Skye confirmed the suspicion when she sent him a pointed glance. “Are you okay?”
“Getting there,” he said. “I’m back to the beach, aren’t I? First time since she left.”
Addy felt a little embarrassed to hear this bit of personal business until he turned to her with a rueful grin. “I’m trying to exorcise a ghost, I guess. Last month I fell a little too hard for a lady who was already taken.”
“Already taken by a husband and four kids,” Skye put in.
“Yikes,” Addy murmured. “Four kids?”
“I like rug rats,” Teague said, and she gave him credit for not being at all abashed about the admission. “Comes from a childhood as a lonely only.”
“Lonely only?” Addy repeated. “Hey, me, too.”
“Yeah?” Teague’s gaze sharpened.
“Yeah.” Addy took in his handsome features, the dark hair tousled by the wind, the ripple of muscles. She had someone she wanted to exorcise from her life, as well, and why the heck not with this dark-haired hunk? “I’m a little lonely now, too, as a matter of fact.”
He smiled, revealing the deep crease of a dimple in one cheek. “This might be my lucky day.” Then his eyes shifted over her shoulder. A glint of humor kindled in them. “Or not.”
Addy turned—and took a quick step back, almost stumbling. “You.”
“Hi,” Baxter said.
As usual, he looked as if he’d come straight from a hard day at the office. His tie was loosened, his shirt’s collar unbuttoned. Its cuffs were folded back to reveal his strong wrists, the left one banded with a steel watch.
The wind tugged at the cuffs of his trousers, but didn’t dare ruffle his golden hair. The sun burnished the perfectly cropped layers, though, making him seem to glow. Addy swallowed, trying to appear unaffected, even as the memory of a naughty boss-secretary dream she’d been having lately bloomed in her mind. Miss March, I found four typos in this memo...
“Uh, hi,” she said, cursing the blush creeping over her face.
He frowned. “What’s going on?”
Addy crossed her arms over her chest. I’m preparing for an exorcism. It was imperative. She was certain of that now because it wasn’t healthy for a woman to go weak-kneed when some man arrived out of the blue. Some man who’d said, “That leaves the present wide-open,” but who’d then ignored her for several days thereafter, only showing up in her subconscious at night.
Miss March, come into my office and close the door.
“Addy?”
“Nothing’s going on,” she said, then slid a glance in Teague’s direction. “Just making a new friend.”
Baxter’s blue eyes narrowed. “Is that right?”
The dark-haired man held out his hand, his expression still good-humored. “Teague White,” he said. “I’m a nice guy, honest. Skye can vouch for me.”
“He’s a firefighter,” Skye added. “Can’t get more wholesome than that.”
A firefighter? Addy sneaked a second look at the man. Wholesome wasn’t the first word that came to mind, especially when the firefighter in question was absolutely hot and incredibly handsome. Maybe the exorcism thing could really work.
Baxter was frowning as if wholesome didn’t ring true to him, either.
He shook the other man’s hand, then glanced at Addy. “Look, can we go—”
“I was just about to ask her to have a drink with me at Captain Crow’s,” Teague put in.
Baxter didn’t look away from her face. “She can’t,” he answered flatly. “We have plans.”
The liar. “What plans?”
He stepped into her, so close his loafers were an inch from the toenails she’d painted a bright melon as a pick-me-up when he hadn’t called or stopped by. How silly she’d been to believe he might. She’d been smart enough to have no expectations of him before and she shouldn’t be harboring any now.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch.” The back of Baxter’s hand slid along her cheek. “I had to take an emergency business trip.”
The caress sent a line of fire running from her face, down her throat, between her breasts. Addy couldn’t breathe. “I don’t... You don’t...” She had no idea what words were coming out of her mouth.
Damn the man! He scrambled her brain, garbled her good intentions, messed with her mind with just a look from his blue eyes.
His hand slid from her face to the back of her neck. His palm covered the tender skin there, more fire racing along her scalp and down her back. Panic added to the heat in her blood. She couldn’t want him like this.
