Passionate Kisses 2 Boxed Set: Love in Bloom

by Magda Alexander

He didn’t answer right away. The diner’s front door opened and closed, and two figures huddled under the flimsy awning rather than run straight into the rain. Jace peered closer. Pearl. And a guy he didn’t recognize, though he could guess from the body language, the way the guy leaned too close and laughed too hard, that it was Royal Holden. The ex. The good guy.

  Jace scowled so hard, the beginnings of a headache started around his temples. “I’ll be there.”

  Pearl reached out and touched Royal’s chest a moment before he dashed into the rain. He crossed The Esplanade without looking - as if traffic would naturally stop for him - and climbed into a sleek, gold Lexus.

  “All right, then. See you tonight,” Marshall finished. The call ended with an abrupt click in Jace’s ear, and he tore off the earpiece and tossed it into the center console.

  “Hello?”

  He wasn’t sure which he heard first, the muted voice or the faint tapping on his passenger window. Someone stood outside in the rain.

  “Jace?”

  Aw, hell. Pearl was hunched down next to his car so her cute little nose was almost pressed to the glass. Rain ran in rivulets down the window, down her face, dampening her shirt. “Hey. Can I join you?”

  He jabbed the unlock button, feeling like Idiot Supreme that she’d had to ask him. A moment later the door flew open, and in came the sound of the storm and the smell of the beach and her. All of her, long legs in shorts that just topped her thighs, and breasts that filled out a navy-blue, long-sleeved shirt, and her hair, dark and damp on her shoulders. Her perfume. Her gap-toothed smile.

  “What are you doing? Why didn’t you come inside?” She rubbed her hands on her thighs. “Where did this come from, anyway?” she said before he’d had time to think of an answer to the first two questions. She flipped her fingers at the windshield. “Look at this storm.”

  Lightning cracked again, almost simultaneously with the thunder that shook the sports car. For a moment, Jace’s thoughts fuzzed, and all he wanted was to gather her in his arms and let her snuggle that warm, wet body up to him until everything else went away.

  She laid a hand on his thigh. “You in there?”

  “Sorry.” He dropped his hand on hers and squeezed. He couldn’t do more, couldn’t touch her the way he knew she wanted to be touched. If he did, he’d explode.

  But she must not have felt the same way, because the next thing he knew, she was crawling into his lap.

  “I missed you,” she said as she nuzzled his neck.

  Aw, hell. Without even trying for control, without listening to his brain at all, his hands went to her hips, securing her on his lap. Those shorts rode up even farther, and his thumbs slipped beneath the fabric. So wet. He knew she would be if he tried, if he touched.

  “What about the guy?” he muttered.

  “What guy?”

  “Outside the diner.” He sounded like a jealous jerk, but he didn’t care. He needed to know.

  She leaned back slightly. “Royal? He was there to say hi. And see Dolly.” She feathered his cheek with kisses. “Nothing else.”

  “No?” His hands went again to her ass, loving the way it curved inside his palms.

  “No, Mister Jealousy,” she said into his ear. “There’s no one else.”

  He loved the words - and then he hated them, because he still hadn’t decided what the hell he was doing. Marshall Reagan. Carl Evans. A business opportunity that would set him on the career fast-track. Pearl DeVane, the girl he’d crushed on for years.

  “You’re here on business, aren’t you? Not to just visit me and Dolly or get a cup of coffee,” she murmured. She nibbled his earlobe as one hand slipped between his groin and the V of her own legs. Her palm pressed against his rising erection, and in the next instant his hips bucked of their own accord.

  “I -” He couldn’t get another word out, couldn’t answer her question even if he’d wanted to.

  The rain picked up, the lightning and thunder alternating in a steady rhythm outside as Pearl’s tongue moved from his ear to his bottom lip and inside his mouth. Her hand continued to stroke him, up and down, the pressure just enough to tease the hell out of him.

  “Wish it was just pleasure,” she said into his mouth. She pulled back so she could look him in the eye. “But we aren’t there yet, are we?”

