Sandcastle Beach--Includes a Bonus Novella

by Jenny Holiday

  She grinned, and they headed for the back door.

  Which was blocked by Sawyer and Eve.

  Dammit.

  Maya saw them at the same time he did and did a funny little pirouette. “Front door,” she muttered.

  He followed her, but once they were on the sidewalk out front, she said, “Actually, maybe we should go to my room at the Mermaid. How do we know they won’t see us sneaking up the back stairs? And since we know they’re here, they won’t be at the inn.”

  “Good thinking. You have condoms at your place?”

  “I do.”

  Which was how he found himself power walking down Main Street holding a full glass of Riesling that wasn’t on his menu. As they mounted the stairs at the Mermaid, he said, “Do you want to talk about this at all?”

  “Do I want to talk about what?”

  Oh, for God’s sake. “I don’t know. The fact that we were enemies a week ago and now we’re sleeping together?”

  “What is there to talk about? We’re enemies who sleep together.” She smiled. “Enemies with benefits.”

  “Is that like friends with benefits?”

  “No, it is not. Because enemies are not friends. Did you fail reading comprehension in grade school?”

  “I know, I just—”

  “Friends with benefits never works. Friends are too…friendly. They end up catching feelings.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. Case in point number one: Sawyer and Eve. Case in point number two: Jake and Nora. “But ‘enemies’ feels so harsh. Are we actually enemies?”

  “Is one of us going to win the town grant over the other one? Does one of us steal parking spaces and have an oven that belches smoke, both of which infringe on the business operations of the other?”

  She was so dramatic. They hadn’t really argued about anything—not really—for quite some time. But whatever. She was right that they weren’t friends. Friendly did not at all feel like the word to describe his feelings for Maya.

  “Wow,” he said as she ushered him into her room. It was an explosion of pink: cotton candy pink on the walls and fuchsia floor tiles.

  “Ah, yes, behold the Barbie Dream Room. Decorated by Eve when she was a kid.”

  “I’ve heard about this.” He spun slowly in place. “Why didn’t she redo it when she renovated the inn?”

  “That is a very good question,” Maya said as she threw her keys on the dressing table. “The answer, I’m pretty sure, has something to do with emotions and possibly also teenage Eve and Sawyer getting it on in this room. So I prefer not to think about it.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, that’s a wise move.”

  “This room is—” Her brow furrowed abruptly, like she had just thought of something unpleasant.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Maybe we should have gone to your place.”

  “Why?”

  “Forget it.” She turned her back to him. “Stop talking and unlace me.”

  “I’m not going to do that,” he said as he pulled one of the dangling ends of the corset cord and undid the bow.

  “Seems like you already are,” she said, her tone arch.

  “No.” He reached his fingers into the mass of laces and wiggled them in order to loosen everything in one go, gratified by her resulting sharp intake of breath. She wasn’t as blasé as she seemed. “I’m not going to not talk this time. I want us to talk.”

  “We just did. If you want to have some big analysis of this, I don’t think—”

  “No.” He slid one of the laces from its hole, the resulting swishing sound making his dick plump up. “I want to talk while we’re doing this.” He yanked the other lace, which made an even louder sound as it scraped against the eyelet. “I want to tell you that this corset is making me crazy. I can’t tell if I like it better on”—he held it closed against her torso—“or off.” He pulled it open and tossed it onto the bed.

  “Oh,” she sighed as realization dawned. “That kind of talking.”

  “Yeah, you’re good at talking. As much as I enjoyed myself the other night, which for the record was very much, silence is not really your thing.”

  She pulled the flowy blouse off with a matter-of-fact efficiency that should not have been sexy. “And here I thought you preferred me silent.”

  He glanced at her breasts before forcing his eyes back up. “It’s a situational thing.”

  “Is it?” She took off her bra. “While we’re putting things on the record, this is necessary under this costume. This is not the kind of bra I normally wear.”

