Then she twirled around, waved to Stu, and waltzed back outside toward the ocean.
“That lady famous or somethin’?” Stu asked.
“She is,” I said.
“I like her.” He tossed the rag back over his shoulder and proceeded to yell at a man in the back. I reached forward, grabbed another drink umbrella to give to her.
Tried to quiet the voice in my head that echoed Stu’s words.
I liked her too.
Another bad idea.
28
Luna
“This is the only way I like to truly enjoy a beer courtesy of Heineken,” I told Beck. I’d dragged the man over to a picnic bench facing the Atlantic Ocean, waves a frothy peach as the sun began its long descent behind us. Then I told him to wait a few minutes while I procured some extra-special provisions from the food truck across the street.
Now I was sitting barefoot and cross-legged with a plate on my lap and the beer to my right.
“What is this?” Beck asked.
“Alchemy.” I nudged his shoulder with mine. “My favorite food stand right over there sells mango on a stick. It’s dusted with chili powder and sea salt.” I picked up the stick, tugged the sweet fruit free. Licked the salt and chili powder from my fingers while keeping my eyes on his blue ones.
“Lick the salt. Eat the mango. Drink the beer.”
He reached forward, mimicked my motions. I watched his lips, closing around the sticky fruit. And it was probably that same lightness I’d been feeling, combined with the adrenaline, the handsome man next to me, the scent of his shirt, the sunset—but I held my salt-and-chili-powder fingers out to him.
“Lick,” I said.
His gaze informed me I was now playing with fire.
Which was fine by me. I was a child of the earth, a worshiper of the natural elements.
Fire didn’t scare me.
Fire intrigued me.
Beck Mason wrapped his thick fingers around my wrist and brought my fingers to his mouth. He sucked the tip of my index finger between lips that were soft, powerful. I felt his tongue—warm—curl around the digit.
“Delicious,” he rasped.
“Now drink your beer, boss,” I replied. I was going to have to remember every detail of this night so I could relay it at Mordecai’s Bistro to Emily, Cameron and Daisy. They would be so proud.
We both took pulls of frosty liquid—my mouth exploding with cold bubbles, tart hops, sweet mango, spicy chili and salt.
“What’s the word you said?” Beck asked.
“Alchemy,” I replied.
“What does it mean?”
“When a process seems magical. Like a transformation. An elixir.”
Beck licked the remaining salt from his lips. “I like that.”
I smiled, watched the crashing waves for a minute. The humid breeze caressed my skin, wrapping around us both. “Is this what it feels like during your day? This… effervescence?”
His brow furrowed. “What does that word mean?”
“Light. Bubbly,” I explained.
“Yeah. Although it’s only one dog.” Beck said that almost robotically.
“That’s not how I see it,” I explained. “When we do good in this world, it doesn’t matter how small we believe it to be. Kindness ripples, has an impact long after our connection is finished. To me, you’re a hero.”
“You’ll make me blush,” Beck said. He shifted on the table, knee resting on mine.
He didn’t move it.
“Does anything really make you blush?” I teased, leaning back on my palms.
“Gorgeous women drinking expensive whiskey.”
My heart tripped, spun, fell over itself.
Beck Mason liked me.
The knowledge spread through me like a languid pleasure.
Because I liked him too.
Those butterflies magnified.
“Noted,” I said. “For the future.”
“You don’t feel this way at Wild Heart? Effervescent?”
“Sometimes. Or… no. Also yes?”
He chuckled.
“I guess I founded Wild Heart based on that feeling. But my responsibilities are vast and what we do is more at a systems-level, working to change the way corporate values and social justice values intersect. It’s thrilling. Innovative. Terrifying.” I pulled at the label on my beer, tugging it clean off. “The effervescence has rubbed off a little bit, I think. Which isn’t bad. Just a change.”
A shift, my subconscious reminded me.
“Learning about the animal testing was actually a brutal reminder of how close I am to it. I guess it is more personal than I realized.” I sucked a piece of mango into my mouth, experienced that same crash of taste. “I do miss this feeling of personal connection. Rescuing Sunshine… there’s no other feeling like it, is there?”
“I don’t think so, no,” he said. “I struggle with that, being on the front-line, working with dogs rather than with donors. Elián doesn’t want me doing things like this. Neither does my board. They want me talking to people. Asking for money.”
I tipped my bottle against his. “Well, for tonight, I say fuck ’em.”
“Never thought I’d hear Luna da Rosa say fuck ’em.”
I snorted. “What do you think I’d say?”
“Let them follow their own spiritual path.”
I shook my head, laughing into my beer. “I’ve got many layers, Beck Mason.”
“I’m beginning to realize that,” he said—and his eyes on mine felt magical.
Alchemy. Maybe there was more elixir than alcohol in this Heineken.
“Do you have a dog, Beck?” I asked.
“Me? No. Why?” he said.
“Because you’re a dog hero,” I said. “I guess this whole time I assumed you had like seventy dogs living with you.”
He stared off into the peach-tinted sea. The palm trees around us were transforming into dark, tropical silhouettes. “I already have fifteen dogs at Lucky Dog.”
