Beach Reads Boxed Set

by Marie Force

  I absolutely hate that he could tell that from across a crowded room.

  “Not at all,” I say breezily. “Why would I be?”

  Rather than answer, he only stares at me. His blue-eyed gaze is so intense, I feel like he’s seeing right through me and my fake breeziness.

  The stare-fest ends when Matt calls for more ice.

  “I’ll get it.” I head for the freezer in the garage and am piling bags of ice on the garage floor when Blake appears next to me.

  Without making eye contact—and thank goodness for that—he says, “Leave your back door unlocked tonight.” He picks up the bags of ice, hoists them to his shoulder and goes back inside while I stand with my mouth hanging open. Only the icy air from the freezer swirling in my face keeps me from overheating.

  Did he really just say that? One-and-done Blake Dempsey wants round two? Well, isn’t this an unprecedented development…

  I have no idea why I told Honey to leave her door open for me. Okay, that’s not entirely true. It’s because she seemed rattled, and I’m worried about her. Yeah, you heard me right. I’m actually concerned that something we did last night isn’t sitting well with her, and I need to know for sure. Thus my highly unusual request that she leave her door unlocked.

  Ugh, what am I doing? I don’t get involved. I don’t “worry” about my sexual partners after we do the deed. I never make promises I can’t keep, and I never, ever, ever do entanglements with women.

  I have no plans to change my rules with Honey. It’s just that underneath her sassy I want you to fuck me exterior, she’s fragile. And oh my goodness, she’d hate me for thinking that. Honey would never want anyone to think of her as fragile, but I know her well enough to know the cocky attitude she brought into that bar last night is not the real Honey Carmichael. Not even kinda.

  No, the real Honey has been trying to overcome her difficult beginnings her entire life by overcompensating with too many men, always searching for that elusive “something” she’s never had. I once heard some guys in town speculate that she has a “daddy complex,” whatever that is. I promptly shut that down and told them I’d better never hear them talk trash or anything else about her again. I nearly came to blows with one guy who didn’t like me telling him what to do. Whatever. No one was going to talk that way about Honey in front of me and get away with it.

  The reminder of that incident in the context of what happened last night makes me feel out of sorts and off my game. Of course I’m protective of her. I pinched her on the playground. That’s how long I’ve known her. I’d do the same thing for Lauren or Julie or Scarlett or any of the other girls we grew up with.

  A pang in the usually numb center of my chest makes a liar out of me. If I’m being entirely honest, Honey is different from the others. She’s always been different, from the time I was pinching her until last night, when I finally got the chance to touch her the way I’ve wanted to for as long as I can remember… She’s been different.

  Way back when, and we’re talking sixth and seventh grade here, I thought Honey might turn out to be my girlfriend, but that didn’t happen. Then Jordan moved to town the summer between eighth and ninth grade, and I never looked at or thought about another girl in the years I was with her. We had plans. Lots and lots of plans. I stopped making plans after I lost her. What was the point? Life will fuck with you no matter what you have planned, so why bother?

  At least I’m aware of the fact that I’m a fucked-up mess of a man who appears to function well on the outside. My successful contracting business is proof of my ability to fake it till I make it. I do everything I can for the men who work for me, for my parents, who still live in town, for my siblings, who are all married with kids, for Jordan’s parents and for the friends I’ve managed to hang on to in the twelve years since my heart stopped beating normally.

  But on the inside, where I live with myself and my regrets and memories so painful I can’t bear to revisit them, I’m a disaster. A no-good, broken-down mess, and I own that. It’s why I don’t let women get too close to me. It’s why I don’t get involved. I refuse to risk more than I can afford to lose. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s just not worth the agony when it all goes wrong. And it always goes wrong.

  How else to explain why smart, beautiful, happy, always upbeat Jordan is lying in a hole in the ground while so many horrible people are allowed to roam this earth? In the beginning, the only way I could cope with the loss was to frequently drink my way to full-on blackout. I quickly learned that I still had to wake up the next day and confront the loss while feeling like total hell. I stopped that before my parents and siblings made good on their threat to hold an intervention and then cart me off to rehab. Now I’m a one-or-two-maybe-three-on-Saturdays beer drinker who rarely overindulges anymore.

  No matter what I do, the unrelenting pain never lets me forget. I see Jordan’s death as my cross to bear. She died. I lived. The pain is the least of what I owe her.

  During the first few unbearable years, everyone in my life urged me to move on. They told me it’s what she’d want, and I knew they were right. I’ve always known that’s what she’d want for me, but I’ve never been able to actually do it. After five years, my friends and family blessedly stopped trying to fix me up with their single friends and colleagues and sisters “who’d be perfect for me.”

  I’m sure they were all nice girls, but I refuse to inflict myself or my demons on anyone. It simply wouldn’t be fair. So there I was, going along with my life, such as it is, when Honey Carmichael came strolling into my favorite bar and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse even if I knew at the time that I probably should.

  I’ve had a lot of meaningless, get-my-rocks-off-and-move-on sex since I finally got past that first awful time with someone else. I’m well aware of my reputation around town as a “machine” in the sack, and the women I’ve been with always comment about the size of my equipment. Whatever.