  He couldn’t see straight. For a moment he had no idea what she was talking about, because he was just about there. Just about ready to lay down the front seat and tear off her shorts and panties and bury himself inside her.

  God, he wanted to come. More than that, he wanted to make her come, to hear her pant his name and feel her tighten around him. He wanted the hot tub on the cruise ship, times one thousand.

  She touched the soft underside of his chin with one finger, but when he finally focused on her instead of the thoughts raging inside his head, the light had left her smile. With one hand, he rubbed her back, unsure what to say. She leaned down and kissed his cheek, then slipped off his lap and returned to the other side of the car.

  “It’s more complicated than I thought it would be,” she said, almost to herself. She looked straight ahead. A siren wailed somewhere in the distance, and absently Jace wondered if the power had gone out or someone had spun off the road.

  “This?” he asked, knowing what she meant.

  “Yes. This.” She waved her hand between them. “I guess I thought that once you saw Dolly and the diner again, and after we went on the cruise together…”

  “That I’d change my mind?”

  She shrugged.

  Something stirred in his stomach. “You knew why I was here,” he began. “You knew it was Marshall who sent me down here.”

  “Of course I knew then. The first day.” Her hair fell in front of her face, and he wanted to push it back so he could see her expression. “I just…yeah, I thought you’d change your mind, realize how much it meant to us.” She turned. “To be honest, I thought you’d remember you grew up here, that this diner was your hangout all through school. You and Toby and Bryce. This is where your roots are.”

  “I don’t have any goddamned roots in Venice.” The words spilled out before he could stop them.

  Her cheeks went from pink to red, and her mouth widened in shock. Then she blinked, and he could see all the desire wilt away, just vanish, as if it had never existed at all. She reached for the door handle.

  You can’t have everything…

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jace touched Pearl’s knee before she could open the door and throw herself out into the wind and rain - a rather dramatic gesture, to be sure, but it seemed as though the moment called for it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That came out wrong.”

  “I don’t think it could have come out any other way.” She stopped and turned to look at him, fingers still on the door handle. “Why do you hate this place so much?”

  He sighed and fidgeted in his seat. Really, he was too tall for the car, his legs too long and the top of his head practically brushing the roof. For a moment she thought about asking why he drove it, but she’d bet it was either a company car, or he’d bought it after his first big sale. Prestige, money — those things mattered to this Jace McClintock. Not the one she’d known back in high school.

  “I don’t hate it.” His fingers went to the steering wheel, drumming restlessly. “It just doesn’t have good memories for me.”

  “Not one? Eighteen years here and you don’t have anything good to remember?” Her gaze went to The Esplanade, to the trees lining it. She’d watched them grow as she grew, from medium-sized to tall to impossibly out of reach. She’d watched the stores around them open and close. She’d watched hundreds, maybe thousands, of sunsets on this beach. She went to sleep feeling sand between her toes. “This place is everything to me.”

  His fingers stilled. “Really?” He turned to her. “You wouldn’t ever leave?”

  “Why would I want to?”

  His jaw twitched. “Then I don’t
think things are gonna work out between us,” he said, his voice gruff.

  She shivered. Her clothes, still wet from the rain, stuck to her in the wrong places, cold and gummy. “You know what? You’ve got this whole tough guy thing going on, same as in high school, and I get it. Life is hard, people are shitty, and you don’t want to let down your guard because you don’t want to get hurt.” She stopped for a breath. “You don’t think I know that? That I’ve seen other people like you? Pouring coffee and waiting on customers all these years has given me a little insight on human nature.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “But I’ll tell you what, this business-is-everything-and-I-won’t-ever-get-close-to-anyone approach is pathetic and not the Jace McClintock I knew.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “I know you had a lousy life growing up here. That doesn’t mean you have to turn your back on every last thing that reminds you of Venice.”

  “It doesn’t mean I have to hang onto every last thing, either.” His gaze flicked to her. “I know when to let go.”

  She bristled. “What are you saying? That I don’t?”

