Barefoot by the Sea

touch lightly.

He felt her sigh into his mouth, a little bit of surrender and uncertainty and desire.

“This might be harder than I thought,” he murmured, the thought slipping out as easily as the next kiss.

“What might be?” she asked.

Lying. “Waiting.” It was the first thing that popped into his head.

“I don’t get it. You didn’t want to wait the night I met you. You wanted to take off my clothes and, let’s see, do something unspeakable to my rack.”

Just the words on her lips shot a gallon or two of blood due south. “I still do.” He ventured his hand a little lower on her breastbone, nearly touching her breast. “More, in fact.”

Her only response was two raised eyebrows in question. But he heard the question, read the confusion in her eyes. What happened between now and then?

He’d found out he needed a wife. “That night, I wanted to…” Fuck. Shag. Screw the pain away. “Do what I generally do with women who don’t matter.”

She inched back with a small grunt of revulsion.

“Don’t take that the wrong way.”

“There’s a right way to take it?”

“Take it this way,” he said, cupping the back of her head with his hand and threading some hair through his fingers. “The bar pickup was meaningless, fast, easy, and fun. But now I know you. Now I… need you.” Again, not a lie. In fact, it might have been the most honest thing he’d said all night.

“You need me?”

He closed his eyes, fighting the urge to explain any more. “I want you. I like you. I dig you. I’m into you. I —”

She put a hand on his mouth. “I get the idea. Just so I understand…you’re holding back because you think that…this might be…” She dragged out the last few words, clearly unwilling or unable to put any in his mouth.

“I think this might be real,” he whispered. The guilt pinprick turned into a nine-inch chef’s knife and stabbed right into his chest. Instantly, he leaned closer and tried to stop the pain with a long, sweet, wet kiss.

When it ended, she didn’t even open her eyes, her breath already tight. “John Brown, you are the master of mixed messages. Give me one straight answer. Do you want to come inside or not?”

“Yes, but I’m not going to,” he said. “Because I won’t leave.”

After a second, she nodded once, quickly. “I get it. Good-bye.” She attempted another exit, but he grabbed her again.

“You’re mad at me,” he said.

She bit a soft laugh. “Not really. Confused.”

“Understandable. Let’s not rush things.”

She searched his face, long and hard, the confusion darkening her eyes. “Why is it that every instinctive female alarm system that’s hardwired into my body is screaming a red alert right now?”

Because that female alarm system was in excellent working condition. “Not sleeping with you doesn’t mean I don’t want to. It means I do. More than once.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “I like that.”

He slowly took the keys out of the ignition and gave them to her. “Let me walk you to the door.”

“No, that’s okay.” She gave a tentative smile. “I might never let you go.”

For some reason, the words got to him.

“Thanks for dinner and coming to the party.” She opened the door and stepped out, walking to the front of the bungalow. He watched for a moment, then he climbed out, closed the driver’s door, and took a few steps to his motorcycle.

As he was about to get on, he looked up and saw her slip into the front door, imagining her leaning against it inside, sighing, maybe a little let down, maybe a little excited, definitely a lot baffled.

What the hell was he doing? He couldn’t use this woman like this. He was a bastard, hurt and angry and desperate, sure, but she didn’t do anything to deserve this.

Fuck this lying.

He pivoted, his mind dead blank for a moment, then he sprinted toward the small porch, his feet pounding on the two steps as he bounded to the door, which opened exactly the second he reached it. “What are you —”

“I have to tell you something,” he said, surprised at how strangled the words were.

“What?”

“I have to tell you…” He put his hands on her shoulders, the confession jammed in his throat now. “I have to tell you…”

Suddenly, his head thrummed with blood and fear and the echo of Henry Brooker’s statement of raw fact.

Ian, you live with this lie or you die.

“Tell me what?”

“That I…” Lie or die. He closed his eyes and pulled her hard against him, finding her mouth and slamming his over it, squeezing her whole body as if he could kiss her from head to toe.

She stiffened, bunching his shirt under her fists, a soft whimper in her throat.

Lie or die.

The three words ricocheted in his brain, so he kissed harder, opening his mouth and entering hers, tasting heat and wine and the sweet flavor of her giving in. Her fingers loosened, flattened, and traveled over his chest with appreciation. Her tongue matched his, licking and flicking in a mating dance, and her hips rocked gently at the place where they met so naturally.

Lie or…

Kiss. It was all he wanted to do. Kiss. Touch. Taste. Smell. Press his hard-on into her pelvic bone and ride. The reverberations of Henry’s words faded into her tender moans and disappeared into nothing as he let his hands travel over her back, her hips, and cup her backside. Henry’s warnings went silent with the thrum of blood and the steady, heavy insistence of his body.

He broke the kiss only to trail more down her neck, walking her backwards into the entryway, unable to stop his hands from roaming up her waist to the sides of her breasts. To her nipples, so hard his mouth watered to suck on them.

“John.”

He barely heard the name, it hardly registered. He didn’t have a fucking name anymore; he just had need. Kissing her mouth again, he turned her to the wall, using it for leverage to roll against her.

Breathless already, she let him, lifting her chin to offer him her throat and breasts, bracing herself as he clutched her breast with one hand and gathered up her dress with the other. He wanted under. In. All the way—

“John.” She added pressure, pushing him back an inch, needing air. “Is this what you wanted to tell me?”

Was it? Wasn’t he going to tell her the truth? Or was he going to fuck her in every possible way?

God, he liked this woman. This hard-on was real and way too connected to his brain, and that alone was a lovely and unwanted change.

“Actually, no,” he whispered, opening his fingers to let her dress fall back around her legs. “I was going to tell you…”

A secret she had no reason or desire to keep.

He put some more space between them, taking his hand off the sexy curve of her breast and placing both hands on the wall, holding himself up and not giving her a way to escape.

She still fought shallow breaths, her eyes dark with arousal, her cheeks flushed, her lips a little swollen from his brutal kisses. She looked pretty. Hot. Ready. Willing to take him and trust him and he…

He was a total and complete fake who needed this woman to fall for him and marry him and give him the only thing he really wanted. Without ever knowing the truth.