In childhood, she’d had her defenses—coping mechanisms to smother her feelings or escape her surroundings. She’d worked hard to eradicate the unhealthiest of them, but now she found herself still vulnerable. Baxter—wanting Baxter—could take her back, take her down, making her that weak girl again who lived in her fantasies instead of living her life.
He leaned close, his voice for her ears only. “I’ve thought of you.” The thumb of the hand that was curved around her nape stroked the edge of her jaw, just under her ear.
Oh, God. She shouldn’t listen. He had the power to make her yearn. After a childhood of pining for things she couldn’t have or couldn’t make right, she knew better than to let herself long for Golden Boy Baxter. Six years ago, despite how breathtaking the experience, despite the things he’d said afterward, she’d never let it become more than a blissful night of wish fulfillment.
She’d never expected there to be more.
The Addy Marches of the world never got to have a Baxter Smith. Not really.
But he seemed to be offering something now...and even if it was only something temporary, it was still tempting.
She should shut him down. Turn away and then purge him from her life so she wouldn’t pine for him.
“Addy,” he murmured, that caressing thumb seducing her again.
Seducing the wallflower. Wallflower Addy, who after years of hiding herself away had finally learned that when her shoulders were flat against a hard surface, it was time to push back. “All right,” she said, making a sudden decision. She shot an apologetic glance at the attractive Teague, then focused on Baxter once again. “Let’s go to your place.”
He blinked. “What?”
There was a way to exorcise him other than running off with another man. She and Baxter could have sex again. Maybe the problem was that her experience with him was squarely in the sentimental category of first times and girlish dreams come true. Now, older and more experienced, she’d realize he was a mere man.
And that there wasn’t anything especially captivating about Baxter’s tab A sliding into her slot B.
She’d purge all right. All the stupid stars from her eyes.
* * *
BAXTER DIDN’T KNOW WHAT was going on in Addy’s mind, but he knew one thing for sure. They were not going to have sex.
He’d done that with her way too soon six years before. So when he opened the door to his condo and ushered her inside, he reminded himself he was no longer a twenty-three-year-old hothead. Which, actually, was a weird reminder in itself, because he’d never been a hothead. Not at fourteen, not at eighteen, not at twenty-three. Baxter had been focused on the BSLS. Hotheadedness was Vance’s domain. The only time Baxter had been driven by impulse was that particular night six years before.
So, no, this wasn’t going to be a repeat of that rash act. There was plenty of safe daylight left. It was summer and just past six o’clock, the perfect hour to have a reasonable, adult, getting-to-know-you interlude over a bottle of wine and some appetizers on his twentieth-floor balcony.
Because he did want to get to know her better. It was much too hasty to be considering a serious relationship according to the Baxter Smith Life Schedule, but there was nothing wrong with furthering their acquaintance. After that hike around Crescent Cove, he’d found himself charmed by her enthusiasm, entertained by her tales of the silent film era and completely unwilling to merely settle for her a
cknowledgment of and his apology for That Night.
Because she did remember it.
As he watched her move out of the entryway and into his living room, that six-year-old memory welled in his own mind. Addy was crossing the carpet to approach the sliding glass doors and the city view they afforded, but in his inner vision they were at the family ranch. The summer’s night air was redolent with barbecue, watermelon and beer. The deep rural darkness was held at bay with strings of small bulbs edging the rooflines, wrapping around the trunks of the oak trees, crisscrossing above the designated dance floor. Still, even though larger spotlights illuminated the players in the band and the booths providing food and drink, there were plenty of pockets of warm darkness.
Baxter had taken to one, his shoulder braced against the heated stucco of his parents’ house, listening to the country performers who did damn good covers of the latest hits. He’d been watching the dancers when, through the circling couples, he’d spied a pixie. In a pale yellow sundress a near color match to her hair, she’d been standing on the edge of more shadows. He might have missed her, except that she was moving to the beat, just the tiniest bit, the swaying of her belled skirt catching his gaze.
