“Ben,” she said kindly, “accidental injury isn’t unusual when performing CPR.”
He knew that, but it didn’t matter. He would never forgive himself. “If I’d been home, I could have protected her. But I wasn’t home. I was out surfing.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “The story of my fucking life.”
She regarded him with sympathetic eyes, but didn’t offer any platitudes.
“If I’d treated her right while she was alive, maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad. But I didn’t. I was a shit husband. And a shit father. Jesus, I didn’t even marry her until Carly was in elementary school. I was never there when she needed me.” He knew he was getting maudlin, but he couldn’t stop. The words were like a poison inside him, and he couldn’t keep them there any longer. “At least when I was drunk, I had an excuse. But giving up drugs and alcohol didn’t make me a superhero. I was still a selfish, irresponsible ass.”
He didn’t expect her to argue with him, and she didn’t. Maybe that was part of his attraction to her. Like Olivia, she didn’t cut him any slack.
“Why didn’t you marry her?” she asked. “Until later, I mean.”
“I wanted to,” he admitted. “I asked her before Carly was born, and every year after until she said yes.”
“What made her give in?”
“I got sober. She wouldn’t have me until I’d been a year sober, and celibate.”
“Celibate, too?” Her tone was light. “This woman was a paragon.”
He gave her a wry smile. “It’s one of the recommendations of AA anyway. And I’d already fucked everything that moved, so it wasn’t much of a sacrifice. Besides, she was the only one I wanted.”
Easing herself off the edge, she slipped out of his arms. “I should go.”
“Hey,” he said softly, reaching out to grab her wrist. She turned her head, trying to hide her tears, but he saw them. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.” Then comprehension dawned. It wasn’t the story about how his wife died that made her cry, it was his description of how much he’d loved Olivia. Still loved her.
What woman wanted to hear that the man she was about to go to bed with was in love with someone else?
“Fuck,” he said, wanting to kick himself. “I didn’t mean to make her sound perfect. She wasn’t. She cursed at me in Spanish all the time, and laughed because I couldn’t understand her. She was vain about her looks and that bugged the hell out of me.” He searched for something worse, something convincingly bad. “And she cheated on me.”
Wiping her cheeks with the sleeve of his robe, she said, “She didn’t.”
He smiled, knowing he had her. “Yes she did.”
“With who?”
He shrugged, with some difficulty. “It didn’t really matter, because it was a one-time deal, and it was my fault anyway. I left on a three-month tour the week after our honeymoon. Laird Hamilton backed out at the last minute, and when they asked me to go, I said yes without even thinking about her, much less asking her opinion. The next day I was in Tahiti, getting pounded by thirty-foot waves with a six-foot drop to the reef.”
“You are an idiot.”
He laughed harshly, agreeing with her.
“Did you cheat on her, too?”
“No,” he said, sobering. Not liking the question, or the context under which she’d asked it before. “And I didn’t go on any more surprise tours.”
Sonny stared back at Ben, finding him devastatingly handsome and painfully sincere. Every time he opened up to her she fell in love with him a little bit more. It was so ironic that his devotion to his wife, the very reason he would never be able to commit to another woman, was what made him irresistible to her.
In her mind, she was stepping over the threshold of balcony doors, walking past the stark, soulless interior of his bedroom, and right out of his life. In reality, and a repetition of their short, tumultuous history together, he wouldn’t let her go. And she allowed him to detain her, because she wanted to stay.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “I loved her. She was the mother of my child, and I really loved her. Being with her was as comfortable as breathing. She drove me crazy sometimes, but it was never like this.” He put her hand against the middle of his chest. “There’s nothing comfortable about you.”
He was a little off the mark, as far as compliments went, but his heart was pounding and his eyes were hungry.
Maybe he didn’t love her, but he wanted her.
He must have understood that she needed more convincing. “I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you,” he said, covering her mouth with his and proceeding to convince her with some very tantalizing movements of his tongue. He broke the kiss, breathing hard. “If you don’t let me fuck you again, I’ll die.”
She laughed at his overstatement, but he took himself very seriously, and went about seducing her as if his life depended on it. He sank to a cushioned lounge chair, pulled her onto his lap, and had her all but purring in minutes.
He touched her and she shuddered. She unbuttoned his pants and touched him, too, stroking lightly until he took her hand away.
“Come here,” he said, leaning back in the reclining chair. Sliding his body under hers, he urged her forward until she was straddling his chest, her belly level with his mouth. Her robe gaped open, baring her from the waist down.
She cast a worried glance for watchful neighbors, who would surely be able to guess what they were doing. Seeing none, she felt totally exposed, nonetheless.
And unbearably excited.
Bending his head to her, he traced the rim of her belly button with his tongue. When she sucked in a breath, he glanced up at her, the corner of his mouth quirking into a slight smile. Reaching underneath her robe, he cupped her bottom and brought her up to him.
She twisted her fingers through his hair, gasping as he slipped his tongue inside her.
With a helpless moan, she surrendered, moving her hips, pressing herself to his mouth. When his tongue found her clitoris, the whole world fell away. She came in a shuddering rush, collapsing against him, brilliant orange sunbursts and white-hot flashes dancing behind her eyes. She could literally hear the crescendo ringing in her ears.
Or maybe it was just waves, crashing on the rocks below.
She drifted back to earth, chest heaving, and realized she’d just screamed down the rooftops in broad daylight. She felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment.
“Sorry,” she said, climbing off him.
“For what?”
She stared at his face. Her scent was probably all over him. “For mounting your head. Smothering you. Going crazy.”
He laughed. “You think I didn’t like it? My mission in life is to make you go crazy.” He shifted uncomfortably. “You can mount any part of me, anytime.”
She looked down. He was painfully erect, oozing with arousal. She bent her head to lick the pearly drop from the tip. When she took him fully into her mouth, he moaned, and a moment later, she had him quaking with pleasure. “Baby…”
Making a soothing sound, low in her throat, she stayed right where she was.
“No,” he said. “I want to be inside you.”
“Do you have a condom?” she asked, because he was breathing hard, struggling with himself.
“In my pocket,” he ground out.
She pulled his jeans down his legs and searched the pockets, doing the honors once again. Letting the robe fall off her shoulders, she climbed astride, easing herself down on him. As soon as he was buried to the hilt, she leaned forward and kissed him very softly on the lips. “I like you here,” she said, tracing the crescent-shaped scar above his hard, beautiful mouth. She could feel his stomach quivering, and every inch of him, thick and pulsing within.
“Don’t move,” he warned.
“Okay,” she breathed, clenching her inner muscles.
Groaning, he took her hips in his hands and rode her on him, hard and fast, up and down, back and forth, his movements wild, uninhibited, uncontrolled.
Panting, she pushed him back against the cushions, bracing her palms on his chest and reestablishing control.
