Rogue: A Paradise Shores Novel

by Hayle, Olivia

  Mom frowns. “But you’re not meaning to. It wouldn’t be intentional.”

  “One would think that matters, but in these situations, it doesn’t. A breach of naval space is a breach of naval space.” Hayden shrugs. “We would be on edge too if the situation was reversed.”

  Dad is leaning forward. “What did you do, son?”

  “The USS Denver is a big ship. But it’s not an aircraft carrier or a destroyer, it’s a cruiser. This was a regular patrol. So I had one of my lieutenants radio in to command and make sure they made contact with the Russians. That had to be step one, that they knew this wasn’t intentional. And in the worst case so that they could help us if we went down.”

  Gary draws a breath. “Hayden…”

  He shoots his uncle a small smile. “It’s rare. But we didn’t have cargo or ballast, only ballast water.”

  “What?” My father reacts immediately. Ships and boats, and you’ll have his rapt attention. “You’re telling me a US cruiser went to sea without proper ballast?”

  “Yes. It was a tactical decision, but one that backfired given the unexpected storm. We were rolling heavily. We went from thirty degrees heeled over to one side, only to whip to the other at thirty degrees, all in the span of seconds. The crew was… well. It took its toll.”

  “Did you have steering-way?”

  “Yes. We had to fight for every inch to make sure we met those waves head-on. But she’s a well-maintained ship, and the crew is worth its weight in gold.”

  “What did you do?” I murmur, looking at him. It’s easy to picture him in his uniform, out under a darkened sky, thousands of miles from home. The waves crashing around him, barking orders.

  Hayden’s gaze softens. “You do what you can. You give the right orders and you follow the ones given to you. And then you hold on, and you pray for luck, and hope you win the fight against the sea.”

  There’s complete silence around the table. I can see the pride in Gary as he looks at Hayden. Oddly enough, it’s also mirrored in my dad’s eyes. Who knew?

  “We’re so thankful you’re back,” Mom says finally. “And no more active service, huh?”

  “Not sure yet,” Hayden says carefully, avoiding my eyes. “I’ll have to see. I don’t know how long I’m staying.”

  My mom shoots him a massive smile. “Will you come tomorrow? To the marina?”

  Hayden looks confused, but nods. “Sure.”

  “Mom is on the organizing community for the Junior Sailing Regatta,” Parker explains. “I’ll be there, helping out. You should join, man.”

  “Sure. I’d love to.”

  “I’ll text you the details,” Parker says. “Lily will be there too, won’t you?”

  I grit my teeth and nod. “Yes. Yeah, I will.”

  Mom puts a hand on mine and I resist the urge to withdraw it. “Lily is painting children’s faces, the dear. It was so popular last year that we had to get her back a second time.”

  Hayden looks straight at me. There are a million things in his eyes—laughter being the main one. “I can’t wait to see that.”

  The rest of the dinner is uneventful. We make it through the main course and dessert without any mishaps or odd questions. I even manage to avoid talking directly to Hayden.

  But Mom turns to me after dessert, and judging by the teasing look in her eyes, she’s about to put an end to the peace. “Lily, how’s Turner? Is it time we start inviting him to a few Friday night dinners?”

  I can practically see Parker’s grin next to me, just like I notice the sudden edge in Hayden. God, get me out of this dinner, and save me from my own meddling mother.

  “No, I don’t think so,” I say, gritting my teeth. “We just went to an event together. It’s too early for family dinners.”

  Avoid Hayden’s gaze, avoid Hayden’s gaze… It’s a mantra in my head now.

  “But you’ve known him forever,” Parker points out. “It’s not a stretch, exactly.”

  Dad comes to my rescue. His face is marred by a frown, as it so often is. “They work together. There’s no denying he’s a good man, like his father. But mixing business and pleasure is never a good idea.”

  “Yes, there’s that. Thanks, Dad. I’m very concerned about what it might do to our professional life. Now, let’s move on from my dating life.”

  But no, apparently we aren’t quite done. Hayden frowns, suddenly looking like a mirror image of my father. “Not to mention, Parker and I knew Turner quite well in high school. I’m not entirely sure about some of his actions.”