Without thinking, he’d been on the move toward her.
He was on the move now, making his way into the galley kitchen. “White wine okay?” he called to Addy.
“Sure,” she said, turning from the vista of skyscrapers and SoCal traffic to follow him into the small room. “What can I do to help?”
He glanced over. Froze. At the beach he’d noticed what she’d been wearing. White jeans, a simple pair of flip-flops, a thin white-and-turquoise-striped tunic-type shirt that fell to her thighs and buttoned down the front. Then, it had been fastened to her throat.
Now it was open near to her navel.
No, not even close really, but damn, from certain angles it would reveal the top curves of her breasts. Like from his angle. He was tall enough that when he looked down he couldn’t miss the pale mounds of her skin. His mouth went dry, and his fingers curled toward his palms as impulse poured like adrenaline into his bloodstream. Touch, it insisted, while his common sense tried negating the thought.
Bad idea, it reminded him.
Addy stepped nearer, and he pressed the small of his back into the countertop. She reached around for the cupboard behind him. “Glasses in here?” she asked, going on tiptoe.
It was as if she didn’t realize she was nearly plastered against the length of his body. That if he moved his head just a fraction, his mouth could find the soft skin of her temple and from there slide down to the pink warmth of her mouth.
Baxter sucked in a breath.
And on her perfume, was taken back in time.
He’d slowly made his way around the dance floor to where the pixie had staked out her place in the half shadows. She hadn’t seemed to notice his approach, as absorbed as she was in watching the couples spin and turn. Some of them actually knew how to dance. Others were just using the music as an excuse to touch, hand-to-hand, hip-to-hip.
Baxter had tugged on the ends of the pixie’s long hair. She’d started, turned, then, even in the dim light, he’d seen the deep rose color overtake her face.
And he’d fallen back. Crap. Too young?
But he was nothing if not polite, so he’d introduced himself. She’d nodded, said her own name and, half afraid and half relieved, he’d attempted the all-important calculations. Because he knew Addison March, or at least of her. She’d lived down the road and surely...if his memory was correct... Then, Baxter Smith, a day away from leaving town to enter a world-renowned MBA program, was forced to ask a question because his brain was too muddled to add for himself.
“How old are you?”
Frankly, nineteen had still felt too young. Disappointed, he’d meant to make his excuses and walk away. But she was staring at him with big eyes and still wearing that pretty blush. Somehow he’d found himself asking her to dance.
She didn’t know how to two-step.
It was pretty evident from the way she trembled against him, from the way her breath came so shallow and fast, that Addy didn’t know how to do two-anything. Another clear warning to him.
They were just going to dance.
“Are you all right?” Addy asked now.
Yanked back into the present, he jolted, moving away from her tempting scent and penetrating gaze. Did she know what he was thinking?
“Would you like a soda instead?” he choked out. Yeah, they were adults and all, but surely alcohol wasn’t safe to add to this mix.
Addy shrugged. “Wine is fine. Or beer—if it’s light. I only drink light beer.”
She’d had one that night. It wasn’t Baxter’s fault. Somebody else had actually given it to her, she’d told him, a bottle of golden brew with a slice of lime from the Smith family ranch shoved into the neck. Before they’d danced, she’d set the empty down at her feet. And after the dance, seduced from his good intentions by the perfect way she’d fit in his arms, he’d tasted the citrusy tartness on her lips, tasted the smoky yeastiness of the beer on her tongue. Yeah, he’d kissed her.
He didn’t think she’d been tipsy. One beer hadn’t incapacitated her.
But he’d been drunk. Drunk on her kiss, her petite body, on the spontaneity of it all. So off-the-Schedule.
As they’d walked arm-in-arm toward the bachelor house on the other side of the oak grove, the spacious quarters that had separate suites of rooms for him and Fitz and Vance, he’d been just a little high on doing something he hadn’t planned beforehand. It had felt like falling in love, wild and impetuous and completely out of control.
