Bed partners who didn’t fail. Miserable now, Audra stared at the sand. “So you left me because of…because of sex?”
He started to say something, then seemed to change his mind. “No. But if you and I couldn’t work…I think that means I’m better off without a wife. I don’t think marriage suits me.”
The man sounded like Kane now, secure in his bachelorhood—or in Jacob’s case, retreating to bachelorhood.
“Maybe I don’t suit you, I just looked like I did,” Audra said slowly. Ticking off his boxes like he’d ticked off hers. “Maybe there’s someone else for you out there. You shouldn’t stop looking, anyway.”
“Audie.” There was a distinct fondness in his tone. “Are you giving the guy who left you at the altar a pep talk?”
She glanced up to see his half-smile. “I guess I am,” she admitted.
He gave a short laugh. “That’s so your way. It’s why I asked you to marry me.”
Her way—giving pep talks, not getting off, Audra thought, misery resurging.
“Don’t look so glum, girl,” Jacob said. “I have wise words for you too.”
“Yeah?” she asked, disbelieving.
“Yeah,” he said. “We weren’t right together. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else out there who can give you everything—including that. You shouldn’t stop looking either.”
Then Jacob walked away and she watched after him, sad to see him go because now she was left alone with her thoughts.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else out there who can give you everything—including that. You shouldn’t stop looking.
Sure. The frigid female was going to leap right into bed with a random man for another futile round of trying to warm up.
Unfortunately, at the moment she was too far from home to pull a blanket over her head and pretend her adult life had never happened. She’d have to collect Kane and insist he take her back to Santa Barbara immediately.
On the way, she’d escape all the turmoil in her head by taking a long, deep nap. Or maybe she’d put in her headphones and listen to a podcast about true crime on her phone. Someone’s vile murder would give her something more important to worry about than…
You’re hard to warm up.
Kicking those words from her brain, she directed her feet to the beach house. Her head tilted back as she ascended the steps, and the weathered, comfortable look of the sprawling place gave her a surge of much-needed calm. She wondered what the Hathaways would do with it, and thought it a shame it couldn’t shelter a family like the one she’d painted on the wall. A turtle might very well like a habitat of its very own under the eaves on the big deck.
She’d taken off her sandals to walk on the beach, so her feet were soundless on the floors of the house as she entered. No doors dared creak at a Hathaway property, and she realized that Kane hadn’t heard her arrive when she found him in the living area, standing in the big room with the wall “graffiti,” his back to her, his head bent.
Even without being able to see the angles and planes of his handsome face, he was delicious, with that breadth of shoulder, his narrow hips, the butt that could win a contest. All the contests.
Her mouth tingled and she touched it again, recalling their last kiss, that greediness she’d felt in her belly as she sucked his bottom lip. Bitten it.
Not once had she ever…attacked a man’s mouth before.
His hair was messy, but that hadn’t been her, though she wished it was now. The ocean breeze must have done it, or maybe his own hands as he contemplated…what?
Out that window he would have seen her and Jacob in conversation. Had Kane been watching over her? He’d said he would, and of course, he had, like the night before at the bar. He’d promised, and Kane Hathaway kept his promises, she was sure of it.
The thought warmed her, she who was reportedly hard to warm up, and she looked down at the gleaming hardwood floors and felt another wash of humiliation roll over her. Glancing up at Kane, she thought how lucky she was that they’d never made it as far as a bed. Because she’d wanted to do that…find herself in bed with him, but now it was impossible, of course.
It would only result in yet another failure.
Ironic, that she’d told Lilly that she’d decided to pursue some regrets and the first one that came up was the regret of never getting to know Kane Hathaway in the flesh. As in, her naked flesh pressed against his naked flesh.
At her sigh, his head turned. “You’re back.”
She narrowed her eyes. He seemed distracted…almost angry? “Is something the matter?”
His mouth moved but nothing came out, as if he had too many thoughts roiling inside his head.
When he stayed silent, she glanced over at his wall, the one with the solo stick figure and a wild idea struck. Before she left Santa Barbara, she’d get him a pet. A puppy, no, a kitten rather, something tiny and absurdly cute that could fit into his pocket. She’d name it Tickles and tell him if he gave it away it would wound her to the marrow.
Kane wouldn’t want to hurt her.
She smiled at him now, thinking of Tickles.
But the way he was staring caused her smile to die. “What is it?”
“Here’s the thing,” he said, his head still turned over his shoulder, his eyes on hers. “I knocked over your purse.”
Upon arrival, she’d placed it on a sawhorse in the room and it was there again, no worse for the fall. “That’s okay.”
“Things fell out,” he said, and the weird expression on his face set her heart to pounding, loud enough she could hardly hear what he said next.
“I put everything back and the last thing on the ground was your list, folded in half.”
No.
“I picked it up, to look over it again, to remind myself of what items we could accomplish.” He turned around and held out both hands, each holding a piece of paper. “But there were actually two lists.”
One he’d discovered before, and then there was the other, even more private, written in red pen, that she referred to as the Naughty List. A mix of fantasy and s
ecret longing, including…
A boudoir photo shoot.
Phone sex.
Being tied up.
Toys.
Concluding with…
Having an un-faked orgasm by other than her own hand.
The man opposite her stood without moving, his eyes on her face, his beautiful mouth set in a grim line. There was nothing amused or triumphant about him, but it didn’t stop her from feeling naked.
Stripped of her clothes, her pride, and every shred of dignity.
With that intimate knowledge of her he held in his hand, Kane Hathaway could hurt her, very badly indeed.
Chapter 7
“Why are we stopping here?” Audra asked as Kane pulled into a parking lot attached to a small seaside restaurant that appeared to have a great view.
He recalled that Amber had once recommended it. “It’s time for lunch.”
“I thought we were going back to the resort.”
“Change of plans,” he said, because he’d decided returning immediately to Dragonfly Beach would only allow Audra to hole up in her bungalow again and return to brooding.
“I’m not hungry,” she said as he ushered her through the front door.
Yes, she was definitely on the verge of brooding because his Audra was usually a happy eater. With a little shove at the small of her back, he pushed her toward the hostess station. “Get a table for one.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, clearly puzzled. “Why?”
“We’re knocking an item off your list. You wanted to eat at a restaurant by yourself.”
He’d mentioned skinny dipping and nude beach walking earlier, but after finding that other list, he’d decided against tackling anything that required the removal of clothes.
That other list. Good God.
Audra nodded now, albeit reluctantly, and approached the hostess. He watched her being shown to a small table against the glass that looked out over the ocean-view deck.
Blowing out a long breath, he told himself they’d made it over the hump. That other list had knocked him on his ass, hard enough that when she walked in on him reading it, he’d been unable to hide the fact. At his confession, her face had colored an embarrassed scarlet and the only thing he could do was hustle them out of the scene of his accidental crime as quickly as possible.
Me and Mr. Jones Page 9
