“It just takes time.” His words rumbled into my ear. “Give yourself some time to fit the pieces together. You’ll sort it out.”
One of his large hands pressed firmer into my lower back, and the other slowly glided up my spine. His long fingers dipping underneath my ponytail, he gently cradled my head, his thumb swirling soothing circles into the sensitive skin at my nape.
Diesel was so strong, so certain of himself, and a lot of the time, so fiercely confrontational. But last night with the singing to help me sleep, and right now with the comfort he offered me, he was so unexpectedly, irresistibly tender.
“Time. You’re right. I know it in my head. The rest of me just needs to catch up.” I released him and eased away. It was more difficult to disengage from him than it had been to engage.
My decision to sleep with Diesel might remain in doubt. I was pregnant, and he didn’t know. I didn’t want him to know. He only did casual, one-night hookups.
We might burn down the night if we were ever together, but I knew I would get hurt. I’d tossed and turned last night for hours, knowing he’d been with someone else. We didn’t have any real ties to each other, but I couldn’t lie to myself. It had bothered me. My stomach churned again at just the thought of it.
I had no hold on him. I didn’t think anyone could hold Diesel unless he wanted them to. But I was certain of something, and as that knowledge seeped through me, it was gratifying to acknowledge one thing I didn’t need any additional time to sort out.
I liked Diesel.
I liked him a lot. And I wasn’t going to keep building a wall against that fact and banging my head against it. In that, at least, I was going to remove the barriers and just go with the flow as he’d suggested.
“So since it’s agreed that I’m not going in the water . . .”
Diesel frowned at me, obviously disagreeing. Too bad. If he didn’t already know, he’d soon learn I was just as stubborn as he was.
“. . . I’ll wrap up the rest of this fruit and put it in the fridge while you head out. And then I’ll find a towel, take one of these mugs of coffee down to the beach and find a good shady spot, and I’ll watch you for a while. Okay?”
Seeming to consider, he tilted his head at that deep angle that made his glossy black curls skim his shoulder. My stomach predictably flipped.
How soft is his hair? How would it feel in my grip or against my skin? I shifted my bare feet on the wooden floor, feeling flushed and restless while he stared at me with that unnerving intensity of his.
His eyes narrowed as his voice rumbled. “You’re under the mistaken impression that your will is equal to mine.”
“You’re mistaken if you think it’s not.” My spine snapping straight, I put my hands on my hips.
Diesel’s gaze dipped to my chest. “You want what I want.”
His eyes darkened and his lips curved when his gaze rose again to meet mine. I felt like he could read my thoughts.
“We’ll play it your way for a while.” He stepped toward me and leaned in close.
An enticing tropical blend of coconut, plumeria, and pineapple scents swirled around me, along with a dizzying amount of his warmth and masculine musk.
“But before I go . . .” His expression sharpening, he reached out and touched the pad of his thumb to the outer edge of my mouth.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, my heart galloping as he stared at me and swept his thumb across my cheek.
“You had a smear of pineapple clinging to your pretty face.” He lowered his hand to show me before lifting his thumb to his mouth and sucking it clean.
I pulled in a sharp breath, and my imagination regarding his mouth ran away faster than my pulse.
“Sometimes we don’t know what we really want and just need a helpful nudge in the right direction.” He stepped back and twisted at the waist, cording his abs as he grabbed his cream-colored board. Those same muscles remained grooved when he turned back to grin at me, double crescents and all.
As he took the path to the beach, I just blinked at him, dazed and starry-eyed, another groupie.
After I recovered and put the tray away, I found a good spot on the sand and watched him surf. His lean body bending, his toned muscles flexing, his expression sublime, the ocean his sanctuary. It was where he belonged.
An artist in motion, he rode one wave after another on his board. Transfixed, I followed him with my gaze.
Diesel surfed notably differently from the others. He was more graceful. Dipping over the top of each rising wave, popping into position, sliding down the glassy embankments and tucking beneath the curling crystalline curtains.
Each time he disappeared, I held my breath and my heart raced until he reappeared. He was gorgeous, wearing a sparkling sheen of saltwater over his ebony curls, his pleasure radiating from every sun-kissed coppery pore.
Okay, maybe I more than liked him. And maybe that decision I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge was no longer in doubt.
Diesel
My board under my arm, I waded through the shallows toward Hollie as if drawn to her by an invisible cord. I was in deep shit, and I knew it. I’d known it last night when I turned down the groupie. And I was even more certain now.
I stopped at the shoreline. Unfastening my leash, I dove the nose of my board into the wet sand where it would stay until I was ready to return for it.
Hollie was standing when I refocused on her. I stared so hard at her that my eyes burned. Looking at her in that tiny bikini made my blood simmer. Buying it a size too small? Another dumbass move by me.
What the fuck was I doing?
I’d talked to her about putting things into a box. I was guilty of thinking I could control the craving I had for her, bring her out here, maybe help her out a bit, fuck her, then tuck everything back into a box, shelve it, and go on my merry way.
That bullshit was not happening.
