“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to apologize properly.”
“Well. I guess that’s something,” Summer said. The moment stretched and for a moment he thought they might be able to talk, really talk about what he’d done to her. How he could fix it. How they could move on.
“Am I too late?” he asked. He didn’t want the moment to end but as soon as the words were out of his mouth he saw it slipping away.
She snorted. “Way too late Evans.” She stiffened like she’d made a decision. “Both of you are as bad as each other,” she said finally.
“Both of us?”
“You and T.J.”
“No.” No no no. This was not where he wanted this conversation heading. “I would never say those things he said after your set. After you got picked to come here. I would have celebrated with you.”
She started pacing. “I still can’t believe he did that. He made it sound like all I’m good at is looking good in a bikini. Man, he’s the reason I’m only just getting in the competition now. Telling me I wasn’t ready. Knocking my confidence with his little barbs.”
Ashton didn’t say anything, just let her rant. The moment was gone. Their past left behind. At least she seemed to have accepted his apology. The way the light flashed in her eyes, even in the gloom of the cave—it was electric, invigorating. He had to hold his hands still to stop himself reaching out to her and trying to smooth the hurt away. Suddenly she stopped and spun towards him. “You agree with me he was out of line?”
“Absolutely,” he said unequivocally.
“Want to help me get back at him?” Her voice was different.
“Help? If I can. How?”
“Like this.” Her eyes glinted in the half light and she put a hand on his chest. There was nothing soft about it. No gentle request, no subtle flirt. It was the touch of a woman who had decided he was hers. Ashton’s hairs spiked, and his nerve endings shot sparks.
“But you just said it was too late.”
“Oh it’s too late for the pretty blush of young love. But it’s not too late for this.” She reached up and ran a finger over his bottom lip. He had to fight the urge to bite at it with his teeth.
“This is a bad idea. My sister, the press…”
“Aren’t here right now.”
“I still say it’s a bad idea,” he said.
“I need him out of my head. You can make that happen. Tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll leave you alone.”
His blood roared as she ran her hand back down his chest to rest lightly on the waistband of his board shorts. “You know I want you,” he managed.
“Well, then. We kiss. You make up for being such a dickwad, I get some rebound relief and the satisfaction that I’ve got one over on T.J. No one else needs to know.” She put out a hand.
“You want to shake on it?” He couldn’t help himself, he laughed and took her hand. “I thought you said I was no gentleman.”
“True,” she said. “But then, I’m not exactly sweet and innocent anymore.” She took back her hand and stretched, the fabric of her T-shirt pulling tight across her breasts. “You going to grow a pair and do something, or are you going to cry in the corner about me offending your male pride by making the first move?”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He took her chin and tipped her head back before bringing his lips down on hers to take what she’d offered.
Taunting her tongue with his, he felt her open to him, grant him full access, and he pulled her closer, wrapping an arm around her waist. He could fight it all he wanted, but his body knew better. He wanted Summer Roberts. Wanted to feel every part of her skin touching his. And he did not want to wait.
Gripping her slim waist, he pulled her hard against him, and she ran a leg up his, ready, willing to grant his wishes.
His cock surged, and his hands pushed at her T-shirt, feeling the soft smoothness of her skin underneath, hot and yielding. He drew it over her head to reveal the barest scrap of a black bikini top. Better. His let his hands cup her breast and felt the hard pebble of her nipple straining for release. Leaving one hand on her breast and tangling the other in her hair, he pulled her head back. He traced the line of her neck with his tongue and tasted the salty tang of her skin. It would always be there, he knew, no matter how recently she’d been out of a shower. She was like him, a creature bonded with the water. Only she didn’t know how tightly the mistress ocean had her tied in yet.
“Hey, sorry dude. Sorry, sorry. But you guys better get a room. The locals see you in here doing that and they’ll be well put out.”
Ashton looked up to see a young guy with a surfboard, averting his eyes.