  Without fail, they always come back for more.

  I always say no. One and done. That’s how I roll. So what in the ever-loving fuck am I doing telling Honey to leave her door unlocked?

  Tipping the bottle back, I take a long drink of beer as I watch her across the room, laughing and talking with Julie and Lauren and Scarlett and other women we’ve known all our lives. Why can’t I stop looking at her? Why do I have to notice that her lips are still swollen from last night and there’s a hint of razor burn—my razor burn—on her neck from the middle of the night, when my beard started to come back? Why does knowing I left my mark on her in more ways than one give me such a perverse thrill?

  Why do I care that she’s rattled?

  “Having a good time?”

  I look up at Matt, my best friend since first grade and the man who single-handedly saved my life in every possible way after Jordan died by not leaving my side for two whole months. “A great time. You done good. Julie seems thrilled.”

  “It’s nice to see her smile again.”

  I was one of the very few people who knew they were pregnant again after the heartbreaking miscarriage last winter. See what I mean? Life always fucks you up the ass no matter how happy you might be. Their miscarriage is a classic example. What did they do to deserve that devastating blow? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This sort of thing is why I believe it’s easier not to get involved than to risk that kind of pain.

  “It sure is,” I reply, hiding my inner turmoil from him with the expertise I’ve perfected over the years.

  “Why you staring at Honey?”

  Oh shit. “What? I’m not staring at her.”

  “Um, yeah, you are, and I heard a little rumor that you left the bar with her last night. Any truth to that?”

  I can lie to some people—and I’m not ashamed to say I lie shamelessly when it suits my best interests of staying free and clear of anything that can cause me additional grief—but I’ve never been able to lie to Matt. “Maybe. She came by. We hung out. Nothing to get wound up about.”
/>   “You and Honey Carmichael ‘hung out,’ and that’s nothing to get wound up about?” He snorts with laughter and takes a drink from his beer. “Whatever you say, man.”

  His comment strikes a note of panic deep inside me, in a place I keep walled off with concrete and barbed wire. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  Have I mentioned that my best friend often makes me want to throat-punch him? And did I mention that he’s one of the two foremen at work who keep my business running smoothly? So punching him isn’t an option unless I want to compound my aggravation. “If you’ve got something to say, just say it. Otherwise, fuck off.”

  The bastard laughs again, takes another sip of beer and then looks me dead in the eye. “Don’t do to her what you usually do, Blake. She means too much to all of us, and you know as well as I do she’s not as tough and ballsy as she’d like us to believe. You hurt her, you hurt us.”

  Fucking hell… “I’m not doing anything with her.” Well, if you don’t count fucking like rabbits, but that’s over now. We did it. It was done. As in past tense. Nothing to worry about.

  But there’s an ache in my chest that won’t go away since I woke up alone this morning after one of the best nights I’ve had since Jordan died. I took some Tums earlier, hoping that would help, but it didn’t make a dent. Maybe I should go to urgent care to see if something is up with my heart. I rub a hand over my chest.

  “I mean it, Blake. Don’t fuck with her, or you’ll answer to me.”

  Under normal circumstances, I love that our work relationship hasn’t gotten in the way of our lifelong friendship. I like that he’ll say something like that to me even though I’m technically his boss. But these are not normal circumstances, and tonight, for whatever reason, his words don’t roll off me the way they usually do.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I will worry about it, and you should, too.”

  “I hear you, Matt, but there’s no need for threats. Honey and I are cool.”

  At least I hope we are. I’ll see to that later when I drop by to check on her. We’ll put things back on track, and that will be that. Whoever said sex has to change everything has never met me. I’m a machine. I don’t let my emotions into the equation. Ever.

  Chapter Six

  I’m a nervous wreck. I have been since that moment in Matt and Julie’s garage when Blake told me to leave my door unlocked. What could he possibly want? It couldn’t be more sex, because everyone knows he doesn’t do more than one night with any woman. Lauren was a rare exception, but that was when he was much younger. In recent years, his one-and-done philosophy has become well known around here.

  So that takes me back to the what-could-he-possibly-want question.

  I get home around eleven thirty. Blake was still at the party when I left, so I have no idea when to expect him. I go to the back door and stare at the lock for a long moment before I turn the knob to unlock it. The popping sound of the lock disengaging is louder than it has ever been, echoing through my quiet house like a shotgun blast.

  Okay, that might be a little dramatic, but everything about this situation feels dramatic to me. Not that I have a lot of experience with drama when it comes to men. They’re never much of a mystery to me, and I don’t get close enough to any of them to care about what they do.

  So why do I care so much about why Blake wants to see me tonight?

  Leaving the door unlocked, I walk—or rather limp—into my bedroom and change into a tank top and pajama pants. The bath helped with the aches and pains, but my body is still feeling the aftereffects of my crazy night with Blake. I stop short between my bedroom and the bathroom when the telltale tingling between my legs indicates that, while I might be confused about what he wants, my body knows exactly what it wants.

  “No way,” I say out loud, as if that might toughen my resolve. “No matter what he’s got on his mind, there’s no way that’s happening again. I’ll never walk again if he touches me tonight.”

