Bess
I’d known from his e-mail that Lane had reserved a room for me at a nearby hotel that was a client of his. So I wasn’t nervous about my sleeping arrangements before I left Pennsylvania.
But as he made love to my mouth on the beach under the starry sky, I’d never wanted to go home with someone so badly. I wanted to ditch any reservations—mental or physical—and hurry back to wherever Lane lived and do whatever I’d never done before.
Which, looking back, was probably not much.
Except, I wanted to do it all. And remember it. Savor it. Catalog it. Brand it to my brain.
He’d pulled me close, captured me with my own hands and driven me hard against his frame. Then he released my hands, allowing them to wander freely. I was like a blind person feeling my way home, touching each and every plane and surface I encountered, finding my way to comfort. And paradise.
Finally, I grabbed Lane’s back as his tongue sought refuge in my mouth. Gripping his T-shirt with fear that I would sink into the sand and disappear from the moment, I pried my eyes open to make sure this was actually happening.
I captured his gaze, like two searing blue planets. Set against the dark sky, the color of his eyes was even more pronounced. His dark hair blending into the night, Lane watched me.
I was kissing a man I’d admitted the awful truth of my past to, and he plowed through it as though it was no big deal. A man who wanted me enough to bring me to Florida and wait for me at the airport. Amazingly enough, he wasn’t running in the opposite direction, but pulling me closer.
For the briefest of moments, a faint scent of pine crossed my senses, and I was reminded of AJ. Another man who recently devoured me, and at the time I thought I’d learn to like it. I was wrong.
AJ might have brought me awake sexually, revived my appetite for the touch of another human, but his heavy-handed approach to get my attention left a bitter taste in my mouth, much like sugar-free candy. He might have looked like the real thing, but he was nowhere near it. Not even close.
I knew how AJ’s mind worked—better than he thought—and knew he was chasing another type of high. It wasn’t necessarily about me. That’s how addictive personalities work.
Lane was chasing me, and I didn’t know why. But instead of playing hard to get, I was toppling right on top of him.
Literally.
The kiss had deepened to a point of no return and with Lane holding me tight, we drifted toward the sand. He fell backward and I tumbled right on top of him, our lips never losing their connection.
I brought my hands up to run through his untamed hair, dragging my fingers along his scalp, and my touch elicited a moan from somewhere deep inside his chest. I felt it reverberate against mine and answered with a hum of desire I didn’t even know I could make. With the water lapping the shoreline the only noise in the background, our symphony of moans filled the air around us. Even fully clothed, as our bodies drew together, Lane’s desire made itself known. I pressed into it, looking for friction, anything that might relieve the need that consumed me.
He brought his hands up from where they were locked tight around my back and drew them over my shoulders, bringing my cardigan down with his fingers. My skin tingled and burned as his rough fingers made their way down my bare arms, the breeze doing little to cool the heat radiating off of me.
We were like two teenagers, my hands tightly woven in his hair as he ran his up and down my arms, then brushed his fingers along my side cleavage. Grinding into each other, we pushed and pulled, desperately looking for release in the middle of a public beach in Miami. And I couldn’t have cared less.
I never wanted to leave this moment. I wanted to stay there for the next twenty or forty years.
“Bess,” Lane whispered, breaking the moment. His one hand remained steady on my arm as the other reached around to hold my neck when I lifted my head up.
“Bess,” he softly repeated as he lifted his forehead to meet mine. “We have to stop.”
I nodded, feeling my eyes start to fill with tears. What was I thinking? Was I that desperate to push this man to screw me in a public place?
Thankfully, my emotions were masked by the night.
“I don’t want to,” he said, rubbing his palm back and forth over the nape of my neck. “But we have to because I want more, so much more. I want all of you. And I need to respect what you said at dinner. You didn’t come here for a roll in the hay—or the sand—and that was certainly not my expectation. But in about three seconds, I’m not going to be able to stop.”
“Okay,” I breathed out.
He lifted his hip and ground into me one more time, allowing me time to digest his desire. “Believe me when I say I don’t want to. I want to carry you up to the road and check into the first hotel we see. I want to dive inside you, and I mean deep, any way I can. But I can’t tonight. I meant it when I told you we need to have fun while you’re down here, and if I get inside you right now, I may never leave for the next forty-eight hours. You won’t see daylight.”
“Oh,” I said, but thought, Why not? I don’t need the daylight.
But he was right. I needed to cool my raging hormones and take stock of what we were doing, which was pretty crazy for someone who was stone-cold sober.
Before I could say anything more, Lane kissed me tenderly. It was a gentle caress, so different from the raging kisses of just moments before, but it stoked my inner fire just the same. Despite the cool night air, I was roasting.
So, when Lane helped me to stand, I allowed my cardigan to fall while brushing the sand off my body. As I bent over to catch my sweater, the moonlight caught my tattoo, and Lane reached out to touch it.
“Wow,” was all he said. His finger traced around the outline, then moved to the teardrops, circling them while his brow furrowed.
I brought my hand up to cover it. I’d forgotten it was there for the first time in . . . ever. It struck me how long it had been since I’d bared my body or my true self to anyone. Sadly, I couldn’t remember the last time I did. I was probably drunk or stoned or high or all three. Yeah, I’d been naked with AJ, but he didn’t count. The lines were so blurred with him; he’d been my friend first, a shoulder to lean on during the worst of times, and then he took advantage of that.
“I don’t normally uncover it, which is one advantage to not living in Florida where it’s hot all the time,” I said.
“What is it? What does it mean?” he asked while continuing to trace the outline of the eye with his fingertip. I could see his brain churning, his eyes scanning the design over and over like the cars circling South Beach earlier. With a quick glance up at me, he asked, “Why is she crying?”
Standing there on the beach, I looked anywhere but straight at him. “She’s crying because she’s me,” I said as I watched my pretty pink-tipped toes sift between granules of sand. “I guess you could say I’ve always been a lonely soul. At least, since I was a little girl and my mom walked out on me. I couldn’t shed real tears myself, so I had this put on my arm as a permanent reminder of the ones I held in when I stood in the doorway watching her walk away from me.”
Lane grasped my hands and twined his large fingers around my smaller ones, bringing us face-to-face.
I whispered, “Now it’s just a reminder of how stupid I was to put it there.”
“You know what?” he whispered in my ear.
I shook my head.
Leaning closer again, he spoke into my ear, making sure it was just for me and me alone to hear. “I think it’s a reminder for anyone who cares for you to make it extra good for you. All the time, extra good. In bed, out to dinner or lunch, or just sitting and watching TV, everything in your life should be a little bit better than for everyone else because of what you went through.”
I couldn’t speak. I’d never heard such sweet words, let alone ones meant just for me, and they sent a tiny shiver over my body. I chalked it up to being cold, but it really had nothing to do with that.
When we turned away from the beach, holding hands as we walked slowly back toward the street, I asked, “So, what are your deep, dark secrets? I’m certainly spilling all of mine tonight.”