So as much as it didn’t make sense rationally, it made heart-sense. Call me a hopeless romantic, or maybe a fool, but to me, that was all that mattered.
Stowing my phone in the console, I put the car back into drive and pulled away from the curb. Cute brick-front brownstone buildings with iron-railed stairs lined the sides of each street, mature trees casting their shadows every fifty feet. Dusk threatened as the sun made its descent, already hiding behind buildings despite its place just above the horizon.
And my heart? Well, it just about beat right out of my chest.
Georgia sat on the stoop of her building with her arms crossed on her knees and her suitcase at her feet as I pulled up.
Her hair was wild and unkempt, curling just enough that I knew she’d probably showered and left it to dry on its own. Clothed in jeans and a simple sweatshirt with just barely a trace of makeup on her face, she was still the most beautiful thing I’d seen in just about forever.
Eager to put her racing mind at ease, I pushed the gearshift into park, turned the key to off, and jumped out to round the car before she even made it to her feet.
Adorable and wondering at my hurry, her teeth dug into the skin of her lip and her head tilted just slightly to the side.
I watched her as she watched me, a fire lighting her gorgeous blue eyes just as I pulled her directly into my arms and sealed my lips to hers.
“Mmm,” she moaned, melting into my frame and wrapping hers around my shoulders. I licked at her tongue and her lips, sucking the taste of her into me as I slowly released.
“Kline,” she whispered, overwhelmed.
My eyes shut on their own and my forehead met hers, and I breathed her in until my lungs burned only a little.
“I missed you.”
She smiled and pushed her nose deeper along the side of mine. Her voice was barely audible.
“You saw me today at work.”
I shook our heads together, lips and noses and foreheads touching the whole time.
“Not like this.”
“No,” she agreed softly, placing one simple kiss to the corner of my mouth before pulling away. “You’re right. It wasn’t like this.”
I took a step down to grab her suitcase but kept a squeezing hand on her hip.
“You ready?”
Her face was alive and at ease, excitement lining the corners of every angle as she nodded. I couldn’t help but return the sentiment.
“Mount up.”
She raised a brow, but I just winked, moving to the back of the SUV and lifting the hatch to load her bag.
Looking it over from back to front, she seemed to notice the car for the very first time.
“This is your car?”
I looked at her in question.
She rolled her eyes at my implication, since I was very much accessing said car and the likelihood that I had stolen it was remarkably low.
“This is my rental car. I don’t own a car.”
“You don’t own a car?” She was incredulous.
“Baby.” I laughed, biting my lip to summon my patience. “I live in Manhattan. For business, I have a driver because you’re not the only one with the ability to be late. For everything else, I walk, take a taxi, or ride the subway. If I need to go anywhere outside of the city, I rent one. Simple as that.”
“But this is a Ford Edge,” she pushed stubbornly, still not getting it.
“I know,” I joked. “I sprung for the SUV since I’ve yet to get a handle on your luggage habits.” I jerked my head to the back and slammed the hatch. “Just the one bag. I’ll stick to midsize from now on.”
“Kline.”
Rounding the rear, I walked back to her, leaned my back into the car, grabbed her hips, and pulled her body into mine.
“Baby. I can see you’re struggling to get this, but I swear it’d make sense if you met Bob.”
“Bob? Of Bob and Maureen?”
I nodded. “The one and only. Bob Brooks, my dad and the biggest influence on my life.”
Wrinkles formed on her nose as she grinned, so I kissed it.
Pushing the wild blonde hair back from her face, I trailed one finger along her jaw and then dropped it.
“Let go of who you thought I was…who you think I’m supposed to be. Be here with me now.” I grabbed her hand and pushed it to my chest. “Feel me.”
Her free hand shot to my jaw and stroked it, eyes bright in reaction to my so-obviously-messy emotion.
“I promise, this is who I am, and if you let go of what you thought you knew, you’ll get it. You’ll get me. I know it.”
I sounded desperate because I was. Desperate for her to be the woman I thought she could be. Desperate for her to let go of the billionaire experience and just be with Kline.
“Okay.” She sealed her lips to mine and the tip of her tongue ventured into my mouth briefly. An answering tingle ran down the length of my spine. “I’ll let go of it all.” She pecked me on the mouth once more. “Promise.”
“Good,” I said before slamming my mouth to hers again. A slow groan rumbled in my chest a second later at the feel of her soft tongue. With effort, I forced myself to extract my mouth from hers. “Plus, nothing humbles a man more than cleaning Walter’s litter box. I swear the little fuck flicks shit outside of it on purpose.”
She shook her head with a dreamy smile and bit her lip to stop herself from making fun of me. It didn’t matter what I did. She’d forever be on Walter’s side of this war.
“Now get your ass in the Ford Edge, and let’s get out of here. I’m ready to have you all to myself for the weekend.”
“Yes, sir!” she joked with a salute before reaching for the door. I wrapped an arm around her waist at the last second, swooping her off her feet and swinging her around to put me between her and the car.
She bristled, but the icy edges of her attitude melted as soon as I winked and popped open the handle myself. “What kind of a man would I be if I didn’t open the door for you?”
