and robbers? Because all my fine detecting skills pick up something else here,” he drawled.
“Really? How perceptive of you.” She wrung water out of her hair, sent it spattering again onto his feet. “By the way, where are your shoes, Finnegan? Or are you the original barefoot boy with cheek of tan?” Her eyelashes sparkled with drops of water. Giving off a heat of their own, her eyes glittered.
“I’m a Florida cracker. Of course I’m barefoot.” He gave in, yielded to temptation and that siren heat. Reaching out, making himself move slowly, he brushed his forefinger along the edge of her lashes, let it skate slowly down her cheek until his finger rested in the hollow of her neck, just above the zipper of her neoprene vest.
The leap of her vein against his finger sent a painful pulse straight south. He stepped closer, stepped into the heat rising from her.
“Where did the seaweed come from, Finnegan?” Her breath puffed against his chin as he dipped to her face.
“Same place you did, Dr. Sugar.”
She stepped closer. Against him, through his clothes, through his jacket, she was a cold, supple shape moving in his arms.
And then, with a breath, hot skin everywhere his fingers slid. Cold neoprene and hot skin.
Unbelievable, the heat radiating from her.
From her cheeks, from the lobes of her ears.
All that silky skin should have been cold, blue-tinged.
Yet it blistered the palms of his hands as he cupped her face and tasted the salt lingering on her eyelashes. Dimly he wondered, why?
But the clean, salty smell of her skin spun him away from his memories of the night and its ugliness, sent him spiraling into a place where there was light and peace. “Delicious,” he murmured, absorbed in the scent and taste of Sophie.
He thought she would hesitate, expected her to step back, figured she would push him away. He hoped she would. But her eyes darkened, the pupils huge as she curled one black-clad arm around his neck and pulled him to her.
“Share, Finnegan,” she murmured into his mouth, her lips soft and pliant, as soft and pliant as the woman standing on tiptoes and stretching herself against him, one thigh slipping between his legs. “Nice,” she said. “I’d forgotten how nice touching you could be. I didn’t remember.”
He spread his legs and made room for her, let her come as close as wetsuit and soggy jeans would allow, and as he did, she reached up with her other hand and slid her fingers through his hair, holding his face still as she sipped at the corner of his mouth and sighed.
He wanted to believe it was a sigh of pleasure.
But deep in the sigh, he heard the sadness.
He hesitated, his fingers fumbling with the broad tab of her zippered vest. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“I don’t know about you, Finnegan, but this is the best idea I’ve had in weeks.”
He brushed her cheek with his thumb, trying to get his thoughts in some kind of order. “But—”
“If you stop now, Judah, I swear I’ll hunt you down and kill you. And no jury on earth would convict me.” Her voice was low and breathy as she slipped her hand between their bodies, closed it over his, tugged down, the slippery material opening as he slid his hand inside and found softness and heat, found the hard bump of her nipple.
And lingered, tugging, entranced by the contrast of cold suit and flushed skin.
Touching her, he remembered again how it had been for him the first time he’d seen her, the rush of wanting, the physical ache of needing to touch her.
Touching her, he could forget the past, could escape the prison of his soul by losing himself in her.
That was what he wanted most on this dismal, storm-wrecked morning, escape was what he’d craved and hadn’t known he needed.
Here, with her smacked up against him, he didn’t have to think about the creeps spraying graffiti around town, didn’t have to think about the jackasses stealing from the Christmas charity kettles. He didn’t have to think about the baby left in the manger, didn’t have to think about George. Didn’t have to think.
That was the blessing. It had been a lifetime since he’d felt anything, not anger, not joy. Nothing. But with Sophie in his arms, he could just feel.
This, he thought as he moved his mouth along the long line of her neck, this salvation in Sophie’s scent, touch, in the very texture of her skin under his seeking fingers, this was the light in the darkness. “Closer,” he muttered against the slope of her breast. His chin scraped against the metal zipper teeth as he nudged the vest opening wider. “You’re not close enough. I want you closer.” He cupped her butt with one hand and pulled her tightly to him.
From that first moment, he’d known it would be like this.
In this moment, only Sophie. Beginning and end of thought, of regret, of anger.
Right now. Alpha and omega.
Now.
Sophie.
She tasted the hunger in his lips and fed on it, felt his seeking fingers at her waistband.
“Two-piece?”
“Yes,” she exhaled into his ear. “Easier to get into.” She wiggled her fanny, and felt him shudder against her. “And out of.”
“Excellent.” He flattened his palm into the curve of her back.
She twisted upward. “Good hands, Finnegan. Ah, but you have good hands.” Her brain turned to mush as he edged a forefinger between the tight fabric and her spine.
The adrenaline rampaging through her had a focus now, and she leaned into it, just the way she would lean into a wave. Judah’s lean form. Judah’s hands on her. The movement of his hard body against her took all the energy the surfing hadn’t touched and channeled it, a straight line from him to her. She should have grabbed Finnegan instead of her surf board, she thought muzzily as his thumbs met in her belly button and pressed, circled lower.
How long had it been since she’d been touched like this? She couldn’t remember, oh, he was taking her breath away, she couldn’t breathe….
Her knees buckled, and he went with her, their knees bouncing on the packed sand, but she couldn’t turn him loose. Her fingertips hummed with the sensation of his hot skin against them.
His hands were on either side of her face, framing it and holding her still. “Inside. We need to go inside.”
“Too far,” she gasped.
“I can run.” He pulled her to her feet and lifted her off the sand, snugging one arm under her behind and staggering to his feet.
“If you think so.” She locked her legs behind his waist and buried her face in the crook of his neck, breathed and went dizzy with the feel of his skin against her cheek. “Go for it, tiger.”
He