  He remained impassive, staring straight ahead.

  “By all means, go on. Tell me what’s on your mind. Because obviously you’ve become so worldly, such a successful businessman with your Mercedes and your Rolex and your cruises, that you know all about people like me.”

  “Pearl.” He reached for her hand. “I don’t want to fight.”

  Emotion rushed through her, hot and confusing. She pulled her hand away.

  “I don’t think I’m worldly or all that successful or anything else. You’re right. I had a lousy life here. I left, and I’m looking forward. I want to do something important, pay the bills and have a job I’m proud of.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that includes going backward.”

  “Am I going backward for you?”

  “If you don’t want to leave the diner and this town, then yes. Potentially, very much so.”

  She chuckled, a sad little sound that hurt her lips as it left. “You don’t want to stay. I don’t want to go.” She looked at him, at that heartbreakingly handsome face she’d crushed on for years. “I guess you’re right. We’re at one hell of an impasse.”

  Thunder cracked above the car, and she counted the seconds before the lightning came, the way Dolly had taught her years ago. The farther apart they are, the farther away the storm is. She’d always taken comfort in that. Thunder and lightning rarely struck in exactly the same place, at exactly the same time.

  But she only got through half a second of counting when a blinding flash lit up the entire street.

  “Holy shit,” Jace blurted out. “That was close.”

  Another crack. Another flash. This time, the car itself shook. Outside, wind bent the palm trees almost in half.

  “This doesn’t look good,” Pearl said an instant before another flash split the sky apart. A transformer across the street sparked wildly and the pole swayed, then cracked, then fell into the street. Electrical wires caught on the diner’s bedraggled awning, and the next moment, the entire thing went up in flames.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next hour was a blur of rain and fire and sirens and Pearl’s heart beating so erratically inside her chest she thought it might explode. By the time she reached the diner, her legs shaking and throat burning from screaming Dolly’s name, the fire had spread from the awning to the front door. Inside, she could make out her aunt and the cook wielding fire extinguishers. White spray everywhere. Smoke filling her lungs. An emergency worker pulling her back and putting an oxygen mask to her mouth and nose.

  As she sat in the back of the ambulance, trying to draw a full breath when she was certain one wouldn’t come, she watched Jace punch numbers into his cell phone and pace along the sidewalk. He hadn’t left, which surprised her. He’d followed her, he may have been the one to call 911 -she wasn’t sure - and then he’d remained in the background. Occasionally he looked her way, but he didn’t approach her, and she wondered if that was because of concern or because he was talking to his boss.

  We can make an offer now, he’d be saying. No, doesn’t look like a whole lot of damage, but they’ll have to make repairs. Not sure what kind of insurance they have, but even so…

  Pearl’s eyes burned, and when the emergency worker put a blanket over her shoulders, she wrapped it tight and closed her eyes. It’s over. She wasn’t sure whether she meant the diner or her relationship with Jace, but it almost didn’t matter. She glanced at him again. He stood down the block, talking to Dolly, his phone still to his ear. No smile. No expression at all. The back of his shirt and pants were soaked, and his dark-brown curls clung to his neck. If she tried hard enough, she could feel them in her fingertips, back in the hot tub when they were both wet for a different reason.

  She wanted to get up, to shrug off the blanket and go to him and rewind their conversation in the car so it all made sense and came out right. She wanted him to choose her. She wanted to choose him, to not feel that hot, stubborn stone inside her stomach every time she thought about losing the diner. But the longer she sat there, the more her resolve shrank.

  Jace glanced at her once more, then made an OK sign with his fingers and raised one eyebrow. He was asking a question, she realized after a moment.

  I’m okay, she mouthed back, though she wasn’t. Still, what was left to say? His phone went back into his pocket, but he tapped his watch as if to say Gotta go.

  She nodded. Of course he did. He had work to do, work that would take him away from Venice and Pearl. Business came first. He’d made that abundantly clear from the start.

