“Is that the cottage you’re renting?” Sawyer asked Sky.
She nodded. “Bella, Jenna, and Amy, along with our other friends, Leanna and Jamie, all own cottages at Seaside, and they grew up spending summers together there. The cottages were passed down through their families.”
“Since Tony and I got married, we have an extra one.” Amy rested her head on Tony’s shoulder. “Maybe we should hold on to the cottage for a while after all. It came in handy this summer for Sky. Right, honey?”
“Right, kitten,” Tony answered before pressing his lips to hers.
“I would love to buy it, but since I just opened the shop, I think I’d better hang on to the little savings I have,” Sky said.
Blue ran a hand through his hair. “I just got a call this afternoon about that lighthouse deal that fell through last summer. I’m considering sinking my cash into that.”
“Well, we just wanted you guys to know. Leanna’s brothers or sister might be interested, too,” Amy said. A breeze swept up from the bay, and she shivered against Tony. “It’s getting late and cold. I think I’m ready to call it a night.”
Sawyer touched Sky’s cheek. “Are you chilly?”
“You know what? I think I’m ready to call it a night, too.”
She licked her lips, and the look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know, and so much more.
Chapter Nine
THE LAND ROVER idled at the end of Pete’s dark, tree-lined road, where Sawyer had one foot pressed on the brake and his arms wrapped around Sky, as his tongue explored her mouth.
“You taste so sweet,” he said between kisses.
“Marshmallows,” she said quickly, crashing her lips to his again.
Her hand slid over his thigh, pulling a groan from his lungs.
“We should go.” He reluctantly pulled back, then pressed his lips to hers again. “Jesus, Sky. I can’t stop kissing you.” He buried his hands in her hair and held her still as they claimed each other’s mouths. He wanted to lay her down and feel her luscious curves beneath him right there in the truck.
Headlights illuminated the interior of the truck from behind, and he forced himself to tear his lips from hers again. They both looked behind them, then laughed as Sky moved back into her seat and buckled up.
“Your brothers are going to hate me,” he said as he turned onto the main road.
“That’s Tony’s truck, and it’s about time my brothers realize I’m a woman, not a little girl.” Her tone was thick with defiance, and it did all sorts of things to his already heated body.
“Would I be taking advantage of that statement if I asked you to come back to my place?”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t,” she answered with a seductive smile.
“Take advantage, or ask you back to my place?”
“Both.”
The word hung between them, suspended by silent promises that he couldn’t wait to keep.
Fifteen minutes later he drove up the windy narrow road to the seashell driveway that led to his three-story house overlooking the bay. He didn’t need four bedrooms or an acre of dunes, but the family lineage made the large house feel like a home.
He helped Sky from the truck. Her hair was disheveled from their make-out session, and tendrils framed her face as she gazed up at him. Her beauty was subtle and overwhelming at once, and the tantalizing combination of innocence and rebellion dancing in her eyes drew him right in.
“Want to go inside and talk?” he offered, because he’d already said inappropriate things on their first date, and telling her that his body was vibrating with the need to taste more of her was probably too forthright for a second date. “There’s so much I want to know about you.”
She hooked her finger in the waist of his jeans. “Me too.”
Her voice was breathy, her eyes heavily lidded and seductive, and when he lowered his mouth to hers, she made a soft sound of surrender the second before their tongues touched. He savored the feel of her warm and yielding skin against him. The floral scent of her shampoo mixed with the salty sea air as it whipped around them, and when she pressed her delicate hands to his sides, keeping him close, it sent a tingling down his spine. He succumbed to the electrifying need burning inside him and pulled her tightly against him. The breadth of his hands covered the width of her back as he pressed his thick thigh between her legs. She moaned into his mouth, and it ricocheted through him. His body throbbed as she rode his thigh, his hard length pressed against her hip. The sounds of the sea faded into their heavy breathing. He had to feel her skin against him. He lowered his hand to the curve of her ass and gathered her long skirt in his fist, then drew back and searched her eyes, making sure they were on the same page.
“Sawyer,” she murmured.
Hearing the desire in her voice sent heat coursing through him as their mouths crashed together again in reckless abandon. She clutched his hips, pressing against his thigh and driving him out of his blessed mind. Fervently kissing her, he unfurled his fist, sending her skirt sailing over his open hand as he clutched her sweet ass through her lacy panties. Her head tipped back, and her lips parted with another sexy, needful sigh. Her hips gyrated against his thigh with precise, determined moves. He sealed his mouth over her neck, sucking and stroking her silky skin, loving the quickening in her breathing, the tightening of her fingers. He wanted to be so much closer to her, to know everything there was to know about her, but his body was on fire, and she was clinging to him like he was her anchor—and damn did he want to be her anchor.
His hands trembled with restraint, and when she rocked her hips against him again, his impatient fingers slid to the center of her damp panties.
“Oh God,” she whispered.
His hand stilled, wanting desperately to sink into her, to feel her warmth surround him, but he wanted so much more of Sky than this. He pressed his cheek to hers and whispered, “I want you, Sky, so very much of you.”
