"Watch for it," Ryan ordered, as the sun moved down into the ocean horizon. The sun went from full sun to a half-circle to a blip at the edge, to, yes! the green flash.
It wasn't just a myth. There was a flash of green light as the sun went down and the moon came up.
The water lapped at our feet, buried in the white sand.
A flock of water birds flew in formation, low along the shore.
Sailboats cruised by quietly, heading back to the harbor for the evening.
The pink, white, and yellow plumeria scented the air.
It was just us, on a deserted beach.
Then.
Ryan reached into the waistband of his trunks, in one of those little inner mesh pockets, and pulled out a diamond ring the size of an ice rink.
He got down on both knees in front of me.
My heart seized up and he started talking.
"I love you and you love me. You are the only one I have ever loved. I want to be with you for the rest of my life and I want to make it official. Marry me, Amelia," he said, green eyes sparkling.
Well.
Oh my. My stomach dropped and my heart beat faster. But the thing was, there was no question. Absolutely. No question about it. The rest of my life with my own personal Sun God? I couldn't think of anything better. I was so in love with him, I risked diving into schmaltz to tell you about it.
But I couldn't resist getting in a little sass.
"Are you asking me or telling me?"
"Both."
I smiled, looked at him with my cool, violet eyes to his warm, green ones, and said "Yes."
Ryan's Perspective
In the coffee shop, first meeting
I LOOKED UP TO serve the next person in line and locked eyes with a violet pair that I’d recognize anywhere.
Holy fuck.
Amelia Crowley. My wet dream.
Amelia Crowley, prom queen. Amelia Crowley, senior class president. Amelia Crowley, Harvard-bound.
Fuck.
I looked at her. Glossy dark mane of hair. Technicolor eyes. She was hot. H.O.T. All Bond girl hot, with a suit racing around her beautiful curves. Intelligent hot. Beautiful hot. She was my centerfold. My ideal. Shit.
And she walked into Southwinds, looking like a movie star. A full on pinup.
She could be mine now.
I hadn't thought about her in years but it all came rushing back to me. The hottest girl in high school. The only one I had ever wanted. The one I dreamed of if I thought of my dream girl. She never looked at me in high school, but I was a freshman when she was a senior. And none of the shit had happened to me yet.
More than ten years later, I've grown up. And, it looked like, so did she. In all the right places.
She breathed out and words came out of those lush, full lips as she gave me her order.
And I was hard.
It was like I hadn’t left high school and couldn't control my dick. Unbelievable.
I rung her up and took her card to swipe it. Same last name. I looked at her hand. No ring.
Game on.
I prayed for my pants to behave. Down boy. It wasn’t the time.
As I handed her card back to her, she touched me. There was, honest to God, fucking electricity.
It was time to come up with a plan.
I put my nose back to the grindstone (or in this case, my straining dick to the counter, hoping to hide it) and handled the next person in line, the whole time aware of nothing but Amelia, standing off to the side.
She didn't recognize me, but I didn't care. I was going after her. She was going to be mine.
After the kiss in the surfside parking lot
I pulled my grandfather's 1968 Ford F-100 truck into my garage and closed the door.
Amelia Fucking Crowley. She still looked like a movie star.
I kissed her. I had wanted to do that for what, ten years? More? She tasted like Mexican food and hot girl. I had to see her again.
No. I needed to fuck her.
I headed out of the garage into my house and went straight to the shower to wash off the ocean water and salt.
I stripped off my clothes and turned on the water, waiting for it to warm up. It didn't take long and I stepped in, dipping my head to get my out-of-control hair wet, my muscles relaxed.
The warm water pounded my skin and I soaped up, washing my body clean, but my thoughts were anything but. Her eyes. Those gorgeous, violet blue eyes. That hair. I wanted to weave my hands in her hair. That body.
Yeah, that body. Fuck me, a body made for guys to worship.
Nipped in waist. Amelia's curvy, hot hips and ass. Gorgeous legs. Soft skin. Soft breasts. Soft hair.
Soft to my hard.
She turned me on without even knowing that she was doing it.
Fuck.
As my hand found my dick, I stroked it, soft at first, and then harder and faster, pumping myself. I wanted Amelia in my bed and I wanted her in her bed. I wanted to fuck her until she moaned my name, and then screamed for mercy. I wanted to feel her shuddering beneath me. I wanted to give her pleasure she had never known before. I wanted to lick her soft skin, eat her pussy, and inhale her scent. I wanted to get to know her breasts on a first-name basis. I wanted to talk dirty to her until she couldn't take it anymore. I wanted her up against the wall, in my truck, on the beach, at night, in the morning, and every way I could have her.
I closed my eyes and moved my hand faster and faster, gripping with more tension, feeling the vein in the underside of my dick come alive, feeling the tip straining, feeling my balls pulling up, the pressure mounting, until I came with a groan, pulsing and shuddering, wet spurts hitting the walls of my shower, thinking, always, of her.
Before the company dinner
The next customer set down a yogurt on the counter and ordered a latte. Amelia's order.
I thought about her smoking hot body, her lacy thong between the globes of her gorgeous ass, her tiny waist, and her face.