  “For the record?” He tried to keep his eyes on her face, but damn, knowing her breasts were finally free was like a magnetic force pulling his gaze down.

  “Yeah. Next time, I won’t be wearing this ugly thing.” She flung the bra onto the floor.

  That was enough to pull his gaze up. “Next time?” He raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure why. The impulse to challenge her was stronger than his instinct to produce a contract for her to sign promising there would be a next time.

  “After the show tomorrow?” she asked. “After I change after the show, I mean?” Was he mistaken or was there a touch less breezy confidence in that question?

  “Yep.” He had no idea if Carter would be able to close tomorrow, but he’d shut the whole damn bar down if necessary.

  “Not that I’m really much of a lingerie person,” she said as she kicked the bra, which had landed at their feet, away. Again he thought he detected a note of uncertainty in her tone. “I’m a plain-black-undies-under-my-jeans kind of person. I mean, you know that, right? Like, you know what you’re getting?”

  His chest flooded with something he was pretty sure was affection. “I know what I’m getting,” he confirmed. In fact, as much as he enjoyed the Beatrice look, he couldn’t wait for the return of Maya. Maya of the Converse sneakers and Shakespeare T-shirts.

  He stripped off his T-shirt. Maybe if he lost some clothing, she’d feel less vulnerable. She smiled. It must be working. He unbuttoned his jeans. She stepped out of her skirt, and the smile grew.

  Then it turned a little wicked. “I’m having a brain wave,” she declared. And God help him, she grabbed the corset from where it had landed on the bed and wrapped it around herself.

  “Oh shit.” His half-hard dick sprang to attention.

  “You say that a lot.” She turned around and, holding the corset to her chest, presented him with the laces again.

  “You sure? You couldn’t breathe in this thing the other night.”

  “Don’t tie it tightly, but it’s, uh, possible those breathing problems had another source.”

  He was glad she couldn’t see the grin that felt like it was going to crack his face open.

  She turned around after he tied her back up, and the smile slid right off his face. Oh shit. Yeah, he supposed he did say that a lot, but only because sometimes the things she did and said—and the mere fact of her—felt like…Oh shit.

  The corset nestled underneath her breasts and extended down to her hip bones. There was a strip of bare flesh between it and the tops of her panties, which did indeed seem to be made of black cotton. His lungs seized like it was him in the corset.

  Really, it was more of a wide belt. There was no reason for him to be having a meltdown because of a wide belt. He cleared his throat. “And here I thought corsets, uh, covered you up.”

  “Regular ones do. This is called a waspie. It’s a type of underbust corset.”

  “Underbust,” he echoed.

  “Yeah, it’s just for the aesthetics of the costume. It doesn’t push things up and out like a more traditional corset would.” She cupped her breasts and moved the flesh together and toward him as if to demonstrate the concept of “up and out.” Her breasts were gorgeous. Then she let go. They fell a little bit once gravity kicked in. Still gorgeous.

  “Right, but it still, ah…accentuates things.” God. Listen to him. It accentuates things? Were they having a costume fitting? He cle
ared his throat again. “I think it’s possible we’re overcorrecting here.”

  “Huh?”

  “With the talking.”

  She cracked up. “So you’re saying I’m right.” She came toward him, planted one palm on his chest and pushed. He resisted.

  “No. I’m saying we’re both right.” He gave up resisting and let himself be propelled backward until his calves hit her bed. He sat.

  And she sank to her knees between his legs.

  Oh shit.

  At least he hadn’t said it out loud that time.

  “Your turn,” she said cheerily as she took his dick out of his pants.

  “Oh shit.”

  She smirked.

  But only for a moment, because she took his length into her mouth—that was Maya for you, getting right to the point. But then she popped off and tilted her head back to look at him. “Is this cool?”

  “Yes. This is very cool.”

  As if cool could begin to describe the feeling of her smiling, taking him back into her mouth, hollowing her cheeks, and sucking.