“It’s okay. You can turn around. Nothing indecent here.”
The surfer turned. “Oh man. Like I said, sorry to interrupt, but you shouldn’t be doing that in here. The cave—”
“No. I’m sorry. My bad. I wasn’t thinking straight.” Ashton dropped his hands from Summer.
The surfer chuckled. “I can see why.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“I am right here you know, guys,” said Summer, and Ashton smiled.
“Anyways. Have a good one,” the surfer said. He glanced down at Ashton’s leg. “Hey, cool tat. Hang on.” He cocked his head to the side. “Aren’t you that guy? Ashton? Man, Are you back on the board?”
Ashton’s gut contracted, and he felt Summer stiffen beside him. That guy. Yes, he was that guy. The one who should have been out in the waves with Summer. But who couldn’t trust his leg to hold out as he and a small piece of fiberglass took on the might of all that water. “Not back on the board, no. I’m on the other end now—end of a camera,” Ashton said.
“Oh yes, that’s right. Sports. Cool. Well, anyways. Have a nice day, folks.”
“Wait,” Summer called out and the young surfer stopped.
“You didn’t see anything. Okay?” Ashton could hear the tension in her voice, but the young guy probably would have missed it.
The guy frowned, then looked back at Ashton again. “Right. Sure. Didn’t even come in the cave.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“No drama. Figure you deserve a break, after, you know…”
“Thanks.”
The surfer left, and Ashton and Summer looked at each other a long moment. “Do you think he’ll say anything?” she said finally.
“He said he wouldn’t. And anyway, I don’t think he clicked who you were.”
She seemed mollified, the tension easing from her body, and Ashton took a deep breath. “It was a good wake up call. This…” He pointed between them. “Is a terrible idea.”
Summer gave him a coy smile and nodded at his pants which were tented by his rock-hard erection.
“I didn’t say I didn’t enjoy it,” he said. “Just that we shouldn’t do it again.”
She shrugged. “Maybe we shouldn’t have done it. But hey, I feel better.”
Now it was his turn to smile. “Check you out. You hardened up just like that.”
“It’s been coming a while Evans. And anyway, seems like I don’t have much choice.”
That made him stop, but she didn’t give him a chance to dwell on what the world was doing to her. “Right. Let’s get to work.”
“Yes. True. Let’s get your board. I’ll choose a couple of locations for tonight and we’ll try and nail at least two out of the six images we need. Deal?”
She glanced at his pants again and then looked away. “Deal.”
Chapter Eight
Summer stood gazing at the water for the longest time. Set after set of waves came in, perfect, curling lengths of surf that a couple of days ago she would have given her best panties to have launched herself at. Now, though, her nerves were clanging like brass bells in warning.
The Japanese surfer’s face as he came out of the water, half drowned and bleeding, flashed in her memory.
Snap out of it. She could do this. She heard Ashton’s voice telling her she had this. But did she? All she’d
really managed since getting to Bali was to distract herself: the thought of Ashton’s lips on her, his hands on her body, made her shudder with ripe anticipation. She was playing a dangerous game, and she knew it. But it felt good. So good, and so right.
Summer shook her head and refocused her attention on the ocean. She was here to get in the water. Period. The rest was incidental.
Another monster wave crashed into shore. Come on. She’d surfed waves just as big as this before. But on areas she knew. Without the knowledge of what, exactly, was where under the pounding surf.
She looked out at the waves and, in a brief patch of calmed water, saw it, the curling edge of the reef, below the breaker. So now you’ve seen it, go get it. T.J. would have been out there already. She gave herself a little shake. Yes, T.J. would have been out there already, and Ashton, too, back before the accident. And so would Brooke. Summer shouldered her board, the thought of her girlfriend giving her crap for being a wuss bringing a smile to her face. Boys didn’t get to have a monopoly on being ballsy.
