I clasp my hands together in foodie-inspired delight. “Yes! I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die with chocolate cake in my mouth.”
He laughs as he hauls open the door to the truck. “Then get in, baby.”
I do, crawling up into the passenger seat, trying not to make too much of the fact that “baby” has been creeping into Dylan’s speech more often than it used to. I’m not just princess or blondie, anymore. Sometimes I’m baby, and I can’t help but enjoy the sound of that particular word on Dylan’s oh-so-kissable lips.
“Where to first?” I ask, buckling up.
“It’s a surprise,” he says, firing up the truck. “But I’ll give you a hint. It’ll take us a half an hour to get there, but the chef only about thirty seconds to prep our food.”
“A riddle. I’m intrigued.” I drum my fingers lightly along my bottom lip as I think. “Is it fruit? Fresh off the tree?”
“Nope.” He guides the truck west on River Road, heading toward the coast. “Two more guesses.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Um…mushrooms? Lightly sautéed? It is mushroom season.”
“Strike two,” he says, grinning. “One more wrong guess and I get to have you for dinner. That’s the way the riddle worked in The Hobbit, right?”
“I believe so, but I didn’t agree to any dark bargains.” I pause, sliding my hand up his thigh as I add in a naughtier voice, “But if you want to have me for dinner, Mr. Hunter, I have no objections. You’ve cured me of my aversion to that particular type of fun.”
He hums beneath his breath. “My pleasure, princess.”
I dig my nails lightly into his leg through his jeans. “I think it’s my pleasure, actually, but I appreciate your passion for your work. How did you get so good at it? Is that something they take you behind the gym and teach you in Mercyville?”
“My girlfriend, senior year of high school,” he says. “Her mom was a sex therapist.”
“No way.” I snort. “Really?”
“Really. She had all these wild how-to books and plaster models in her office.” He shakes his head, lips curving on one side. “Gretchen wasn’t a big fan of homework, but as soon as we found the Kama Sutra and a few kinky books from the seventies, we both became enthusiastic students.”
“I bet,” I murmur. “Though I would have had no idea what to do with kinky books at that age. I was such a nerd.”
“Don’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” I say. “I didn’t have my first kiss until I was seventeen, and held onto my V card until I was almost twenty-one.”
He shoots a scandalized glance my way. “You’re kidding. How is that possible? As hot as you are and as much as you enjoy cock?”
I shrug, embarrassed but knowing better than to try to deny the charge. The past two weeks, I’ve made it clear that I’m practically a cock addict, at least where Dylan is concerned. “I don’t know. I was a shy computer nerd obsessed with getting straight A’s so I could get into the best grad school.” I stretch out my legs, studying my red tennis shoes as I add, “And my mom and dad didn’t end well. At all. Kind of scared me off relationships until I was away from all of that for a few years.”
“I hear you,” he says with a sigh. “My mom and dad didn’t end well, either, and after I came to live with Pop, he and my stepmom, Francesca, fought like cats and dogs for two weeks before she threw every wineglass in the cabinet at him and left for good. Turns out she wasn’t real happy to find out about Dad’s secret kid.”
I wince. “I can imagine. My parents liked to throw things, too. Plates and beer bottles mostly, though. They weren’t into wine. We weren’t that classy.”
“Don’t believe that, either.” He rests his hand on my knee, giving it a squeeze. “You’re one of the classiest people I’ve ever met. I’m actually a little nervous about taking you to a couple of these places. I’ll warn you now—they’re not fancy.”
“I don’t need fancy.” I take his hand, threading my fingers through his. “If you like them, I’m sure I will, too. I’m easy.”
He tightens his grip on my palm with a grin. “One of the things I love about you.”
“Ha, ha, very funny,” I say as he laughs, and I roll down my window to let in the breeze and pretend my heart hasn’t just done a belly flop onto my stomach. He’s teasing, clearly, obviously, but those words still sound way sweeter than they should.
So sweet, it takes me several minutes to find my equilibrium.