  “Oh shit,” he said again as an electric shock traveled up his dick into the deepest part of his body—into his soul, it felt like. She laughed around him, the vibrations changing the sensation into something less intense but no less great. She set up a rhythm that soon had him holding his breath and pushing back against the wall of pleasure encroaching on him.

  This could not be over this fast. He moved her off him, gently, resting his fingers lightly on her temples to guide her back. She sat back on her heels, gazing up at him as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and he had to use one hand to physically press down on his dick to keep from coming at the very sight of her.

  “Not cool anymore?” she asked gently.

  He shook his head and let the hand that was still on her temple slide down her cheek. She turned her head into his palm, like she had that night earlier in the summer.

  “Very, very cool,” he said. “So cool I’m about to embarrass myself.”

  She smiled. “Well, I’d better get up there, then.”

  “Condom?” Ben asked.

  “In the bedside table.” The bed nestled against the wall on one side, and Ben was on the outer edge, so she climbed up from the foot, sliding in between him and the wall and propping her head on one hand.

  “I thought you hadn’t had sex for a year?” he said while he rummaged around in her nightstand. “And yet here they are, so handy.”

  “Hope springs eternal?”

  He chuckled and, condom in hand, turned to face her. He was so bloody handsome, it wasn’t fair, all sleek muscles and a smattering of chest hair, which, like his facial stubble, was brown with hints of auburn.

  “Sorry, but this is starting to bug me.” She sat partway up and rotated her torso. “Can you take it off again?”

  He made quick work of the laces and, when he pulled the corset off, she sighed in relief.

  “I tied it too tight,” he said.

  “No, it’s not that comfortable even when it’s loose. It’s the nature of corsets, I guess.” She turned around to find him frowning. Did he not like her without it? That was more disappointing than it should have been.

  Both of his hands landed on her rib cage and started massaging.

  She looked down. There were vertical indentations in her skin where the corset’s boning had been and a larger, horizontal one where the band of the megabra had cut into her. It suddenly clicked that his frown had been a look of concern. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s part of the job.”

  The frown deepened as he pressed a little harder and lengthened his strokes.

  “Oh my…” Her eyes slipped shut. Who knew having your rib cage massaged could feel so incredibly good?

  She heaved a huge sigh, and he said, “That’s right.”

  “Don’t stop,” she said, goose bumps rising as her skin prickled with pleasure.

  He didn’t stop, but he did lean down and kiss her, even as he kept kneading her skin. She sighed into his mouth, letting a wave of…something engulf her. It was pleasure but more.

  Relief. Bone-deep relief. It unspooled inside her even as desire coiled up between her legs. She let her hands slide up and down his back as he kept working both her mouth and the flesh at her torso that she had never realized was so tender. After some time—she had no idea how much, as her world had shrunk to the size of this little pink room—he pulled away. She tried to stop him, emitting a mew of protest and holding on to his neck.

  “Be right back.” He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose, a gesture that startled her. It suggested a kind of familiar intimacy that made her feel like she might cry as something inside her lurched with want. Not sexual want, or not only that. Just…the idea of someone who kissed your nose and said, Be right back. It was a more affectionate gesture than she would have expected from him.

  He was rolling a condom on. She used the moment to get herself together. She was not going to get all up in her feelings about a peck on the nose.

  He turned toward her but remained where he was, his head cocked as he gazed at her.

  “What?” she asked, suddenly nervous, though she wasn’t sure why.

  “You are gorgeous,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes even as warmth exploded in her chest at the unexpected compliment. She made a dismissive gesture.

  “Oh, come on. I have been known to be right once or twice. Even you’ve said so.”

  She felt herself blushing. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

  That was an understatement, she thought, as he grinned and crawled back over to where he’d been before, sitting on his haunches and resuming the weirdly sensual rib cage massage.