“Yes, Sawyer. I want you, too,” she answered.
His chest tightened with her confession. “Not here. I want you naked in my bed, where I can pleasure you over and over again,” he rasped against her ear, before taking her in another demanding kiss. Kissing Sky was hell on his self-control. It took all he had to keep from stripping her down and taking his fill right there in the sand.
With his pulse racing in his chest, he pulled back, forcing himself to withdraw from between her legs, and he touched his forehead to hers. “Still with me?”
“God, yes—”
“Sky…” Emotions blurred his thoughts. He wanted to take her inside, needed to take her away from the cool air and the dense sand. Desperate to make her his and utterly powerless to find the resolve to pull away, he sealed his lips over hers again. His tongue searched, his hands claimed, and his mind spiraled into someplace hot and dark. Her fingers fisted in his hair as he slid his hand behind her knee and lifted it to his hip, pressing his throbbing erection against her.
“More. I need more,” she pleaded.
A low growl rolled up his chest. There was nothing romantic about the way their mouths came together. It was a hard, toothy, wet kiss, filled with unstoppable desire. Rough hands lifted her skirt and tore down her panties as he furtively sought the spot he knew would make her cry out his name. She clawed at his shoulders. Her hands slipped to his biceps, nails digging into his skin, pulling downward as he dropped to his knees and spread her thighs, then brought his mouth to her.
“Oh...God…Sawyer.”
Words streamed from her lips as he licked and nipped and finally—Lord, finally—sank his fingers inside her tight heat. She grabbed his head and held his mouth against her as he skillfully lapped and teased. She went up on her toes, and he felt her whole body shudder as the climax gripped her and she came against his mouth.
“Ohgodohgod…Sawyer…Ah…So good.”
He didn’t relent, pressing a third finger inside her as he pleasured her, taking her up, up, up, until she shattered aga
inst him again. With his fingers still inside her, he rose and claimed her mouth in another passionate kiss. He wanted to touch all of her, to taste every inch of her flesh, to see her luscious mouth around his hard length, but he wasn’t about to do anything more out here.
He swept her, weightless, into his arms.
“Can’t wait,” he said, nipping at her swollen lips.
“Hurry,” she urged, spurring his powerful legs into a sprint. With one hand holding her up, he dug into his pocket for his keys and unlocked the door.
He kicked the door closed behind him and carried her up the stairs to his bedroom, where he stood stock-still, unsure where he wanted her first. Now that they were in his bedroom, he didn’t want to rush this moment. He’d thought about making love to her since he’d first seen her in the bar, wondered what she’d feel like, sound like, taste like—and now that he knew her, he wanted to make her feel better than she ever had. He wanted to cherish her. He lowered her to her feet, and she melted against him. Her eyes were soft, her lids heavy as her trembling hands pressed against his chest.
***
SAWYER LOWERED HIS lips to hers in a tender, sensual kiss, lacking the urgency of moments ago. Sky didn’t know if he sensed how nervous she was or if he’d calmed just knowing she was there in his bedroom. His for the taking. She’d been so lost in sensation outside that she hadn’t been thinking at all, and now she was having trouble forming coherent thoughts.
Standing in the center of his bedroom, with moonlight glistening off the bay just beyond the picture windows and his king-sized bed, her mind reeled. It had been a long time since she’d been with a man. Almost a year. That was a long damn time. What if she was too out of practice to do things right?
His hands traveled up her sides. His touch was confident, strong, as his thumbs brushed the undersides of her breasts. Pleasure radiated through her and she closed her eyes, letting go of her worries. She inhaled a sharp breath as she lifted his shirt, fumbling to push it over his broad chest, wanting desperately to feel his skin against hers. He tugged it over his head and tossed it to the floor. His gaze was hot, his body hard and tight, but when he caressed her cheek with his rough fingers, her scent lingering on them, his touch was gentle.
“You okay?” His thick dark brows knitted together.
She dropped her eyes to her fingers trembling against his chest and splayed them flat, unable to calm her buzzing nerves.
“It’s been a long time,” she admitted.
“For me, too.”
She heard the honesty in his voice.
“Do you want to wait?”
“Maybe?” She trapped her lower lip in her teeth, and when he brushed his thumb over it and said, “Okay,” she breathed a sigh of relief.
He gathered her in close and pressed his hand to the back of her head. “I’m sorry, Sky. I got lost in you.”
She closed her eyes and breathed him in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how nervous I was.”
He tipped up her chin and pressed his lips to hers. “Never apologize for following your heart. When we come together, I want to know it’s what you want with your head as much as your heart.”
“Thank you.”
He kissed the top of her head and held her. She didn’t know how long they stood there, his strong arms wrapped around her, her breathing calming, but it felt like a long time. She seemed to lose all track of time when they were together, which had never happened with anyone else—and she liked it. Sawyer didn’t rush her, or try to move her toward the bed. He didn’t do anything more than be with her, which was exactly what she needed. The same way that when he’d been touching her outside, it had been exactly what she’d needed then. What they’d needed.
How did he know?