But Dylan fills the silence with another story about a girlfriend of his dad’s who, when she caught him cheating, used to chase him around the house with a hockey stick she stole from Dylan’s older brother. By the time we turn left on Highway One, following the ribbon of asphalt along the dramatic, rock-studded shoreline, my heart is back in my chest and I have a pretty good idea where Dylan is taking me.
“Oysters, right?” I cross my fingers. “Please say you’re taking me to get oysters.”
“Not just any oysters,” he says. “Point Reyes oysters so fresh they’re still squirming when Bobby pops them open.”
I pump my free hand in the air. “I can’t wait. I’ve been dying to get out here for oysters, but it seems like there’s always one more thing to do. And then one more and one more and before I know it, it’s dark outside.”
“That’s farm life for you,” Dylan says. “Watch out, or one day you’ll look up and five years will have rolled by without a day off.”
“Well, at least I love the work. It’s such a change from my old job. I used to be exhausted by lunchtime, and now it seems like I never run out of energy.”
His brow furrows. “Yeah, me either. I’ve never had another job, so I guess sometimes I take how much I enjoy mine for granted. Sure, there are mornings when I’d rather sleep in, or my family is driving me nuts, but most days I feel pretty damned lucky.”
“I think that’s rare, sadly. A lot of my friends can barely tolerate their jobs. It makes me sad. Life’s too short.”
“It is,” he agrees. “That’s part of the reason I want to launch my brewery as soon as I get the farm paid off. Yes, I like what I do now, but I want to create something of my own. Right now, all I make is raw ingredients for other brewers and eggs for chefs. And honestly, the chickens do most of the work there. I’m not going to lie.”
“I hear you.” I smile as he glances my way, struck again by how beautiful he is. And it’s not just the sun in his hair or the way his dimples frame that pretty smile. It’s the way he is, who he is, and I have no doubt he’s going to accomplish anything he sets his mind to. “You should go for it.”
“Yeah?” he asks, expression sobering. “You don’t think it’s selfish to leave my family to fend for themselves? At least as far as the daily running of the farm is concerned?”
“Not at all. You deserve a chance to go after your dream.” I shrug. “And you’ve got no choice, really. In my experience with big dreams, either you go after them or they go after you.”
He laughs, an amused grunt that makes it clear he gets it. “That’s what it feels like lately. Like the fire under my ass is starting to burn.”
I squeeze his hand, refusing to attach too much meaning to the fact that we’ve been holding hands in a very not-just-friends way for the past ten miles. “It felt more like being chewed up for me. Like my dream was eating away at me from the inside, making me weaker and weaker the longer I refused to go after what I needed.”
Dylan squints ahead at the road. “I get that, too.”
“Might be why you’ve felt grouchy lately,” I suggest gently. “Deferring dreams is grouchy work.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” His sexy smile comes out from behind the clouds. “I haven’t been grouchy the past couple of weeks.”
I smirk. “Sex is a bandage, not a cure.”
“What about really amazing, mind-blowing, reality-altering sex?” He winks as he pulls his hand from mine, pointing toward a tiny wooden building on the edge of a windswept cliff. “There is it. Bo
bby’s Oyster Shack.”
“It looks like an outhouse,” I say, blushing because sex with him is all those things for me, too. All those things and more.
“It used to be, I think.” He pulls off to the side of the gravel road. “Bobby moved it here from his family’s farm in Cotati. But it’s been here for years. No lingering stink left, I promise.”
I grimace. “Ew. Maybe I don’t want oysters, after all.”
Dylan jumps out and trots around the front of the truck to open my door, letting in a fierce gust of sea air. “Yes, you do want oysters. I promise. This isn’t something you want to miss, Blondie.”
I hop out, following him around to the left of the shack where the structure blocks the worst of the wind. There, behind a counter cut into the side of structure, sits an old man with a long gray beard and kind brown eyes. The moment he sees Dylan, those eyes light up like someone plugged the old man into a socket.
