The Red Bikini

by Lauren Christopher

  “I mean—I’m having a really great time with you, and I don’t know why I can’t . . . let myself . . .” She shook her head. She knew what she wanted. She whispered the next part: “Why I can’t let myself have casual sex.”

  Fin seemed to find that amusing. He took the photos from her and walked them back to the desk. “Giselle . . .” He straightened some papers, then leaned against the desktop. “This is a dangerous conversation.”

  “I really think—”

  “It’s not a huge mystery. You can’t let yourself have casual sex because you play for keeps. And that’s great.” He gave a rueful laugh. “It’s healthy. Just stay that way.”

  “But maybe I want . . .” She wrestled for what that might be.

  “What?” he asked, frowning.

  What did she want? What Fin had said earlier—that had touched on something that felt true. “Maybe I want passion, like you said.” She whispered it. She was shocked she even let it slip off her tongue, but there it was. Between them. Floating like truth. “Maybe I want to be . . .”

  The clock ticked off the seconds while she tried to formulate what it was.

  “What?” He stepped closer.

  “Desired.”

  Fin’s chest rose and fell rapidly under his navy T-shirt. He dropped his head back. “Giselle,” he whispered. “What are you doing to me here?”

  “I’m not trying to do anything,” she said. “I’m just confused and I . . .”

  She turned toward the door. She didn’t mean to torment him. But before she could reach it, his hand snapped around her wrist. “Listen,” he rasped.

  When she turned, he let go and stepped away from her. He took a deep breath. “You are desired. Half those boys at Rabbit’s stare at you as if you’re dessert. And, on the other end of the age spectrum, I think you had Mr. Turner’s heart-rate monitor up a few notches. So if you think you’ve lost that somewhere, don’t. And if your ex forgot to tell you, he’s an idiot. You’re beautiful. And sexy. And those lips . . . You’re the type of woman who will always be desired. And I—well, I haven’t made it a secret that I’ve been desiring you since the second I laid eyes on you.”

  He took a hesitant step toward her.

  “But I’m standing here thinking you want something more than that. I’m thinking you want to be in love, maybe, long-term. Or married again. Or maybe you’re looking for a good father for Coco.”

  He searched her face, scrutinizing it for his answer.

  “So I’ll ask you, one more time . . .” His voice was quiet, tinged with something that sounded like desperation. “I’m asking what you want. Because if you say you want a long-term relationship, I’m going to spin you on your heel and march you right back out of this bedroom, because I can’t give you that. I’m not equipped for long-term.

  “But if you say all you want is to be desired, or to know how much you’re desired, I’m going to lock that door and hope to God that Fox doesn’t come back for the next couple of hours. Because that I can show you.”

  Giselle stood very still, worried that even the slightest movement would upset the equilibrium of the room. She took in his rock-solid shoulders, his darkening eyes, his sun-kissed hair, and wondered whether she could touch him, have part of him, and then go nonchalantly back to real life. Would one night of passion help her get her life back on track? Was that all she’d been missing?

  She could tell he knew the answer already. He turned to collect the photos. He seemed already resigned, already reeling himself in.

  The old Giselle, she knew, would continue to wring her hands and say yes, she wanted the long-term relationship. It was what she was supposed to want. It was what everyone told her to want.

  But the new Giselle would not.

  The new one would lock the door.

  • • •

  Fin heard the click of the lock, and stood there dumbly for a second, wondering whether he’d heard it right.

  Did she just—? He turned his head.

  Holy fuck, she did.

  He faced her, but then caught her terrified smile, and wondered what he had just unleashed here. Giselle had some kinks in her that she seemed to feel the need to work out, and here he was—lucky bastard—the recipient of her newfound depravity.

  But guilt rose like a tide. He hung back to see where she wanted to go with this. “I guess that’s my answer,” he said.

  “I guess it is.” Her breasts began rising and falling rapidly.

  And damned if his heart wasn’t pounding a hundred miles an hour. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt nervous about touching a woman, but there it was. With Giselle. Damn.

  “I can’t be anything but a lay right now, Giselle.” His voice was husky. He hardly recognized it.

  “It’s okay,” she said on a sweet whisper.

  “This is a one-night stand.”

  “I know.”

  He closed his eyes against the fragility of it all.

  She wasn’t ready for this. One-night stands were good for raw sex; good to scratch that itch; good for men like him who didn’t want anything more than that. But Giselle would feel hurt by the coldness this always ended with. She was coming off a relationship that sounded like it lived and died in coldness—this was not going to make anything better for her.

  And Lia was going to kill him.

  But even as he was coming to those very logical conclusions, and knowing he didn’t want to be the jerk in this scenario, his brain was short-circuiting at the sight of her trembling fingertips going to the top button of that damned sweater. He swallowed hard. He was caught between his own base desires—amplified, tenfold, for some reason with this woman—and the stable, responsible person, the better man, he wanted to be.

  “You won’t be hurt by this?” he reiterated, his voice barely coming out. He knew he was rationalizing already—the desperate man’s last resort.

  But the way she shook made him feel bad. As much as he wanted to see her naked, touch her, be in her, he didn’t want her staring at him with that terrified expression all night.