I nudged his knee. “But you don’t want your own dog?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Ever since Willow…” He stopped.
“Willow… the dog you worked with in that program?” I asked, the memory sliding back. Beck, all alone on his graduation day, watching this dog he’d cared for be taken away by another family.
“It was twenty years ago. I don’t admit that to a lot of people because I think they’ll think it’s stupid.”
I winced at that word. “Stupid?”
“It was one dog. Two decades ago. I can’t move past that?”
“Beck.” I lightly touched his back, then splayed my fingers out. “You loved her very much.”
“She saved my life.” His voice was thick. “If I hadn’t been placed there, if she hadn’t been my dog, I’d be running the Miami Devils right now, in and out of prison, stuck in a cycle of violence.”
My stomach twisted, imagining Beck transplanted into this dark alternative future.
“I know that she was never really my dog. But there’s a connection that happens. When a terrified animal looks at you and trusts you. Only you. You feel responsible for them. You… love them.”
I was silent, utterly transfixed by this mountain of a man next to me.
“Dogs like Willow are disposable in our society. That always made me angry. Because she wasn’t nice looking or perfect or had all the right pedigrees or came from the right breeder.”
“Our society thinks that people like that are disposable too,” I said. Beck looked at me with the most brazen sincerity I’d ever seen on his face. It stole my breath away.
“I think…” I paused, wanting to get the words right, “I think in this world we get to love whatever we want as passionately as we want. Even if it doesn’t fit. Our time on this earth is too precious not to live with our hearts wide open.”
“Even if that hurts?” he asked.
I wanted to ask more about his background—because I wasn’t sure if he
had received any true open-hearted love as a kid.
“Maybe we look for other people who can love us like that,” I said. “Or animals.”
I yanked off my hair tie, letting the braided strands be tugged free by the ocean breeze. A batch of wind swept them up and I giggled, attempting to free my face from my curls.
“You have something. Stuck in your hair.” Beck’s deep voice was rougher than normal.
“Can you get it?”
He reached forward, the tips of his fingers alighting in my hair. They swept through the strands, searching. “It’s a flower.”
A tiny white flower was crushed between his fingers. “A gift,” I said. “From the universe.”
His throat worked. I could see him contemplating—and if the thought was making a move on me, I wanted him to know I was wide, wide, wide open.
“That felt good,” I said. “Your fingers. Can you keep going?”
I tilted my neck.
“I can,” Beck said. He slid those fingers through my hair, immediately scratching at the base of my scalp. I let out a moan that was practically pornographic.
We both went absolutely still.
“I love head massages,” I said, voice breathy. “Keep going.”
I was leaning against him now, eyes fluttering. I knew he would; his whole persona screamed I will protect you. And I liked that about him, liked that I felt comfortable asking for what I wanted without shame, that he’d give it to me, effortlessly.
Beck’s expression was dreamy, fingers sifting, stroking, scratching. His palm landed on my neck and he squeezed, massaging the tension there. I purred. He growled—I heard it, right below the sound of the waves.
“You take a lot of girls to Dean’s?” I managed to ask. “It’s quite the romantic destination. Peanuts. Stu’s scowl. High-class beverages.”
“No,” he said. “I haven’t taken any women anywhere for a long time, Luna.”
His thumb swept around my throat, landed on my pulse point. Caressed it.
“How about you?” he asked. “You must take a lot of your yoga boyfriends to your spin classes or whatever.”
“Excuse me,” I laughed. “I take them to my hot pilates classes and then to a quick bongo session.”
“Carrot, right?”
“They’re all named Carrot, yes.” I was still grinning, body relaxed and unbearably aroused by Beck’s handiwork. I tilted my head forward shamelessly, and he put a second hand into my hair. Worked those fingers through. Beneath the veil of my hair, I bit my lip, swallowed a sigh. Tried not to focus on the outline of the incredibly huge erection in his jeans.
He gathered all of my hair off to one side—no easy feat. Gave it the gentlest tug—but it sent a spike of lust between my legs. I complied, fully lifting my head. His face was inches from my own.
“Do gorgeous women drinking whiskey really make you blush?” I whispered, staring at his mouth.
“More than blush,” he said. “Nervous.”
This man.
“Good nervous?” I asked.
One big hand left my hair, cupped my face. His thumb swiped across my lower lip and I tasted heat and salt, sugary mango.
“The best kind of nervous,” he said.
Beck was going to kiss me. I could feel it, wanted it so very badly. His thumb on my lip was the sweetest pressure. We were both frozen, suspended. Balancing on the edge of what felt very much like my destiny.
His thumb left my lip. Both hands left my hair. Beck sat all the way up, knee separating from mine. With a grimace, he finished his beer and placed it back on the picnic table.
“I should, uh… probably get you home,” he said. “Don’t you think?”
I struggled to arrange my features to look neutral and not hurt.
Beck had pulled away from me.
“That works,” I managed, clearing my throat. “I live in Bluewater. Do you know where that is?”
He nodded like I was proving a point. “Of course. I can take you there.”
I finished my beer, throat parched, thoughts racing toward figuring out what I had done wrong. Sure, kissing the man whose nonprofit I was supposed to be helping probably wasn’t the best idea—it was a complication—but I was too tempted by this man to care.