  “Ugh,” she said, noting that she sounded almost annoyed. “Why does that feel so good? How can that—” She had no words, just a moan of pleasure, as he widened the sweep of his fingers, letting his thumbs drag over the bottoms of her breasts. He chuckled and lowered his mouth to hers, cutting off her ability to speak, which was fine because words had failed her already anyway.

  Soon the pleasure took on an edge as he brushed higher on each upward stroke, grazing her nipples. She feasted on his mouth, feeling like she couldn’t get enough. He’d moved to stretch out over her but was keeping his weight mostly off her with his elbows on the bed.

  She needed more pressure, more skin, more of him, so she wrapped her legs around his waist and tried to pull him closer.

  He got the hint and took one hand off to position himself between her legs.

  “Is this cool?” he asked, echoing her earlier question.

  “This is very cool,” she said, echoing his answer.

  She gasped as he pushed in. The feeling of being filled was so all-consuming, so good. The pressure, the stretch. “Hooboy,” she whispered.

  He smiled, a great big one that lit up his whole face. “You sound like a granny when you say that. You swear like a granny.”

  “It’s my dad. My mom swears a lot, but my dad is kind of against it. I guess I take after him.”

  “Maybe let’s not talk about your parents right now?”

  She laughed, even as want seized inside her. “Would a granny do this?” She grabbed his ass, and he cracked up as he thrust into her again. “Would a granny do this?” She lightly slapped one butt cheek before moving her hand, clamping it on the back of his head, and pressing his face against her cleavage and sort of comically shaking her boobs in his face.

  She’d meant it comically, anyway, but when he groaned and fastened his mouth onto a nipple, it wasn’t funny anymore. He lavished attention on her breasts even as he slid in and out of her. The feeling of fullness, of heaviness, started in her breasts, too, and soon she was whimpering because he was back to being too much and not enough at the same time.

  He lifted his head and searched her face, probably to check that the mortifying noises she was making weren’t signs of distress. She shot him a little smile and stuck her tongue out. H
e smiled back and shortened his thrusts so she was getting pressure on her clit. Desire—more desire, which she wouldn’t have thought possible—flooded in suddenly, almost violently. It was like a shove right to the edge of a cliff. She was left panting, teetering, as they stared at each other.

  “Oh shit,” he said suddenly, his eyes widening. He lost his rhythm, his hips stuttering. He didn’t break eye contact, though, and he put his hands back on her ribs, where they’d started. They landed on her skin, and she fell off the cliff. She struggled to keep her eyes open as she came—and came and came, shudders racking her. A groan ripped from his throat, but he kept his eyes open, too.

  It wasn’t until several seconds had passed, seconds they spent panting and staring at each other, that he rolled off her and onto his back next to her. She looked at the ceiling and pondered the cosmic injustice of the fact that Ben was the best lover she’d ever had. It was going to be hard to pull off this enemies-with-benefits thing.

  But she had to. They had to.

  It was a terrible thought. It actually scared her as it came over her with growing surety. I can’t give this up.

  “I should go,” he said, jolting her from her overdramatic thoughts.

  “Really?” She wasn’t sure why she was arguing. It wasn’t like they were going to cuddle. It was just a bit whiplash-inducing to be coming so hard with a guy one minute and then watching him heaving himself out of bed the next.

  “I’m always afraid Carter is going to burn the place down when he closes,” he said.

  “Carter closes when we watch late-night football.”

  “Yeah, but in those cases, we’re in the building.”

  “So we can perish when it burns down?”

  He smirked. “I’ll throw you out the window. I’m going down with the ship.”

  “Well, you can’t stay here anyway. I’m sorry to report that Eve is onto us.”

  “Really?” he asked as he dressed.

  “Yeah, she and Sawyer caught me coming in the other morning. Man, am I going to be glad to get my apartment back.”

  Dressed and put to rights, he paused with his hand on the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  She knew what he was really asking. Or at least she thought she knew. She hoped. “I’ll come by after the show?”