“Come with me, sweetheart.” He led her out the bedroom door and down a wide hallway to a spiral staircase. She followed him up to a room with a glass, open truss ceiling. There were enormous pillows on colorful rugs over glistening hardwood floors. Overstuffed chairs were set at odd angles, and a plush sectional sofa, larger than any she’d ever seen, was near the far wall. The walls were constructed of alternating panels of glass and stone, providing views in all directions.
“This is amazing.” She gazed up at the rafters surrounding the glass in the ceiling. The mixture of textures—glass and old, scarred wood—and colors—forest green, yellows, reds, browns, and blues—called out to her, instantly making her feel at home. She could live in this room, with views of the dunes and the bay and the stars gazing down on them like eyes in the night.
“This was my family’s cottage, the one I told you about that my parents had to give up. My great-grandfather built this room. We call it the skycap. He carved his and my great-grandmother’s initials in a heart on the third rafter from the left.”
“Really? Is it still there?” She looked up, trying to find their initials.
“Yes. The people who bought the place from my parents never did anything with the ceiling, as you can see. So it’s still there. And my father carved my parents’ initials in the farthest rafter from the right.” He smiled at Sky. “Family tradition.”
“I love that. It’s so romantic. You must have been young when they sold, then?”
“I was, but I remember spending summers here. My parents and I would go clamming at low tide, and we had this little boat. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was a sailboat big enough for the three of us, and we used to go out and have dinner on the water. Sometimes we’d spend the night on it.”
“That sounds wonderful. My dad and Pete are boat fanatics. I bet Pete would let us borrow his boat one night to stay out on the water.”
He ran his knuckle down her cheek. “You would do that?”
“I would love to do that with you.” She would do anything with him. “I’ll ask Pete if we can borrow the boat. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
He took her hand, and as they sank down to a pile of thick green pillows, she realized that she was no longer nervous.
“This is where I write my songs. Well, when I’m at home and writing. The night you saw me sing, I wrote a song about you. I wrote most of it at the bar, but then I came home, and in the middle of the night I came up here and finished writing it.”
“About me? But we didn’t even speak to each other.”
He stretched out on his side, looking relaxed and not at all annoyed by her stopping them before he’d had a chance to find his own release. She relaxed beside him, resting her cheek on her arm.
“I didn’t need to hear your voice to feel your energy.”
She lifted up on her elbow, matching his position, and smiled. “If my friends heard you say that they’d think we were cut from the same cloth.”
“I’m not so sure we aren’t.”
She fell silent at that, hearing something deep and longing in his voice.
“I’d love to hear what you wrote,” she said, curious to know what he’d thought of her at first sight.
“Soon,” he promised.
He stretched out on his back and tucked her in close beside him as they gazed out the ceiling at the dark, starry sky.
“Do you believe in wishing upon stars?”
“I used to,” she admitted. Her mind turned to her mother, and the familiar ache that accompanied thoughts of her moved in.
“Me too.” He brushed her hair from her cheek. “Why don’t you anymore?”
She sighed and told him the truth. “Because when my mom died, I knew that all the wishes in the world couldn’t bring her back.”
He tightened his arms around her, and they lay in silence for a long while, gazing up at the stars, each lost in their own thoughts.
“If you could say one thing to your mom now,” he said with a thoughtful tone. “Anything at all. What would it be?”
She rifled through the first few thoughts that sailed through her mind. “There are so many things I want to tell her. I miss you. I love you. I wish you were still here.” She swallowed against the lump
forming in her throat. “But if I could tell her only one thing, I would tell her I was sorry.”
Tears welled in her eyes with the confession that struggled to finally be set free. He turned on his side and pressed his lips to her forehead without pushing for an explanation, and that made her want to open up to him even more.
“When she died, I sort of fell apart.” She gazed into his empathetic eyes and was drawn into them. “Actually, I fell apart. There was no sort of about it.”
“That’s understandable. You’d lost your mother.”
“That’s what I told myself as I stopped living my life and allowed myself to lie in bed and wallow in the ache of missing her. It’s understandable to be sad, to grieve. It’s even understandable to go through weeks of crying, making deals with the devil to bring her back. At least, in my opinion it is. Don’t we all want to bargain our pain away? But to allow myself to get so mired down in the darkness of losing her that I couldn’t function? She didn’t raise me like that.” A tear slipped from her eye, and he tenderly brushed it away. “She raised me to be strong and decisive. To face issues head-on.”
“Issues, not losses, Sky. There’s a difference.”
She nodded. “Yes, I know that. But…I found out last night from Grayson that when I fell apart, he took it really hard. I never knew.”
“It’s obvious how much your family loves you.” He kissed a tear away. “You’re lucky, Sky. Love is the foundation of strength in a family. It’s obvious that Grayson’s love for you only got stronger.”
“Yes, but at what cost? How much worry did I cause him when I was hiding in my bed?” She couldn’t stop the truth from flowing. “Pete got so worried about me, he put his life on hold and moved in with me for a while, until we both knew I wasn’t going to go down the rabbit hole again.”
“He sounds like a good brother, a good man.”
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