  Today has reminded me all too much of what I felt like after the first time I had sex, with Randy Dade behind his father’s barn the summer before my junior year of high school. He went at me like a battering ram, and I was sore for days afterward. I had to tell my Gran that I fell while getting off my horse to explain why I couldn’t walk right. I’m not sure if she believed me, but I never had sex with Randy again, much to his dismay.

  I didn’t have sex again for two years after that traumatizing incident, and the next time wasn’t so bad. Neither was the time after that. But it was never anything special until I did it with Blake. And of course, the one time it was something other than just okay, it had to be with the one guy who will never want anything more.

  “You knew the score going into that bar last night, Honey Carmichael,” I say to myself in the mirror. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, and don’t blow up one night into something more than it was. Just. Sex.”

  This is exactly what Lauren warned me against—going all soft in the middle over a man who’d never want softness from me or any other woman. It would do me good to remember that. I’ll see what he wants tonight and send him on his way, hoping I don’t see him again for a while, until I have time to tuck our encounter into a box in my mind and put it in the past where it belongs. I can do that. I have to do that.

  A few minutes later, the latch on the back door clicks when it opens, and my heart nearly bursts from the adrenaline and excitement and… Oh for goodness sake, Honey, stop it. Stop it right now. I gather myself by taking a couple of deep breaths, and then I leave the bathroom, cut through my bedroom and enter what Gran always referred to as the “parlor,” the room she kept pristine for guests. Blake is standing in the middle of it with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face.

  His gaze goes directly to my breasts, which fill out my tank top rather well. The shirt might’ve been a mistake in hindsight, but while he checks me out, his scowl morphs into something… hungrier. That’s the only word I can think of to describe what I see in the heated look he gives me.

  “You wanted to see me?” I ask, sounding far too breathless for my liking.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  I’m about to ask him why when his hands fall from his hips and he comes to me. It takes everything I have not to back away from him, to remember this is Blake, my lifelong friend and one-time lover. I have nothing to fear from him. But as he comes closer and the hunger turns ravenous, I realize I have every reason in the world to fear him and the power I’ve given him to hurt me. “W-what did you need?”

  His hands land on my hips, and he jerks me toward him. “This.”

  I crash into his chest and squeak with surprise. I look up to ask him what the hell he’s doing, but I never get the chance because his lips come down on mine in a kiss that takes me right back to last night and the sublime pleasure I found in his arms.

  Later, I’ll have the time to process this and to wonder how I went from resolved to his tongue in my mouth in four seconds flat, but right now I’ve got all I can do to handle my body’s reaction to his touch. Fireworks. That’s the best word I can use to describe how it feels when he touches me. Tiny explosions that erupt under my skin, making my nipples tighten and my clit ache with desire.

  His arms wrap around me, making me his prisoner, not that I mind.

  No one has ever kissed me the way Blake does, and I was a fool to think one night would be enough for either of us. I want to climb on him, wrap my legs around his waist and grind myself against the hard cock that presses into my belly.

  He does that mind-reading thing again when he cups my ass and lifts me without missing a beat in the kiss. I wrap myself around him and tip my head to the right to improve the angle. His groan tells me he approves. Many minutes later, he breaks the kiss and turns his attention to my neck.

  “I promised myself I wouldn’t touch you tonight.” He bites the tendon at the base of my neck, and I almost come from the jolt of e
lectricity that travels directly to my clit. “I’m no good for you, Honey. You deserve so much better.”

  “You’re good for me right now.” I fist a handful of his hair and drag him into another kiss. I can’t control the need to grind my sex on his cock, and he can’t seem to control the need to grind right back. If not for his jeans and my pajamas, we’d be having actual sex rather than the simulated kind.

  “One more time,” he says in that raspy, sexy voice that will fuel my fantasies for the rest of my life after this momentous weekend. “Tell me you understand.”

  “One more time.”

  “And that’s all. Do we agree?”

  “Yes, Blake. We agree.”

  I realize we’re moving when we cross the threshold into my bedroom and he comes down on top of me on my bed, all while continuing to thrust his tongue into my mouth with increasing desperation.

  I’m right there with him, every bit as desperate for him as he is for me.

  He breaks the kiss only long enough to pull my pajama pants off and shed his T-shirt and jeans. Dear God, he’s commando under there, and his big cock is so hard, the tip is purple.

  My mouth waters, and I sit up to reach for him. “Let me,” I say when he would’ve moved out of my reach. I wrap my hand around the base of his cock and begin to stroke him as I take him into my mouth, sucking the broad head and lashing it with my tongue.

  The sound he makes is nothing short of feral, and it sets me on fire for him. I force myself to focus on the task at hand, which is bringing him as much pleasure as he’s brought me. With that in mind, I take him as deeply into my mouth as I can, sucking and licking and stroking him until he butts up against my throat. I work through the impulse to gag, and he slips into my throat.

  “Fuck, Honey,” he growls as he pumps his hips. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

  My eyes water and tears fall down my cheeks as I concentrate on breathing through my nose while my fingers travel down to stroke his balls, which are almost as hard as his cock.