Shit.
My dick stirred.
Thinking of her would get me into trouble at work. I didn't need the distraction. It didn't help that I could still taste her on my lips.
After the Fielding Pharmaceuticals Foundation dinner
A drunk Amelia is a fucking funny Amelia.
Total dream come true to have her with me at the dinner tonight, setting aside her freak-out sessions. Total. Fucking. Dream. Come. True.
And her freak-outs showed me a secret part of her. I was going to get through to her and she was going to be mine.
In every way.
I felt bad for all that had happened to her. I wanted her to be happy. Not freaked out. I wanted to protect her, although I know full well you can't protect someone from shit that already happened. I was going to try anyway.
The more I learned about her the more I liked her. The more I thought she was strong and beautiful.
Ironic to think that the more she learned about me, the more she got pissed at me. I mean, she got pissed at me because she didn't know that I was more than just a coffee shop slacker-surfer.
Not cool.
I got over it pretty fast, though. She seemed to not care either way and was just surprised to find out. I figured she knew.
But fuck, if she was going to get pissed, the makeup sex was hot. I had to remember that.
Something else was bothering her tonight, though. I was going to have to find out what it was.
I decided to take her home and let the suite at Bacara go—I wanted some privacy tonight and, honestly, I wanted to see her in my bed, at my beach house, that gorgeous body all spread out for me in the moonlight.
So since I was a horny son of a bitch, I'd tell you: I wanted her naked, spread out, glistening bare pussy and full, perfect globes of her tits ready for me. I wanted to run my tongue down her body, lick her belly button, and kiss her ribs. I wanted to make her aroused, smell her turn on, and get her pussy all plump and wet and creamy. And I wanted her specifically in my
house, by the beach, with all of the windows open, the waves crashing outside, the moonlight on the water and reflecting on her skin, the moist air.
And that was just for starters.
That had pretty much been my fantasy every night for the past few weeks—at least the nights that I was not with her. Horny bastard here wanted to see what it was like for real.
I already had a taste of it in her bed. I swear, I couldn't believe the way she looked the first time I had her in her bed. All that beauty. Hot freaking girl. Mine.
She thought she owned her sexuality with her rules, but the truth was, she had no idea. She was so wrong. I was going to teach her to own her sexuality. By the time I taught her to open up, she was going to just own it. Own it.
And, hopefully, share it with me.
I would admit it: She was the best I ever had. It was amazing that with all the shit in her history, she was so hot—once she opened up—so responsive, so fucking turned on.
She aroused me.
All night long.
Truthfully, she aroused me for most of the past few weeks.
Yeah, I was a horny fucker.
Tonight, man, tonight was almost too much to take.
Jen, my little sister, was still at school so I had to go tonight to represent the family. But I was glad that I went even if I had no choice, and even though the event always brought up a lot of bad memories about my parents' deaths, and even though tonight there was drama for Amelia.
Because this time my Movie Star was with me.
In past years, I just took one of the society blondes, like Tiffany or Ashley or Destiny or Taylor, because I needed to take someone and they were good for a quick fuck, and looked good in the pictures, but they didn't mean anything.
Not like Amelia.
No one else meant anything.
A guy's gotta find it somewhere, but when a woman was the whole package—brains, beauty, attitude—fuck. I didn't want anyone else. I know it was a cliché, but I had eyes only for her. True story.
She was so hot tonight all dressed up. That face. That dress. That body. So fucking lush. She was like a feast. She didn't need to do anything to make me want her.
But then she started drinking the wine (there were two open bottles on each table and they kept getting replenished) and the night got more interesting.
She hissed like she was in a fucking vaudeville audience when her ex walked past. He didn't acknowledge her. That was a good thing. I would have had to kick his ass if he said any shit to her and that was a bad idea at the Fielding Pharmaceuticals Foundation annual charity dinner. Especially a bad idea if the oldest Fielding was the one to deliver the ass-kicking.
She was polite during the speeches and had the biggest smile on her face when I got up there to thank everyone for coming and to tell them to pull out their wallets and empty them out for cancer research.
But while the keynote speaker gave her speech and the President of the Board of Directors of the Foundation talked, she got closer and closer to me, her hand moving up my leg, resting at the top of my thigh, her mouth in my ear, whispering funnier than hell comments all night long. As she drank more and the night went on, she went from sweet to increasingly sexier and sexier—if that was even possible with her. I just tried to keep her drinking water in the meanwhile, which wasn't too hard to do. She wasn't a loud drunk, she was a fun drunk, and it was hotter than hell.
I have no idea how I walked out of there, my dick was so painful.
I caught her when she came back from the bathroom. I didn't know what happened, she had her fist up, and she seemed to have gotten into a fight, but she was in no condition to tell me. She seemed okay, though. After dinner was done, Amelia was D-O-N-E. She giggled and held on to me to walk. She was totally adorable. She smelled amazing.
I got her in the car and drove us to my house.
When we got there, I pulled the Tesla into my garage and parked it between the 4-Runner and the McLaren. (A 650s Spider, black, if you were wondering.) It was a quiet ride home since she fell asleep after telling me how, exactly, she was going to suck my dick, even though (she told me) she had never done it before and even though she said she wasn't going to do it again, she was going to do it one time just to break her rules.