“Dylan! Been too long, son,” Bobby says, reaching out to clasp Dylan’s hand as Dylan makes the introductions.
After a few minutes of small talk—in which I learn that Dylan has been an oyster addict since he was a teenager, and that Bobby plays in a band with Dylan’s older brother when he’s in town—Bobby serves us each six oysters in a paper boat with a side of his homemade hot sauce and we wander to the cliff’s edge to take in the view of the ocean churning against the rocks below.
To say it’s love at first slurp would not be an overstatement.
“Incredible.” I moan, savoring the smoky spice on my tongue. “I can’t decide which way I like them best, plain or sauced.”
Dylan nods seriously. “Me, either. Maybe we should get six more to share, in the interest of research?”
I grin. “Yes. We should. I think it’s our duty, in fact.”
We return to the counter, and Bobby serves us up another boat, but pauses to point meaningfully over his shoulder as he hands it over. “Remember, oysters aren’t just delicious, they’re powerful.”
“Oysters Make My Clothes Come Off,” I read aloud from the front of the tee shirt hanging on Bobby’s wall.
“One of the most ancient aphrodisiacs.” Bobby nods sagely. “You two be careful.”
“Oh, we will,” Dylan says, thinly suppressed laughter in his voice. “No worries.”
As we wander away, I turn to him and hiss, “Would have been nice to know about the aphrodisiac thing before I’d eaten half a dozen of them. I already have a problem with keeping my clothes on when you’re around.”
Dylan chuckles as he slurps another. “Don’t worry, Blondie. That’s just an old fisherman’s story. I’ve been eating oysters for years. Doesn’t affect my level of friskiness one way or another.”
I harrumph and pluck another from the boat as Dylan leads the way onto a narrow trail winding through the wind-tossed seagrass. “There’s an abandoned lighthouse around the bend,” he says, motioning with a half shell. “Up for a walk before we head to our next stop?”
“Absolutely.” I scan the cliffs around us, noting how isolated this trail is.
In fact, as soon as we round the first corner and the trail dips down a dozen feet, we’re out of Bobby’s line of sight, tucked away from the road, and so alone we might as well be the last people left on earth.
The realization leads quickly to a plan and the plan just as quickly to action.
Because that’s who I am when I’m with Dylan—a woman of action. I wait until we’re halfway across the wooden bridge spanning a marshy section of the trail, and then I pounce like an oyster-fueled cougar in heat.
Chapter 14
Dylan
One second I’m walking along, savoring the oyster-eating-afterglow and the feel of Emma’s hand in mine. The next, Emma’s shoved me against the railing of the bridge, jumped into my arms—locking her legs firmly around my waist—and kissed me hard enough to make my blood pressure spike with an audible pop.
With a moan, I drop the boat and bring my hands to her hips, fingers digging into her ass as I spin, reversing our positions, setting her on top of the railing so I can devote myself to kissing her even more thoroughly. Our tongues wage sweet war, sparing and stroking as the smoke-and-salt taste of the oysters fades, replaced by the taste of Emma.
Sweet, sexy, insatiable Emma, who is quickly making me wonder if I’m capable of going more than twelve hours without getting the shakes from sex withdrawal. Her body is my drug of choice. I know someday—maybe someday soon—I’m going to regret letting myself get so damned hooked, but right now all I can think about is how incredible it is to be this close to her and on my way to getting even closer.
“I’m so sorry,” she says when we part long enough to take a deep breath. “It’s the oysters. They overpowered me. I couldn’t help myself.”
I snort, eyes narrowing as she slides her cool hands up the front of my sweatshirt. “The oysters, huh? My irresistible sex vibe had nothing to do with it?”
She bites her bottom lip as her legs tighten around me, drawing my oyster-shell-hard cock tighter to where he always wants to be—inside her, buried deep. “No, I don’t think so,” she teases, rocking her hips against me. “I think it was the oysters. And you know what that means?”