Didn’t Beck feel the same way?
29
Beck
It was those damn gold rings that did it. Right before I was about to press my lips to Luna’s, one of the diamonds had caught the light, flashing right into my eye. I didn’t believe in messages from the universe—that was a Luna thing—but if I did, that felt like an important one. Even with the fun and flirtation of this day, it didn’t erase the vast differences between us. Not a bit.
Kissing an ex-con on the beach would be fun for a woman like her.
A woman like Luna dating someone like me felt entirely out of the question.
And if I was honest, I still didn’t entirely trust her motivations toward both me and my organization. It was all so complicated. I believed Luna truly cared, but she also had obligations to a life I’d never have access to.
We were quiet, conversation strained, as we put on our helmets. I had no idea what her thoughts were, but mine were focused on the fact that she lived in Bluewater—the most exclusive neighborhood in the entire city. And as we rolled up to two giant golden gates with BB in the middle and an actual security guard, I had to accept a fact about her that I’d known this whole time but never had thrown in my face.
Luna da Rosa was a billionaire.
I knew this. Fuck, it was the reason I’d stopped myself from kissing her. But seeing the reality of her wealth was a different thing entirely. We coasted along a street with more mansions than I’d ever seen in my entire life. Pools, fountains, a marina, what looked like an airfield—and a constant row of never-ending palm trees. We leaned around a curved road where four mansions were distinctly placed. She tugged on my chest, pointed at one and I came to a stop, shutting off the engine.
“This is my house,” she said, pointing to a Mediterranean-style ranch home with an open courtyard covered in purple jacaranda and pink hibiscus bushes. It was the largest fucking house I’d ever seen in my entire life.
“Oh,” I said, feeling mute at the sight of the mansion in front of me. “Okay.”
Luna pulled the helmet off, shaking out her hair, releasing the scent of oranges. My fingers curled into fists at my side, remembering the feel of those curls.
“Thank you for the ride,” she said. “Thanks for letting me help with Sunshine. And the drink. And for helping me feel… happy.”
I nodded. Looked away. Luna leaned down, trying to catch my eye. “Did I do something wrong, Beck?”
My eyes slid back to her mansion. “No.”
“Well, it felt like one second we were laughing about Carrot and now we’re standing in front of my house like… like the way we were when we first met.”
“An impasse,” I said, remembering her word.
“Seriously, please talk to me.” I heard the plea in her voice. There was no denying that she and I had been growing closer over the past week. More honest with each other.
“I’m not this,” I said. “After I leave this neighborhood, I’m driving home to a one-bedroom apartment on the shitty side of Miami. This… this extravagance will never come for me. Not in this lifetime and not in any others.”
Luna tilted her chin, face a mixture of anger and regret. “I’ve worked really hard to earn this extravagance, Beck. Earning a billion dollars by the time I was twenty-six didn’t happen because I was lazing around on a beach. I’ve worked my ass off for this. I won’t feel bad about it.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I hedged. Although I was. “We can keep laughing and joking that we’re stuck with each other all we want. But we’re different. Our lives are different. Our bank accounts aren’t even in spitting distance of each other. This,” I said, waving to the wealth standing behind me, “isn’t something I can brush off.”
A
nd please don’t use me.
I almost said the words—one more truth to hand over to her. But facing the expensive-reality of Luna’s life was reminding me of all the reasons why I hadn’t trusted her to begin with. Rich CEO Saves Broke Ex-Convict’s Nonprofit. That story made me feel like shit, a charity case to drum up sympathy and paint her in a positive light.
“I’d never ask you to deny it,” she finally said. “I thought… I thought you’d want to see where I lived. I thought”—her teeth snagged her lip—“I thought you’d be interested.” She had a strange inflection on interested. If it wasn’t so dark out, I’d worry she’d see my cheeks redden.
“It’s not that I’m not interested,” I managed. One side of her mouth lifted, hopeful. “But you can’t pretend you don’t notice where our friendship doesn’t make sense.”
“Sure, I’ve noticed it,” she said, chin lifted again. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, suddenly exhausted. Why did I care about this shit anyway? Friend or not, Luna da Rosa was really only a CEO that was volunteering at my nonprofit. That was all.
Luna was worrying at her bottom lip, all the flirtatious lightness of earlier drained away. “Impasse is right, Mr. Mason.”
“Maybe I’m…” I shrugged. “Like an eight or whatever on the grumpiness scale.”
Luna actually smiled. “I actually think you’ve been a zero for a week straight now.”
“Happy to hear, I guess,” I said. I knew I sounded gruff. Awkward. I wanted to slip back into the dream of that beach; the mangoes, the sunset, her hair beneath my fingers.
“I should go get back to work, I guess,” she said, walking slowly down her incredibly long driveway. “I’ll see you in a few days at Lucky Dog.”
“Thanks for the drink,” I mumbled.
Her expression was a mystery. “Good night.” She waved, then turned to walk down the path, shining in the moonlight.
I got on my bike and roared off to my shitty apartment on the other side of town.
30
Luna
WILD OPEN HEARTS: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy Page 14