  “Is that so?” my dad says, leaning back. “Parker, is that true?”

  Parker shoots Hayden a look so filled with surprise it’s almost comical. “Well, yes. Technically. But he’s grown up since then.”

  “He has,” Hayden says thoughtfully. He’s leaning back in his chair too, muscled arms crossed over his chest, looking like the sole authority on the topic. “One wonders how much, though.”

  I’m so angry. It’s a hot furnace inside me, burning and burning. Now he’s protective? Is it the kind of protective you are of a friend? The same kind of friend you kiss—or the friend you send platonic gift baskets to with notes asking for friendship?

  “Turner’s a great person.” It takes effort to keep my voice calm. “For the moment, I’m not interested—but if I want to date him, I will.”

  My emotions are like a yo-yo. One pull from Hayden and they bounce, sending me reeling again. And I’m tired of it.

  I stand to clear the plates after dinner. I’ve barely made it to the kitchen when Hayden follows me, carrying plates of his own.

  There’s tension in his shoulders. They echo the same unease in mine. He puts plates down next to the dishwasher and taps his fingers along the countertop.

  I fill the machine with dishes and let the silence stretch on.

  He finally speaks up. “Did you get the basket I left you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And...?”

  “And what does it mean? Is it a friendship basket? Is it a sorry-I-kissed-you basket?” I ask, not saying the third option. Is it a sorry-I-left-you basket? I-want-you-back-basket?

  “You’re angry. Damn.” He runs a hand through his hair. “It was both, I suppose. A sorry-for-everything basket.”

  “For everything? It was a good basket, Hayden, I’ll admit, but still…”

  “You’re right,” he says, leaning closer. “It’s not enough.”

  I close the dishwasher and face him entirely. “Why did you kiss me the other night?”

  He’s quiet for a moment, like I’ve surprised him by needing to ask. But then his eyes blaze. “Honestly? Because I wanted to.”

  It sets something off in me. It’s anger, and it’s need, and it’s so many more things. Because I wanted to. Well, I’d wanted to as well. But now it’s complicated things, and I’m no closer to getting answers. I still don’t know what I am to him. A fun fling from the past? A childhood friend he remembers fondly?

  Parker walks into the kitchen. “Hey, guys. Care for a drink? We could head downstairs and let the elders do their thing.”

  “No,” I say. “I’m heading out.”

  Parker frowns at me. “Already? Not a single drink?”

  “No. I have an early morning tomorrow.” I kiss him on the cheek as I pass. “Have one for me. I’ll see you tomorrow at the marina.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  I don’t say goodbye to Hayden. I head straight out to my parents and Gary, kissing them goodbye and thanking them for the dinner. I can’t stay around Hayden another minute, or I’ll demand proper answers to my questions. And then I’ll break—and it won’t be pretty when I do.

  I hear them talking as I leave, but I don’t turn around. More goodbyes and are you really leaving, too?

  Hayden is following me out, but I still don’t look back. I keep walking. He’s taller than me, though, and with his long legs he catches up with me easily. “Damn it, Lily. Wait a second.”

  I
turn on my heel, taking the path behind the hedges to the greenhouse. I open the door to the smell of hydrangeas and sun-ripe tomatoes straight on the vine.

  Hayden closes the door behind him. He glances around, eyes narrowing at the abundance of green. My mom had it built six years ago and it’s been her pride and joy ever since. It’s so filled now that once inside, you’re completely concealed from view. But of course, he hasn’t seen it before.

  “This is new.”

  “Yes.” I wrap my arms around my chest. “Just another thing you missed while you were gone.”

  He takes a step forward. His face is set in hard, rough lines, nothing at all like the charming appearance he presented at dinner. “I’m sorry about the kiss, all right? Truly.”

  I laugh. It’s not a happy sound, not at all. It’s too hot in here—balmy, even. I can already feel sweat down my back, anger making my cheeks flush. “I don’t think you’re sorry.”

  Hayden scowls. “Why are you angry, Lily?”