The swim out was uneventful, and the first wave was a little sloppy, so she let it slide past, feeling the strength of the current’s pull under her board. As the second wave came up behind her, she saw both its power and beauty. The size of the thing was insane, but the water was a sheer glass wall, glorious, green, flawless. Come to mama, baby. She picked up the pace of her paddling and went for it. As the wave lifted her, she came down at the perfect angle, carving through the water as if it weren’t there and she was riding air. Then the tip of the wave started curling. “Bring it!” she yelled and, ducking, took the rest of the ride deep in a barrel of translucent green water. She prepared her body for impact, in case the wave closed out, but as if it sensed her joy and exhilaration, it let her out, allowing her to carve back into the line-up and step neatly off her board.
“Take that, bitches,” she called out to no one in particular and shook her head at the sheer wonder of surfing on the most amazing break she had ever experienced.
All day it was like that. Wave after wave, taking her in and letting her carve up its surface into a ribbon of silken green water. She was on fire and started trying out tricks she’d been testing back home but hadn’t mastered. Even they seemed to be easy. Effortless.
She pulled off another 360 like the one she’d managed in Brazil. “It wasn’t a fluke. Take that in the face, T.J.,” She crowed to the ocean. All thoughts of doubt, of self-pity, of anguish, fled, and she realized she was feeling the pure rhythm of the water like she had for only fleeting moments before. This was what Ashton had meant. This quiet, internal peace. This triumphant, all-encompassing roar. This was it. This everything, this total focus and pure attention to the water that she loved.
As if thinking of him had summoned him, she glanced up to the beach and saw Ashton, surrounded by a group of people. She couldn’t pick out faces from this distance, but she could see there was a mixture of men and women this time, all of them seemingly hanging off his every word. Nothing had changed in that department, then. His notoriety before the accident, and then his success in the sports arena with his photography, seemed to have kept his god-like status alive for plenty, if not for the WSL organizers.
The words of the young surfettes earlier came back to her. They had been jealous. Jealous of her. But not just because of T.J. for a change. They’d been jealous of her because of him and her surfing. That was new. And that was awesome. Maybe she’d been too harsh on Ashton about his groupies. It wasn’t as if he had courted it since he’d come back.
Blinking, she realized the light had shifted. She’d been in the water for hours. “Last wave, then.” She looked behind and saw it, yet another glorious, huge swell approaching. Paddling hard, she pulled up into its break, but just as she was dropping down the face, someone cut in, throwing her concentration and almost ending her balance. Through the glassy water she saw the reef below, and a piece of broken board wedged between two prongs of cruel coral. She staggered but caught herself, pulling out and letting the wave go. The young guy who had cut her off screamed as he soared down the face, whether in glee or in terror, Summer couldn’t quite tell. But almost losing her balance shook her, and she was glad the next wave was a smaller one. An easy ride all the way back into shore.
Chill. He was just a kid. A kid who had almost nosedived her into the reef below.
As she approached the shore, she saw Ashton towering over the kid and heard him as she got closer. “It’s not okay.”
“Yeah, sorry, man. I hardly even saw her. I was just focusing on the water,” the young grommet surfer said in a strong southern drawl.
Ashton didn’t let up. “It’s not a playground out there. You’re not in Texas anymore. Think about where you’re cutting in next time. You were right on top of the reef.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Summer pulled her board up and walked closer. “It’s okay. He’s just a grom. Probably heard him screaming from here.”
Ashton perked up an eyebrow, but the young grom saw his opportunity to escape. “Sorry, man. I totally didn’t mean to drop in on your girl.”
“I’m not his girl,” Summer said quickly.
“Okay. Right. Anyway, later.” And the surfer scuttled off.
Summer turned to Ashton. “You tear strips off everyone who drops in, you’re going to lose your voice pretty quick.”
Ashton grinned bashfully. “Everyone was watching you out there. You were on fire. Although I’m sure you knew that. If you hadn’t been killing it so obviously, you can be sure that there would have been plenty more groms trying to cut you off.”