“The kind that fill the streets of Manhattan.”
I just shook my head and smiled, waiting patiently for her to climb in.
“Right. You’re not those guys.”
“Ahh,” I teased. “Now she’s getting it.”
She grabbed the inside handle of the door and pulled it closed as she spoke. “Get in the car, Kline.”
The door slammed in my face and I laughed. “Yes, ma’am,” I mouthed through the window, rounding the hood and climbing in.
“To the Hamptons!” she shouted.
I shook my head, fired up the engine, and pulled away from the curb with an enormous smile on my face.
* * *
An hour and a half or so into the drive, she started to fidget. And I don’t mean a little movement here or there. I’m talking, for a few seconds, I feared she was having a seizure.
“What’s up, Benny?”
“What?” Her gaze jerked toward me in surprise.
I glanced from the road to her and back again. “You literally look like your skin is in the process of attacking you. What’s up?”
“I just… I have to tell you something.”
Her tone was serious, and her nerves were beginning to eat her alive. I didn’t want to be presumptuous, but I had a feeling I knew what was coming. Our intimacy had been on a steady advance from the moment we’d collided, melding together and racing for the finish line like one entity. We were on our way to a weekend alone, and the relevance of her sexual inexperience had to be beating her over the head with a bat at this point.
“So tell me, baby,” I coaxed gently, trying to walk the line of someone who didn’t know what was coming and someone who absolutely did, having heard it twice already, and was prepared to answer in a calm, respectful manner. If it hadn’t been for the blunt conversation Ruck had had with Rose, Kline would have never realized that Georgie had already told him in a Benadryl-fueled rant.
Christopher Columbus her pussy prideland.
God, I’d
laughed so hard about that when I realized how brilliant it had been.
“I’m…like…a…” incoherent mumbling “…virgin!”
I bit my lip and considered her words. I knew what she was trying to say, but a little figurative ice breaking never hurt anyone. Literal ice breaking—well, that hurt a lot of people.
“You want to listen to Madonna?”
I reached for my phone like I was going to search for the song.
“No,” she huffed, adorably frustrated at having to gather the nerve to say it again. I didn’t blame her. This was the fourth time in about twice as many days that she was admitting it to someone. That I knew of, anyway.
Turning in her seat, she forced herself to face me head-on. Her eyes sought mine, and I hated that because I was driving, I couldn’t fully give them to her. I had no right to it, but that didn’t stop me from being proud of her confidence.
When I found a straight stretch of road and glanced her way for more than a quick, passing beat, she spoke. “I’m a virgin.” Crisp and calm, her voice managed to be matter-of-fact and silky all at once.
Did I mention I was proud of her?
Was that fucked up? I didn’t mean for it to be. I was just happy to see her owning it—being proud of herself and her own choices instead of feeling like she had to answer for them. I wanted to yell out some kind of cry for all of the empowered females, but I thought that might seem suspicious.
So, I went with the only other thing I could think of.
“Okay. Cool.”
Eloquent, right?
“Okayyyy,” she repeated, adorably confused by my non-response. “Cool.”
I’m sure she’d been expecting the usual questions.
How’d you manage that?
or
Are you, like, super religious?
or
What the hell are you waiting for?
As her lover, I had a right to know she’d never taken a sexual encounter to that level before, a warning of sorts to make sure I didn’t make an assumption that affected both of us. But really, the rest of it was her business and hers alone. Sharing was a staple of every healthy relationship, but she got to be the creator of the terms and conditions under which said sharing happened.
“Kline?” she called, pulling out of my thoughts.
“Yeah, baby?”
“You don’t have any questions? Or…I don’t know. You’re so quiet.”
I was being quiet. Obviously, it was doing nothing but torturing her.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but it’s not what you think.”
“What do I think?” She raised a brow and I laughed.
“Okay, fair enough. I don’t know what you’re thinking. But I’m thinking you’re a fucking brilliant, beautiful woman with the most delicious pussy I’ve ever tasted. I’ll be lucky as fuck if you decide you wanna share more of it with me. But I don’t fucking expect it, and I’ve done nothing to earn it. I’m guessing none of the other fuckers in New York ever did, and I don’t mind one fucking bit.”
“That was a lot of ‘fucks,’ Mr. Brooks.”
I laughed and forced the tension in my shoulders to release. “I know. You got me all worked up. Thatch is usually the only one that can get me to utilize that many fucks in one thought process.”
Her laughter rolled through me like a wave.
“God, Thatch. I hear all sorts of lore about that guy, but the only actual interaction I’ve had with him was when you called me on the plane.”
“There’s Thatch lore?” I asked, mystified and horrified all at once.
“Oh yeahhh.” She laughed. “But most of it is from Dean, so I’ve taken any and all information with a very large grain of salt.”
I laughed.
“Like, rock salt.”
I shook my head, knowing Dean usually had a pretty good bead on the reality of things despite his juicy delivery.
“Ehhh. You can probably stick to the regular iodized kind. Thatch is a crazy asshole. Fun, though. And, occasionally, a good friend.”