  “How could I not be? You come back here and you fit in with the family. You joke around and make Mom laugh. You say you’re back indefinitely.”

  I must look a mess: crazed expression, arms moving. I don’t stop, either. I walk up to him and shove him hard, backwards.

  He takes it in stride. “Lily?”

  “Why did you kiss me?”

  “Because I wanted to,” he repeats. “Because I…” He shakes his head, but doesn’t try to stop the blows I’m aiming at his chest, my fists barely connecting, tears burning behind my eyes.

  “You can’t come back here and kiss me and act like we’re friends, as if you didn’t break my damn heart.” There’s so much inside of me—ten years’ worth of anger and resentment—and it’s all coming out.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “How could you? You just left!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Hayden wraps his arms around my waist, steadying me against him. He doesn’t stop me from hitting. It’s like he’s taking it all, offering me his flesh as payment. “I had to.”

  “Why?” Another hit. “Why?”

  His voice is pained. “I had to, Lily. I didn’t want to. It killed me to leave you.”

  “It killed you?” I tear at the buttons of his shirt, needing to get closer to him. Needing the connection of skin, my nails on him, to make him hurt like I’ve hurt. “You didn’t even say goodbye. I spent years wondering if it was something I did.”

  Hayden’s mouth is there, kissing away the hot, angry tears on my cheeks. “No. No, nothing you’d done, baby. Never anything you’d done.”

  I bury my hand in his hair and meet his lips with my own. It’s fire and flame, the two of us, colliding without restraints. We’re still arguing, just with our lips. I punish him with my lips and he responds with his tongue. It’s a fiery dance.

  His hands skim the side of my chest and I shiver. My nipples are taut against the fabric of my dress; I can feel it.

  “You can’t just come back here,” I say, my hands finding the buttons on his shirt. I tear and rip and get them open.

  “I know.” He helps me with my own clothes, tearing at the zipper of my dress. “I know. Fuck, this dress, Lily… When I saw you… You kill me.”

  I get all of his buttons undone and he releases me long enough to tear the shirt off his body. My hands feast on him—on the long clean line of his shoulders, so much broader now. The smattering of hair on his chest that he never used to have. The taut muscles of his stomach. Mine, my mind says. Always.

  “Here.” He pulls me to a wrought-iron chair in the corner. I push him down onto it and straddle him. This is going fast, too fast, and not nearly fast enough. Ten years of anger and disappointment and resentment. Ten years of loving him from a distance.

  Hayden’s breath is hot against my neck. He pushes my dress down and presses kisses to my collarbones, my chest, my breasts. He kisses me like I’m a lifeline. Below me, I can feel the strength of his arousal, tearing at the fabric of his jeans. I want him inside me as badly as I want to hurt him. The greenery around us is a beautiful backdrop to our anger, hiding us from the outside world.

  “Lily,” he murmurs. His hands find the clasp of my bra and snap it open in one smooth moment. He pulls it off me, baring me to his view.

  “See?” I ask, though I don’t know what I mean. See what you do to me?

  But Hayden understands. His hands smooth up my waist to cup my breasts. He leans forward, closing his lips against one of my nipples. He sucks strongly, alternating with a bite that sends me gasping.

  “Asshole.”

  He laughs around my nipple. “I know.”

  I pull at his hair, tug and grip as he presses bruising kisses to my skin. I missed his hair, the thick, silky blackness that’s so uniquely him. Nobody else has hair like Hayden.

  “You had to shave this off,” I tell him. “I saw a photo.”

  He nods. Strong hands pull at the fabric of my dress, bunching it high on my waist. He’s fighting, always fighting, but this time to get us closer together. “You had a photo of me?”

  “Yes. Gary showed us.” I kiss him again, a searing warmth flaring through my body. The fabric of my panties is so thin that I can feel the roughness of his jeans below, rubbing at me through the underwear.

  The anger is like a kindle to my fire, to my desire, to my need to be one with him. I run my nails up the muscular grooves of his back and Hayden groans against my neck. “Fuck, Lily.”

  “Don’t you remember?” I whisper in his ear. “I hurt when you hurt.”