  She stalled at the button she’d been about to undo while her smile began to dissolve at his last question. His baser side batted twelve good curse words through his head for his idiocy.

  “Because once we get started,” he went on, hoping she’d continue. He wanted that button undone. He wanted that cleavage revealed. He wanted her breasts in his hands, his lips buried there, her clothes coming off. “. . . I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”

  Well, that was fucking true. What if Fox decided to come banging on the front door about now? How was he going to stop here? Did he even turn off the torches outside? Did he close the slider door? Did he—

  His brain stalled as Giselle undid her top button. It was exactly the way he’d imagined it, from that very first night he sat with her on the sand—that primness, juxtaposed with a simmering sexuality that was coming from beneath a very shallow surface, very close to the top. She was so curious, so willing. . . .

  His erection pressed hard against his shorts. His glance swept her dress for a zipper or button or some way he could get the whole thing off her in about five seconds. But he stopped. This needed to be her idea.

  His breathing went shallow, and a line of sweat broke out along his hairline. Watching Giselle strip for him—wriggling out of that dress, stepping out of her underpants—would be something he didn’t want to miss. But given their situation here, this might be their one and only time together. He didn’t want to rush a single second.

  He clenched his back teeth and focused on keeping his feet planted on the wood.

  “Are you sure you still want me?” She seemed uncertain.

  “Giselle.” He tried to keep his voice in a gentle reprimand—the one he used when she doubted her beauty—but it came out on a rasp, as if he didn’t have enough
air. “Can you see how hard I am for you right now?”

  Her eyes darted around, not landing anywhere near his shorts. He bit back a smile. “I’m not faking that.”

  Nodding hesitantly, she finished wriggling her sweater over her elbows, giving him a nice jiggle of her breasts while the sweater slid to the floor.

  He caught his breath. He’d been right about that top. It had a sort of Marilyn Monroe appeal to it and made her breasts look very, very . . . full . . . and very, very . . . What was the word? . . . Touchable. Shit, his brain was giving out. He might not make it through this strip show. His palms began to itch.

  She reached for the hem of the billowy skirt and pulled it up. He swallowed hard. Beneath, he could see milky-white thigh, a color he didn’t see often on the beach. A color he didn’t see often at all, in fact. A color that hinted at unexplored secrets.

  Most of the women he’d been with were coming on to him at this point—experienced, aggressive, ready to move things to the next level they could all predict. He’d never had a woman staring at him like this from across the room—eyes wide, unsure, trusting, hopeful, eager to please, eager to be pleased.

  His breathing went shallow. He had to close his eyes for a second.

  When he opened them, she was wriggling off her panties from under the skirt, bending forward and giving him a glorious view of her breasts almost falling out of that top. Her skirt fell back over the part of her body he most wanted to see, the one he wanted to touch, the one he wanted to be buried in. . . . She delicately pushed the lace-trimmed scrap of underwear to the side with the pointed toe of her shoe, then leaned against the door.

  “There,” she whispered.

  He laughed to himself. They were nowhere near “there.” He glanced at the panties on the floor and swallowed hard, again, imagining the bareness underneath that skirt. It was all he could do not to rush her, run his hands up under the fabric, slip his fingers inside her, take her right against the door. He took another step, although he didn’t mean to.

  “That’s not ‘there,’ Giselle,” his throat scratched out. “I’m not standing here, hanging on by a thread, to see you in a dress.” He tried to smile to lighten the desperation in his voice, but a flicker of nervousness came across her face.

  “You first,” she whispered.

  “I’ll be happy to strip for you, too, when it’s my turn. But please don’t deny me this pleasure.” His voice had a despair laced around the edges that he found embarrassing. “You hold all the power here, Giselle. Look what you do to me. This is desire.”

  Her gaze finally fell to the tent in his shorts. She nodded. The realization seemed to give her strength, and her fingers went to the V of her dress, running toward the crease of her cleavage, exactly where he wanted to be. He imagined kissing her down through that V, his lips moving against soft skin, his hands running up her legs. . . . His mouth went dry. Hang on, man. . . .

  She reached up to untie the dress at her neck. “You have to turn the lights off,” she whispered.

  “No,” he managed to choke out.

  “Fin.”

  “No.”

  She bit her lip. “Please.”

  He shook his head. “Do you always have sex with the lights out?”

  She hesitated for what felt like an eternity, then nodded a little.

  “That’s your mistake number one,” he said. “Or . . . well, your ex’s mistake. I don’t make that kind of mistake. I want to see you. And if you want to feel desired, all you have to do is watch my eyes.” He took another forbidden step. “Watch how crazy you’re going to make me with every piece of your clothing that hits the floor.”

  Her eyes became glossy with something he’d never seen before. Maybe it was her own desire. Maybe it was a challenge. Maybe it was something deeper, something like trust. It made him want to reach out and wrap his arms around her, protect her from guys like him. So he held back, his breath animalistic, his hands desperate, his erection pressing. He listened to the clock ticking in the background and waited for Giselle Underwood to show him her white body and invite him in.