Her sex rules were hilarious. Sex rules. I would show her some sex rules. Like, it was a rule that she must have multiple orgasms every time. Or, it was a rule that, like Russell Brand says, I was the second coming, always. Ladies first, you know.
I was not sure that she knew what she was saying in the car but it was still funnier than hell just the same. And the whole time, since she was a quiet drunk, she was whispering those dirty words. To me. All this sex coming out of her full lips. Fuck me. The hard-on would not go away.
I felt like a warning in an ad for Viagra. "If you have an erection lasting more than four hours … ."
Too bad she was in no condition to take care of it now.
Time to take my Bond girl hottie to bed.
I went around and opened up the car door and caught her as she slumped. She woke up a little, but I didn't trust her to walk. Not in those shoes. But there was no way I would tell her to take them off. I had amended my earlier fantasy to include her wearing nothing but those silver high heels in my bed.
Yeah.
I lifted her up and she put her head on my shoulder, cuddling against me.
God I loved that.
I kicked the car door closed, beeped it, and went into my beach house.
"You're so pretty," she murmured, and I laughed, quietly, but hard.
I walked to my bedroom and set her on my bed. It was a full moon night, an autumn moon, and the night was clear. I opened up the sliding glass doors and let the salty, moist ocean air come in. I went back to the bed and unzipped her dress with the zipper located along her side. It wasn't easy, but I got her out of it and looked back at my handiwork.
Dark, curly brown hair splayed out across my white pillows. Pale shoulders. Arms spread out, long elegant fingers resting on the mattress. She was wearing just a sage green satin bra with no shoulder straps and matching teeny, satiny panties. And those silver shoes. Her legs went on and on.
Whoa.
My bed was a good place to be.
Too bad she was asleep. I looked forward to waking her up in the morning.
I carefully unhooked her bra and took off her shoes, even though I didn't want to. Okay, so I copped a little feel of her tits. But no more.
Then I got her a Yater board t-shirt of mine and put it on her. She helped a little.
Then I stripped and crawled in next to her, her cool skin next to my warm body, and cradled her all night long.
Author’s Note
As may be obvious from the subject matter of this book, I had my own personal journey through deep, suicidal depression. Years of essentially untreated depression led to a bad crisis in 2014. My personal recovery involved hospitalization, medication, therapy, exercise, saying no to things I didn’t want to do, allowing myself to do the things that I really wanted to do (like writing), and being open about my story. I wanted you to know, if you are suffering from depression, that you are not alone. I came out of it, and you can too. If you need help, please get it. Depression is not your fault and you can get better. I’m rooting for you.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the United States is 1-800-273-8255 and www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org and there are local mental health resources everywhere.
I love you and I encourage you to get help. No question about it: it’s worth it.
About the Author
Leslie McAdam is a California girl who loves romance, Little Dude, and well-defined abs. She lives in a drafty, old farmhouse on a small orange tree farm in Southern California with her husband and two small children. Leslie always encourages her kids to be themselves—even if it means letting her daughter wear leopard print from head to toe. An avid reader from a young age, she will always trade watching TV for reading a b
ook, unless it's Top Gear. Or football. Leslie is employed by day but spends her nights writing about the men you fantasize about. She's unapologetically sarcastic and notoriously terrible at comma placement.
Always up for a laugh, Leslie tries to see humor in all things. When she's not in the writing cave you'll find her fangirling over Beck, camping with her family, or mixing up oil paints to depict her love of outdoors on canvas.
Find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lesliemcadamauthor or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/lesliemcadam
Preview of The Stars in the Sky
Book 2 in the Giving You… series
Foul-mouthed, tattooed, vegan Marie Diaz-Austin accepted a summer internship on a ranch north of Santa Barbara to work with underprivileged and special needs kids. Will Thrash, the gorgeous, but conservative rancher, wants nothing to do with left-wing liberals like her.
Although they hate each other’s politics, they cannot deny their immediate and growing attraction to each other. What will give? Their principles or themselves?
A book about our ideologies and our human-ness. Politics and sex. Prejudices and beliefs.
Chapter 1: First Impressions
GOD, I REALLY HAD TO PEE.
Only ten more minutes to go until I got there. Come on, come on, come on. I willed my car to go faster. I was out in the middle of nowhere and I really did not want to have to stop and find a bush. I squeezed my thighs together. Since it was a hot June day, and I was wearing denim short-shorts, this just made me sticky and sweaty. Not helping.
The "time of arrival" on my GPS app ticked down to nine more minutes.
I put my foot on the gas pedal. My car was an old Mercedes sedan that had been converted to bio-diesel, so I should probably call it the accelerator rather than the gas pedal. I was trying to cut down on my use of fossil fuels. My car was powered by leftover vegetable oil from Chinese restaurants. My car proudly advertised its alternative fuel source on the back window in big green lettering. It always smelled like kitchen grease wherever I went, but I would do anything for the environment.
The Sun and the Moon (Giving You ... #1) Page 19