Summer shook her head. “What?”
“You didn’t think it was weird that no one was dropping in on you?”
Cocking her head, Summer realized she hadn’t even thought about it. She’d been too caught up in the thrill of what the ocean kept offering up. “Shit. You’re right. Did you say something?”
“I didn’t need to. After that 360, everyone was paying attention. Even that lot over there.” He nodded down the beach, and sure enough, a couple of cameras were pointed their way. “Come on, wave to them, or they’ll think something is going on.”
She plastered on a semi-believable grin and gave them a wave. “Anyone heard you ripping into that grom and they’re going to be sure something is going on.”
“Sorry.”
She waited for him to say something else. For the barbs to come out. But he didn’t add anything, just looked down into her eyes, his gaze broad and deep as if he hoped to look right into her.
What if there is something going on? What had he said? Am I too late? Did he really regret that he’d bailed on her? The thoughts ran around and around her head and she didn’t know how to stop it, until finally, it was Ashton who cut it off. “Let’s get out of here. Come on, I’ve got a driver.”
Not waiting for him to say anything else, she hoisted her board, nodded, and headed up the beach to the car.
The driver babbled on about how great it was to be driving Ashton Evans around. The guy was old school, clearly, and a fan, and he and Ashton filled the silence with chat about the best local breaks, far away from the tourist dollar and the WSL surf paps.
“So, if you could come back in an hour and a bit?” Ashton said to the driver as they pulled over. After she’d unstrapped her board from the roof of the car, Summer looked around in confusion, only seeing an abandoned set of falling down huts, which were half submerged in the water.
“This is it?”
Ashton smiled. “Yep. The secrets on the other side.” He pulled her bag out of the trunk and pointed towards the shoreline. “You bought a spare bikini?”
She nodded. The car left, and they headed down to the beach. Summer soon saw what he meant. In amongst the bamboo and wood, brilliant green seaweed had threaded itself around the base of the hut, visible through the clear water. And with the tide rising, tropical fish milled about. It was a mermaid movie set.
“Quick. Th
e light’s going to be right in about twenty minutes.” He handed over her bag. “Can you get changed behind one of those huts?”
She pulled out her spare bikini then turned back to him. “But my hair’s still wet from my set.”
Ashton shrugged. “Just like a mermaid should be. Fluff it up a bit and you’re perfect.”
“Aren’t I supposed to wear makeup or something?”
“Do you want to?”
She shrugged. “Not really. I just thought, you know, that was how the magic happened.”
He smiled. “For a beauty campaign, sure. But we’re not shooting a beauty campaign. We’re shooting you.”
“Is that your attempt at a compliment?” she said.
“Good as it gets, I’m afraid. I’m just not much of a fashion photographer. I shoot action, sports…dudes, mostly. You know that. I’m hoping Maya sold that to the client and that’s what they want with you. Just with a sexy bow on top.” He pointed to the hut, setting up a tripod and a screen to bounce the day’s light as he talked. “Change and let’s go. Okay?”
She slipped behind the hut.
When she stood in front of him again, he simply nodded at her plain black bikini. “Good. Can you get in there? I poked around in there earlier I don’t think there’s any broken wood or anything, but just be careful, okay? And stay where you can feel the sun on your face, otherwise it’ll be too dark for the camera.”
Summer stepped into the curling water and climbed up into the doorframe of the falling down hut. It was dark inside, and she didn’t bother looking around. The hut was longer than she’d thought, but the floor had totally rotted away, letting the seawater swirl around inside. The sound was nice, an amplified hush as sand and weed felt the water’s caress. She perched in the doorframe and let her feet dangle into the water. A cloud moved, and the sun sent a beam of light down to cover the edge of where she sat.
“Don’t move.”
She didn’t and felt the sunlight scan her, closing her eyes and enjoying its warmth as the cool of the water played on her feet.
Another Shot with Summer (Hot Tide Book 1) Page 8
