she let him.
When they reached a fork in the path—one way headed straight to the beach, the other hooking back to the rear entrance to the Tropicana Nights—she turned towards him, and his hand slid naturally to her waist.
Wrong, he told himself, on so many levels. And yet it felt so right. His hand in the dip of her waist. Her scent curling beneath his nose. Her mismatched eyes picking up the earthy colours around her.
Her voice was breathless as she said, “Thanks for lunch. It was nice to have company.”
Streaks of sunlight shot through the palm leaves above and shone in her pale hair and the pulse that beat in her throat. Through the thin dress he felt the give of her warm flesh beneath his rough palm. She leaned into his touch without even knowing it.
It finally drove him over the edge.
“Even if it wasn’t the company you wanted?”
Her eyes flashed. Her cheeks flushed pink. Before she could move away, his second hand joined his first at her waist. And he pressed an inch closer. Two. Till their hips met. Her breath shot from her lungs in a whoosh and her top teeth came down over her bottom lip.
He lifted a hand to run his thumb over the spot, tugging the pink skin, leaving the pad of his thumb moist. “Luke is a fool,” Jonah said, his voice so rough his throat hurt.
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t deny it. Then they widened even more as she lifted her hands to press against his chest. “Is that why you had lunch with me? He couldn’t come and sent you to soften the blow?”
“Hell, no,” Jonah barked. “I’m nobody’s flunky. And Luke’s a stand-up guy. Doesn’t mean that sometimes he doesn’t know a good thing when it’s right under his nose.”
What the hell was he doing? Trying to talk her into the guy’s arms? No. He was making sure she was sure. Because he was beyond sure that he wanted to kiss her. Taste her. Hell, he wanted to throw her over his shoulder and take her back to his cave and get it on till she cried out his name.
“He’s your friend,” she said, her fingers drifting to lie flat against his chest. Jonah’s heart rocked against his ribs.
“Which gives me the right to call him out. And if the guy thought any place was better than being right here, right now, with a woman like you, who feels like you feel, and smells as good as you smell, and is into team sports as much as you—”
She laughed at that one, a dreamy gleam in her darkening eyes.
“He’s worse than a fool,” Jonah finished. “He’s too late.”
Avery’s hands curled against his chest. He held his breath as he waited for her to take them away. Instead they gripped his polo shirt, her fingernails scraping cotton against skin, sending shards of heat straight to his groin. And he pressed back until she bumped against the white stuccoed wall beneath the palms.
Then, hauling Avery against him, with an expulsion of breath and self-control, Jonah laid his lips on hers.
He’d expected sweetness and experience—a woman couldn’t be that gorgeous and not make the most of it.
What he didn’t expect was the complete assault on his senses. Or the searing thread of need that wrapped tight about him, following the path of her hands as they slid up into his hair, deepening where her body arched against his, throbbing at every pulse point on his body.
Not a pause, or a breath, her lips simply melted under his, soft and delicious. And he drank her in as if it had been coming for days, eons, forever. He had no idea how long that kiss kept him in its thrall before he eased back, the cling of their lips parting on a sigh.
Slowly the rest of the world came back online until Jonah felt the warmth of the sunlight dappling through the trees, and the sound of the nearby waves lapping gently against the sand, and Avery, soft and trembling in his arms.
Then she looked up at him, shell-shocked. As if she’d never been kissed that way in her life. It was such an ego surge, it took everything in him not to wrap his arms around her, rest his forehead against hers, and just live in the moment. To forget about anything else. Anyone.
Hell, he thought, reality hitting like a Mack truck.
How readily he’d just caved. And kissed her. Avery Shaw. Claude’s friend. Luke’s...who the hell knew what? And until that point pain in his proverbial ass.
He dug deep to find whatever ruthlessness he’d once upon a time dredged up to take a dilapidated old lobster boat and turn it into an empire, and used it to put enough physical distance between himself and Avery that she wrapped her arms about her as if she was suddenly cold.
Her voice was soft as she said, “That was...unexpected.”
Not to him. She’d been dragging him back to his old self—when he’d been wild, unfocused, all that mattered was following the sun—for days. Not that he was about to tell her so.
He looked at her sideways. “What was I supposed to do with you looking up at me like that?”
She blinked. “Like what?”
“Like Bambi when his mother died.”
Her eyes opened as wide as they could go. “You kissed me to...cheer me up?”
“Did it work?”
Snapping back to factory settings, her hands jerked to her hips and her eyes narrowed to dark slits. “What do you think, smart guy? Do I appear cheerful?”
She appeared even more kissable now, her hair a little dishevelled, her lips swollen, and all those waves of emotion coursing his way. She also looked confused. And a little hurt.
Not so much it stopped him from saying, “I don’t know you well enough to rightly say.”
She reared back as if slapped. “Wow,” she said. “I knew you were a stubborn son of a bitch, Jonah. But until right now I had no idea you were a coward.”
And without once looking back she stormed away.
Rubbing a hand up the back of his head, he dragged his eyes from her retreating back to find trusty Hull sitting at his feet, looking adoring as ever. No judgment there.
“She’s partly right,” he said. “I am a son of a bitch.”
But he wasn’t a coward. Not that he was about to chase her to point that out. In fact, considering that kiss, he considered himself pretty frickin’ heroic for walking away. Until that point he’d been thinking all about him; why he should stay the hell away from her. Not once had it occurred to him she ought to stay away from him. Not until he’d felt her trembling in his arms.
While he’d made the decision to remain cemented in Crescent Cove for the rest of his natural life, emotionally he would always be a nomad. It was in his blood. Passed down from his flighty mother. His voyager father. To all intents and purposes he’d been on his own since before he was even a teen. Walked himself to school. Lived off what he could cook. Skating. Surfing. Nothing tying him to anything, or any place, except choice.
When Rach had sashayed into town he’d been