  His hands move, tearing, tossing, getting fabric out of the way. He kisses me deeply as his hands grip my ass, holding me against him, against the hardness in his jeans and the strength of his chest.

  It’s easy to move my hips like this, to rub against him. Friction is our friend. “Siren,” he groans.

  “Asshole,” I say again.

  Hayden slips his hand into my panties. The first touch of his callused fingers sends me gasping. It’s been too long, too long since I’ve been touched. Desire throbs between my legs. Hayden finds my center easily, circling a few times.

  And then, gently, he slips a finger inside me. Once, twice, he pumps it, my world changing with every delicious intrusion. I know what he’s doing. He’s making sure I’m ready for him.

  “Yes,” I groan against the curve of his ear. “Please.”

  Hayden knows what I need. The communication between us is instinctual, natural. He undoes his fly and pulls down his briefs and there’s a bit of positioning and then he’s rubbing his hardness along my wetness and I can’t breathe for wanting him. There are things we should discuss—things to say and confirm—but I can’t find the words. Can’t even think them.

  “Lily,” he breathes, and then he pushes inside me in a single, strong thrust. The sudden force of our joining jars me and sends me off balance. I grab his shoulders for support, digging my nails in deep. I can feel him throb inside me.

  Hayden releases a shaky breath and grips my waist with hard, demanding hands. I don’t know how I made it ten years without him—without this.

  I grip his hair. “Tell me why you still have the cone shell.”

  His laugh is breathless. “What?”

  “I saw it on your mantlepiece.” I rise on my tiptoes, feeling him inside me, before I let myself drop back down. Every inch of friction is delicious. “Don’t lie.”

  “Because you gave it to me,” he growls. He rolls his hips and grips my hips so hard I know I’ll have bruises. Every thrust of his hips is punishing, reaching places deep inside me. He fights to fill me just as I fight to get closer to him.

  I grip his hair too roughly and breathe his name, just like he used to whisper mine. “Hayden.”

  He gives me everything, and I take it, holding on to him tightly. There’s no time for tenderness, both of us struggling with the strength of our emotions.

  “You shouldn’t have left.”

  Hayden thrusts into me hard, his bo
dy shuddering. “I know that,” he groans. “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think it kills me?”

  He buries his head against the crook of my neck, one of his hands working at the top of my legs. The fact that he remembers how to touch me—how to get me to the edge—makes me angrier. But as my orgasm barrels through me, as pleasure crests through my body, there’s nothing but blinding ecstasy.

  He groans against my neck as he comes and I hold him through it, hands in his hair, pressing him closer. He grips me just as tightly.

  I cling to him through the aftershocks, through the trembling in his own body. It’s too much. There’s nothing left, no pretension to hide behind, no it’s-nice-to-see-you-again.

  We’re bared entirely.

  For a long time, the only sound was our heavy breathing and the feeling of him inside me, still pulsing. I rest my head against his shoulder and close my eyes. He still smells like salt and Hayden and home.

  “Lily,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms around me.

  We sit there, just breathing together. And for a minute I let myself believe. That we’re still an us. That we’re still together. That he cares.

  But only for a second.

  And then I stand up warily, aware that we need to clean up. That we’re in a greenhouse on the edge of my parents’ property and we should have left fifteen minutes ago, and that I’m no closer to understanding why he left than I was a week ago.

  Hayden looks up at me as he tucks himself back in and zips his pants up. He bends over to grab his shirt from the floor, and in the flash of a moment, he’s back to looking respectable

  I pull my dress back down and snap my bra back into place. It’s enough to shove my arms back through the holes of the dress.

  “Do you have a tissue?”

  Hayden shakes his head. “No. But I’ll go get—”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll just head home.” Plus, I really don’t want the others to know.

  “I’ll help you.”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “Lily—”

  “It’s fine.” I grab my purse from where I’d tossed it, abandoned in a flower bed. It’s a bit dirty, but nothing I can’t fix. Hayden looks at me with a mixture of resentment and anger—his eyes betraying his own sense of confusion. There was a time when I’d give everything to solve his problems for him. But I can’t, not anymore.