“What?” I groan as she leans in, nipping at my earlobe before she whispers—
“My clothes are going to come off. It’s happening, Hunter. It can happen here or it can happen in that abandoned lighthouse you were talking about, but I—”
Her words end in a yip of surprise as I turn and jog down the trail with her bouncing in my arms, her legs still wrapped around me.
“Put me down!” She giggles as I run faster, and tightens her grip on my shoulders. “We’ll get there sooner if you’re not carrying me.”
“Negative on that, princess,” I say, continuing to make swift work of the rest of the trail. “You’re under the influence of oysters, and I can’t risk you stripping down in the middle of a nature preserve. You could get arrested or catch a cold, neither of which is happening on my watch.”
“I’m not going to strip down, you nut. I was kidding. Now put me down.”
She laughs harder as I clutch her closer and announce in my best Captain America voice, “Sorry, ma’am. That’s not a risk I can take. Hold on for a few more minutes. We’re going to get you the help you need.”
“The help I need,” she echoes, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh my God, stop. Stop making me laugh. My lungs are starting to hurt.”
“Take a deep breath and hold it,” I urge, making a sharp right toward the cliff’s edge and the lighthouse.
“I can’t,” she gasps. “I can’t stop laughing. You’re insane. Why do people think you’re normal?”
I set her on her feet in front of the lighthouse’s padlocked door with a soft curse. “I don’t know. Good coping skills, I guess. But we’ve got bigger problems, my little horn dog. Looks like they decided to lock the doors in the off-season.”
She makes a distressed sound that echoes the disappointment keening through me. “No! Why would they do that? Don’t they know people need somewhere to bang after they’ve eaten too many oysters?”
I shake my head, breath rushing out. “Because they’re bastards, that’s why. Bastards who aren’t getting laid, so they want to interfere in the getting laid plans of other people.”
“Monsters.” Emma leans back against the door, her eyes going wide as it swings open behind her. I lunge forward, grabbing her before she can tumble onto her fine ass. “God, what happened?”
“Someone installed it wrong.” I reach out, lifting the padlock and letting it fall. “How dumb do you have to do something like that?”
“Maybe they weren’t dumb.” Emma’s arms go around my neck as her voice drops to a husky whisper. “Maybe they were angels of mercy. Rebels with a cause.”
My hand skims up her ribs to cup her breast through her pink sweater. “You may be right. And you’re absolutely sexy as fuck.”
“Oh yeah?�
� she asks, eyes glittering. “Prove it.”
So I do.
First up against the wall, and then with Emma’s hands on the wavy glass of the window overlooking the ocean while I come into her from behind, fighting to hold on for as long as possible. And maybe it’s how beautiful she is with the sun in her hair, or maybe it’s the magical libido-enhancing power of oysters, but I set a quickie record for most orgasms in a twenty-minute session.
By the time we stagger out of the lighthouse, both of us weak-kneed and spent, Emma’s been visited by the orgasm fairy three times and I’m pretty sure I did that thing that only Sting can do, where a guy comes, but doesn’t ejaculate, and then comes again with enough force to make every muscle in his abdominal wall hurt.
Seriously, my stomach muscles ache like I just spent a solid half hour on core work at the gym, and all I have to say is—worth it.
Totally worth it.
Sign me up for more of this sweet, sweet pain.
When we get back to the shack, Bobby is busy serving a VW van full of surfer hippies, so Emma and I wave goodbye and load up for our next stop.
“The cheese at this place is great,” I say as I steer into Point Reyes proper. “But it’s going to be hard to top our first stop. We may have peaked too early.”
Emma scoffs and wags a scolding finger my way. “No. The peaking was perfect. And who knows, maybe we’ll peak again later. Assuming you feed me cheese and wine and chocolate and other things that make my clothes fall off.”
Laughing, I park the truck and reach for her, pulling her into my lap because I can’t stand the thought of going inside without first getting another fix of her lips. After I’ve had a long, deep, devoted taste of gorgeous, feisty blonde, I’m able to work up the strength to leave the truck and go in search of cheese.
The Baby Maker Page 10