Not when I hadn’t even fucked her yet. But already, my skin was a too-tight covering on my frame, my entire body buzzing with the need to be with her, to take her, to possess her in every possible way.
“You were awesome.” Her pretty silver eyes were alight, her hands clasped to her chest as if to keep her excited heart from leaping out of it. “The way you grabbed the edge of your board and spun in a complete circle before you landed was amazing.”
“Grabbing the rails, a full-air rotation.” My lips curving from her enthusiasm, I gave her the technical terms, but I didn’t really care what she called it, so long as she was impressed. “I thought you were napping under that tree.”
“As if I could with you . . . out there . . . in the water.” Her excitement faded like an inflated balloon leaking air as she turned away from me to frown at the ocean.
“This isn’t the North Shore. Those are only six-foot swells. I was perfectly safe. My board is a flotation device, and I was tethered to it. You understand how surfing works, don’t you?”
“I hadn’t really thought of it that way.”
“Perspective. Knowledge. Those things matter.”
Hollie pursed her sexy lips. They were darker than their usual light blush in the midday heat. “You saying my fear’s irrational?”
“Hell yeah,” I said, assuming she would bow up. But she surprised me.
“You might be right.” She narrowed her eyes.
“I know I am. And I’m going to prove it to you.”
“How?”
“I’m going to teach you how to surf.”
“Oh no, you’re not.”
When she started to whirl away, I hooked my arm around her slender waist and pulled her back into my front, stopping her.
“Let me go, Diesel.” She tried to wiggle free.
“No.”
I wanted to lean down and kiss her neck. The tips of her ears and twin spots right beneath them had flared red from her irritation. I wanted to kiss her, so I did.
She stopped squirming the moment my lips connected with her skin.
My blo
od roared in my ears. Not just from the kiss, but from the connection as the twin globes of her curvy ass cradled my erection.
“The key to overcoming your fear is experience,” I whispered into her ear.
She turned her head, our gazes connecting over the slim width of her delicate shoulder. “Untrue.”
“True.” My lips curled. I loved arguing with her.
Hollie’s gaze dipped to my mouth, and I wanted to taste her. I’d never wanted to kiss any woman this badly.
Still pinned to me, she remained frozen as I lowered my head, though her eyes widened slightly. I saw myself reflected in the silvery surface for a second, right before I reached my intended target. Then I was rewriting everything.
Her lips were soft and sweetly parted. Kissing her was like heaven and hell combined, a homecoming and something entirely brand new.
But she spun out of my arms, just as I’d been about to turn her more fully into me to deepen the bliss.
“Don’t.” She shook her head at me. Her eyes were bright and glistening with emotion, and her tits moved up and down with each heaving breath as if she’d run through the sand back up the hill to the house, not just imagined sprinting away from me.
“Why not?”
“Do you do everything just because you want to?”
“Yeah.” My gaze narrowed. “Don’t you?”
“No. I consider the consequences.”
“Life’s too short not to take the opportunities that are presented to us.”
“I know that.” Yet she crossed her arms over her chest.
I frowned, not liking my view being impeded. I stepped toward her, but she stepped back.
“We dancing?” I asked, trying to lighten her the fuck up.
“No. This is me retreating.”
“Why?”
“Because I like you.”
“Good.”
I downplayed it, but my dead heart felt like it had been brought back to life from hearing those words from her spoken so sincerely. She had a very small group of people she held in high esteem. Her sister. The guys in the band. Karen. Simone. Her stylist friend. The bodyguard.
“I like you too.”
Hollie nodded, but it was an awkward, too-fast bobbing of her head. “We’re friends, right?”
“We are.” But friends wasn’t all I wanted to be.
“So let’s don’t cross that line again. Okay?”
Fuck. She’d backed me into a corner. Outmaneuvered me. It pissed me off.
“If that’s what you wanted, I’d say sure. But you were with me on that kiss.”
“I was.” She brought her hand to her lips. “You’re very good at it.”
“I’m very good at a lot of things. I’ll show you.”
“I’d rather just take your word for it.”
“You say that now, but you’ll change your mind later.”
“Diesel—”
“No, Hollie. I’m not agreeing to any bullshit boundaries. I think you’re scared of us getting physical as much as you are of the water. We’re going to tackle one first, then we’ll take on the other.”
I reached for her, curling my fingers around her slender arms and tugging her into me. Where I liked her to be. Where she fit. Where she seemed to settle.
Wrong.
She glared at me. “There’s no we about it. This is you making a unilateral decision.”
“Maybe so, pele. But only because you’re wrong, and I’m right.”
Hollie
How did I get myself into these situations?
Oh yeah.
Diesel Le.
His hands, his long-fingered, basketball-player-sized hands—and we all knew he had the down-low equipment to prove the adage about size—curved around my waist as he plucked me out of the water and plopped me right back on his board.
“Again,” he said before I even managed to blink the saltwater out of my eyes.
Shaking and probably looking like a drowned cat on my hands and knees on the board, I gripped the sides of it and tried not to think about the churning surf. If I thought about it, I would only shake more, and I wouldn’t be able to remember what he’d taught me.