  Dolly finished talking to the police officer and hurried toward the ambulance. A few cars circled the block, detouring around orange cones that blocked off the now-dead transformer. Horns beeped. The radio inside the ambulance buzzed with voices and static. Pearl’s brain filled with a rush of traffic sounds and a dull, heavy headache and words she wanted to say but didn’t know how.

  When she looked up again, Jace was gone.

  *****

  Jace adjusted his tie and took a quick look in the mirror before heading downstairs. It was only seven, but rush-hour traffic would be heavy. Plus, he wanted to get to The Rialto with enough time to grab a drink and steady his nerves.

  He pulled out of the garage and squeezed the Mercedes into traffic, ignoring the honks behind him. At the first red light, he checked his phone. All day he’d wondered about Pearl, worried about her, waited for a text or a call.

  Nothing had come. He’d left her a voice mail after getting back to the city, but she hadn’t returned it. Maybe she hadn’t gotten it. Maybe she didn’t want to.

  The light turned green, and he gunned the accelerator and cut in front of a Chevy beside him. He punched the radio, looking for a station to drown out the voices in his head. This is the right thing. She’ll understand. It’s business, that’s all.

  AC/DC was singing “Highway to Hell,” which seemed pretty fitting. He cranked the volume.

  It wasn’t just business, and he knew that as well as anyone. It was the choice he’d made, though, and one thing he’d learned a long time ago was to stick by his choices. Real men didn’t back down or waffle about what they wanted. Marshall Reagan sure didn’t. Neither did Carl Evans.

  Neither did Dear Old Dad, did he? When he decided to go out for a drink after work, he stayed until midnight. When he decided someone in the house had pissed him off, he followed through with the meanest swing he could. And when he decided to leave, he left. For good.

  Jace changed the station again and almost slammed into the back of a bright blue Mustang at the next light.

  Maybe twangy George Strait singing about a good ol’ time would keep his mind off Pearl. His fingers kept time on the wheel, and he hummed along. The light changed, and Jace revved the engine. He might like to own a Mustang one day. Or maybe a Ferrari. Might as well dream big, right?

  He turn
ed at the next block and pulled into The Rialto’s spacious parking lot. But as the last notes of the song faded away, his upbeat mood faded with them. This wasn’t a good ol’ time. Closing real estate deals and eating dinners at fancy restaurants wasn’t a bad way to spend some nights, but buying out someone’s heart and soul wasn’t something he wanted to celebrate.

  A good time? That was walking on the beach and watching the stars. Eating cheesecake and laughing until his stomach ached. Watching Pearl’s green eyes turn dark as he touched her. Breathing in her scent. Kissing her. Those were good times.

  He pulled up to the valet stand and opened his door. He’d arrived in less than twenty minutes, which meant he had time for at least one drink before meeting with the two biggest names in Florida real estate.

  “Your ticket, sir,” said a young guy with a pimply face. Probably wasn’t much out of high school. He waited outside Jace’s open door, a white stub in his hand.

  “Thanks.” Jace wondered for a moment what the kid’s story was. Did he park cars on the side and take classes during the day? Was this his fulltime job? Did he eye the businessmen who drove up in their fancy cars and their expensive suits and dream of being one of them someday? Or did he go out for a beer with his buddies after work and laugh about the chumps who sold their souls to make a million?

  The kid grinned as he eyed first Jace and then the Mercedes. “Nice wheels.”

  Jace blinked, recognizing the envy in his voice. Coupled with the trying-for-casual stance, the shirt sleeves rolled above taut biceps, and the worn-down shoes and bad haircut, it was almost like looking in a mirror. I was him five years ago. Wishing hard, trying harder, and thinking that getting out of town and making fistfuls of money was the ticket to a better life.

  And maybe it had been, but now he wondered whether leaving everything behind had damned him as much as blessed him with a clean slate.

  “You worked here long?” he asked as he took the valet ticket.

  “‘Bout six months.” The kid glanced at the brightly-lit entrance of The Rialto. “Nice place. You ever been here before?”