Addy approached him now, her footsteps steady on the kitchen’s hardwood floor. Baxter tensed, unwilling to be the victim of his urges once again. They were supposed to be getting to know each other like grown-ups. In a responsible way. He was supposed to be considering whether he wanted to casually date her, which was the only option available at this time according to the BSLS.
“Baxter,” she said, shaking her head. There was a very adult look in her eye. An adult note of admonition in her voice.
“What?” he asked, fiddling with the end of his tie.
She took that hand. Placed it down at his side. Then, her knuckles brushing against his ribs, she grabbed the tail of silk and yanked him toward her.
“Wait,” he said, his other hand on her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
She blinked. “I have to tell you?” There was a very sensual, very knowing look in her eyes.
A look he’d put there. Six years ago, she’d been as ignorant about sex as she’d been about the two-step, and he’d taught her how to do both. Sweet Lord. What a turn-on.
“I didn’t want it to go this way,” he murmured.
Her brows rose, not in doubt but in challenge. “Is that right?”
His hand was no longer pushing her away, but instead caressed that small cap of her shoulder. He was supposed to be the master of his urges, but looking at her, at that tinge of a flush breaking across her cheekbones, at the darkness of her pupils almost swallowing the green of her eyes, he realized that while he might be the master of his urges, he was no match for hers.
She stepped away. But his tie was still gripped in her small hand and he moved with her as she backed out of the kitchen. Without asking, she found the interior hall, still taking him with her.
With a slight shake of his head, he indicated they should pass the first door on the right. “Extra bedroom.”
Her feet moved past the bathroom that came after that.
Then they were at the end of the hall and inside the big master bedroom. Dropping his tie, she looked around her, taking in the king-size bed, the large chest of drawers, the flat-screen TV on one wall. Her gaze landed on the sliding glass doors that afforded yet another view. It was still plenty light in the room even though the drapes were drawn. At this height, they weren’t really necessary for privacy, so he’d chosen only the sheere
st fabric. He started his days early.
As Addy continued to stare at them, yet another memory rose in his mind.
He hadn’t taken her to the bachelor house with the focused intention of getting her into bed. After three dances in his arms, she’d mentioned she was cold and he’d volunteered to find her something from his closet. He would have dashed back to get a sweatshirt and then returned, but she’d offered to accompany him.
She’d already shared kisses with him at the dark edges of the dance floor. He’d not been averse to making out more.
A few more kisses couldn’t hurt.
Once inside the empty bachelor house, he’d found her a soft fleece jacket that she’d draped over her shoulders before draping herself on the couch. Though he’d taken a seat several cushions away, in moments they’d been in each other’s arms again. Her perfumed warmth against him, her cloud of hair in his hands, her pretty face upturned.
The bedroom then, like now, had been her idea.
Her small tongue in his mouth had melted all his objections. Within seconds of her proposing they go there, he’d ripped off his metaphorical merit badges and led her to his big bed. Six years ago, an expression of doubt had crossed her face as she first glimpsed the smooth bedspread and stacked pillows. The same one she wore now.
So he sought to reassure her in the same way. “Hey, we don’t have to do this.”
She responded with the exact same words. “Turn off the lights.”
Then, he had. Now he couldn’t. “Addy, there aren’t any on. It’s the sun.”
Her gaze turned toward the filmy covering on the glass sliders and her teeth worried her bottom lip.
“Addy...” He crossed to her and put both hands on her shoulders. “Look, second thoughts are fine.”
“Second chances don’t always come around,” she muttered, then whirled to face him. “Kiss me.”
His thought was to take the heat down a notch. To turn the fire down to simmer, so that they would have clearer heads with which to reconsider. But when his lips touched hers she kissed him the way he’d taught her, mouth instantly opening to reveal the hot, sweet juiciness inside.
Bungalow Nights (Beach House No. 9) Page 14