“Shouldn’t I be learning on a practice board?”
“Get into position.” He ignored my question. I was in his domain, and he was in charge.
“I am in position.” Sassy, maybe, but I was being compliant. We had a deal.
“Another one’s coming.” Diesel moved behind me to the back of the board to push me into the wave.
I did my part and got ready.
The first fifty or so times before the sun had started its descent, I’d gotten distracted. Having his hands all over me made it difficult to concentrate. A difficulty that continued.
I could still feel the warmth of his fingers on my waist from a moment ago. But I was too tired to fixate on my body’s response to his touch, or to rewind to the pleasure sliding my fingers over his wet satiny skin had been.
Oops, distracted again. Apparently, I wasn’t that tired. Another sensual shiver rolled through me as I recalled how strong Diesel was and how steely his muscles had felt contracting beneath my hands.
“Pop up!” he shouted, moving the board forward, and I jumped up into the stance he’d taught me.
Right foot forward, left slightly back, I crouched with my knees loose and my arms out.
On my own, just me, the board, and the wave, I noticed the sun hung like a gold lantern in the azure sky. As voices and distant laughter from the surfers at the adjacent public park whipped past on the wind, I experienced a spine-tingling thrill of accomplishment as I remained upright. My one moment stretched into two, then another as the wave carried me toward the blessed shore.
“I’m doing it.” I smiled and wanted to share my joy with Diesel—after all, he’d been the one to push me.
But glancing back at him threw off my balance, and I toppled. Into the water, I fell, tossed by the wave that had followed me. Sputtering, I came up with my flotation device, a.k.a. his surfboard. I flicked my sopping-wet hair out of my face as he swam toward me.
“You did it!” Grinning at me, he put his feet down since it was shallow enough for him while I held on to his board with one arm and floated.
“I did.” My smile widened, something inside me going a little wonky from being on the receiving end of his approval.
“Nearly five seconds.”
“It felt like a lot longer.”
“You wanna go again?”
“Oh no.” I shook my head, and he moved closer.
Gazing down at me intently, he cupped my cheek in his hand. Abandoning my hold on the board, I twined my arms around his strong neck.
“You did good,” he said as another swell rolled into us and rocked our bodies closer together.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, crossing my ankles at his back, and he glided his hands under my ass, pulling me even closer. A thrill shot through me. I liked being held by him this intimately as much as I’d liked his praise.
“You’re a good teacher.” Patient, dedicated, and focused. If he focused those qualities on getting me into his bed, I was a goner.
“You sure you want to go in? This is kinda nice.” Diesel’s eyes were soft, but a more reddish hue, like I noticed they were when his emotions were heightened.
“I’m exhausted, and we still have to get cleaned up and go into town to pick up those things before we see your dad.”
“Need to get you fed too.”
“Ditto for you. Did you eat anything this morning?”
“I sure did. A protein bar and nearly half that coconut and a banana. Didn’t want to cramp up while I was out here showboating for you.”
“You’re so graceful when you surf.” My fingers slid up Diesel’s nape and into his hair. I hummed low in my throat, loving the texture. His curls were springy and pleasingly silky soft.
“I’ve had a lot of practice.” His wet lashes fluttered as I dug the pads of my fingers int
o his scalp. “That feels so good.”
His very deep male groan made my nipples tighten and spiked more pulsating heat straight to my core.
“You make it look so easy.”
“Lots of things get easier after practice.” His eyes were as dark as the night had been before he’d returned home. “Wanna do it some more?”
“Uh, no,” I said, though it didn’t really seem like he was talking about surfing anymore, and I nearly moaned as his fingers flexed deep grooves of need into the globes of my ass. “We agreed that as soon as I managed to stand up, we would go in.”
“All right. We’ll go in.” He searched my eyes for a long moment. “You had fun, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “Thank you.” I held his gaze, unable to find the right words to explain how significant it was that he’d gotten me out here and taught me to surf.
“You overcame your fear. Kicked it in the ass. Knew you would.” Diesel’s voice was low, sexy, but it was his expression and the pride for me written on his handsome face that took my breath away.
I was still afraid, trembling inwardly, but it wasn’t because of the water anymore.
Diesel
I liked having Hollie on the back of my bike. I liked her on my board, on my beach, in my home, and in my favorite local grocery store, standing in front of the art display and worrying her pink bottom lip between her pearly white teeth.
I was so fucked.
“Do you think he’d prefer watercolors or sketch pencils?” She glanced at me.
“He hasn’t used either in a long time. I don’t know what to tell you, other than it’s the thought that counts.”
“That’s not helpful. The pencils.” She bent to slide the pack off the hook and the front of her sundress, the only item of clothing she had, gaped open, giving me a hell of a view.
“Good. Let’s go. He’s waiting, and we still need to pick up the pho.” I’d made the mistake of telling Dad I was bringing dinner and that I had Hollie with me. He’d been texting me questions nonstop ever since.
“All right. You’re a pill, you know, less patient with shopping than you were teaching me to surf.”
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