  She started to undo the gigantic belt that was the same color as the dress. Since it looked like part of the fabric, he hoped it would let the whole thing unravel.

  As he stood dumbly, his hands just inches away from ravishing her, a powerful bang exploded in the front room.

  Breaking glass shattered the silence.

  The roar of the ocean got louder.

  Giselle’s face went white as she scrambled for the lock, and Fin lunged forward and yanked the door open.

  CHAPTER

  Eighteen

  Fin was in the front room in five strides.

  He whirled toward the couch where Tamara had—Fuck. She was gone.

  He leaped over a floor lamp that had crashed to the floor, its bulb lying in bits and pieces, then rushed through the open slider and thudded down the concrete steps.

  His eyes went to the rocks.

  The tide pulled back and he was able to scan them, hoping he’d see something. Or hear her. Or something. And holy fuck, where had she gone?

  His heart pounded as he ran across the wet sand, scanning the rocks and the black ocean, waiting for the next wave to roll back to see whether he could see anything in the sand. Could she have gone in the water? How could she have moved so fast?

  He scrambled down to the foamy surf, which was wet and cold, feeling like quicksand as the tide hissed out. He ran the length of the house to make sure she hadn’t gotten stuck in one of the breaker rocks. As he took in another lungful of misty air, the ocean roared behind him and the freezing night tide slammed against the backs of his legs.

  “Fin?” Giselle’s soft voice floated on a pocket of mist behind him. She was on the stairs.

  “Get back up there,” he yelled over his shoulder, still moving along the rocks, pulling through the water as the tide retreated, scanning them first, then scouting the ocean.

  Giselle hadn’t moved.

  “Now!” he yelled at her.

  Satisfied there wasn’t a body in the rocks, he turned and ran into the ocean, scanning the black horizon. The floodlights illuminated about fifty yards, but beyond that was a complete abyss.

  A tiny voice—small, far away—drifted toward him. He whirled to see a figure in the water, bobbing in the darkness, about forty feet out, sputtering for air.

  Tamara!

  She floated in the darkness like ripped seaweed, getting swept back by powerful waves that were rushing out, fast and furious, in a riptide.

  His voice was meant to let her know someone was there for her, but he had the sense it was getting caught on the ocean wind and thrown back at him. He sloshed through the surf, trying to find a spot deep enough to dive. She went under again, but she was still about twenty feet away when the next wave came rising up behind her like a black hand—curling over the top of her, its white foam wrapping like menacing fingers—

  Fin opened his mouth to yell, just as it crashed down, roaring.

  Tamara disappeared.

  “Tamara!” The white foam slammed him the other way, but the water was deep enough now to dive into. He threw himself in, his head exploding from the stabbing cold. He paddled hard, then popped up for a deep breath. When he saw the next wave, black as night, rising like the fists of hell, he dipped under and let it roll over the top of him as he dove toward the sandy bottom. It was so black under there—eerie and silent, like death.

  He came up for breath and searched frantically. He’d been swimming in the right direction, but it was hard to tell which way the waves would carry her. She could have been anywhere, tossed around like debris in this raging tide. He twisted to find her, just in time to see the next wall come up in front of him—black glass, rising. He threw himself underneath, but he knew he’d been late seeing it. The ocean punished his negligence by t
ossing him to the bottom—sand scratching his face and arms—until he got his footing again.

  “Tamara!” he finally hollered, taking a lungful of seawater.

  He twisted his body in time to see her—about twenty-five feet away—getting swept farther out. His arms and legs felt attacked by nails, the water so cold, but he pushed forward. She didn’t appear to be moving. Fin drew a deep breath through frozen lungs and lunged again.

  He caught another wall, rising, getting ready to rage, right in front of him, and—Damn! He just needed one minute. But he had to go under again, this time paddling hard in the iciness to propel him in her direction.

  When he came up on the other side of the wave, she was about fifteen feet away, getting batted. Her movements were labored. He knew from talking with her that she was a strong swimmer, but this tide was powerful. The blackness was disorienting. And alcohol in your system never helped.

  He threw himself toward her—closing the gap between them to about ten feet—but the ocean lifted her out of reach. The next swell propelled him closer and he grabbed. He caught her hair, then her arm. He gripped fiercely, but had to bring them both under while the next huge wave crashed over their heads, and he felt the white water hammer over his head. He knew he was going to lose her—the ocean was pulling her the other way—but he held on as best he could and managed to keep his fingers manacled around her upper arm. Sand slashed their skin. He felt her slip. But the water retreated, and he was able to shoot up for air on the other side. He spouted water, his lungs feeling like knives were slashing them, but stunned that he still had a grasp on her. He had about a quarter of a minute before the next wave. He yanked her toward him and got her into a lifeguard’s hold, across her chest and under her arms.

  She fought. It was a natural reaction. But he held firmly, the way he’d been taught.

  “It’s okay.” His voice rasped on a breath. They were in a riptide, the water below rushing off to sea. He’d have to pull her farther out, just to get out from the wave breaks so they could swim parallel to shore. He began lugging her, and she gurgled, clawing at his forearm.