“Is he really that crazy?” she asked, insistent in the belief that he couldn’t be as rowdy as people described.
As always with Thatch, examples of his depravity were plentiful, but one stood out above the rest.
“You know the scar on my abdomen?” I asked. “Lower right side?”
I glanced over in time to see her nod, eyes brimming with biblical knowledge. “It’s completely plausible I’ve noticed it.”
A smile arrested my features.
“Well, I owe its existence to Thatch and one of his half-baked ideas.”
Waiting for an explanation, she settled farther into her seat.
“One night during our freshman year of college, he got this idea that stair surfing on our mattresses on the icy courtyard steps could be the next big campus activity. Three broken fingers, one bloody nose, and a tree-branch-impaled abdominal muscle later, I decided I didn’t want to be a part of the sales pitch.”
“You could have said no from the beginning,” she suggested and I shrugged.
“What fun would that have been?”
I flipped on my blinker and turned into the long gravel drive of the Hamptons house. This had been the quickest drive of my life with Georgia keeping me company, and the salty sea air clung to my skin as I rolled my window down to put in the code for the gate. The stars were brighter now that we’d left the city behind, and when I turned to look at Georgie, I found her head hanging out of her window with her face to the sky like she’d noticed.
“Georgie?” I called, fighting back a grin.
“This place is outrageous!” she all but shouted. “Have you seen the fucking sky? And the length of this driveway?”
I shook my head and laughed some more, pulling forward cautiously so she could stay in her happy place half in, half out of the car.
“I might have noticed it a time or two.”
She sank back into the seat and shook her hair out of her smiling face.
“You should notice more. Like, a lot more. You know, every weekend or so. Andddd, if you just happen to want some company,” she said, feigning nonchalance, “I could probably fit it into my schedule. I mean, I’d be willing to check.”
“I’ll make note.”
“Holy hell! Look at that house! It’s adorable!”
I followed her eyes through the windshield, smiling so much my cheeks started to ache. The little bungalow wasn’t ostentatious, but it didn’t lack space either, and the wood-shank shingle siding had seen better days. The inside pretty much matched, but I was working on fixing it. Slowly but surely.
“I’m glad you like it.”
She bounced in her seat.
“But you probably shouldn’t like it too much. I’m fixing it up to give it to my parents, and I’ll start to feel bad if you get too attached.”
“Really? You’re doing the work yourself?” If she had been a dog, I imagined her ears would have perked up.
I smiled and nodded. “Really. I had an electrician work on the wiring and Thatch and Wes have helped me a couple of times with the heavy lifting, but I’ve done most of it myself.”
She slammed an open hand down on my thigh and squeezed, her expression deadpan.
“I think I just orgasmed.”
I shoved the gearshift into park and reached for her neck at the same time. I rubbed my nose with hers and smiled before touching my lips to hers just once. “Please, Benny. For the love of all that’s holy, hold on to that thought—and the easy trigger.”
* * *
Bags inside the house, a quick dinner of sandwiches I’d picked up from Tony’s deli and packed to bring along consumed, and wine in hand, Georgia demanded a tour of the house.
“I want to know every detail. What it looked like when you started, what you’re in the middle of now, and what you see it being like when you’re done. Don’t cut corners, Brooks,” she’d said.
“I intend to travel each and every curve in its entirety,”
I’d teased back salaciously.
She’d just laughed and shoved me down the hall we were currently walking.
She’d seen the completely redone kitchen, the room I’d tackled first. I’d known it would be an outrageously extensive job, as well as the heart of the house. Crisp white cabinets, light stone counters, and dark wood floors, I’d kept the character of the house but added a ton of modern twists and convenience.
“God, Kline. I still can’t get over that island! It’s freaking enormous.”
“I know.”
Twelve feet by twelve feet, it was nearly enough room to use as an elevated dance floor. Part of me worried that it was too much, but my reasoning was sound. Maureen and Bob Brooks lived their lives in the kitchen, hip to hip or one or the other relaxing at the counter while the other one cooked. I swore ninety-five percent of my childhood memories happened in that room.
“It’s perfect, though. Like the epicenter of the house.”
My chest tightened with an unexpected surge of pride and accomplishment. The fact that she understood made me feel validated in a way I hadn’t even known I’d needed. I turned quickly, grabbing her hips and slamming her surprised and open lips to mine.
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s exactly what I was going for.”
I almost couldn’t handle the feeling of her answering smile.
“Watch your step,” I advised as we stepped into one of the completely unrenovated bedrooms. The original wainscoting was the only thing I really wanted to keep, and it was acting more like a temporary storage room for supplies than a bedroom at the moment.
“This place is amazing,” Georgie remarked in wonder. “It’s almost like a time capsule.”
“I know. It’s nearly a hundred years old. Which was really fucking intimidating when I first started doing the work.”
“I bet.”
“Come on. Let me show you upstairs real quick and then we can watch a movie. I’m ready to cuddle.”
“Kline Brooks, a cuddler?”
“Born, bred, and proud of it, baby.”
She pursed her lips, scrunched her nose, and shook her head—Georgia’s look of trying to figure something out.
Beach Reads Box Set Page 208