Wet: Whispering Cove, Book 2

by Cathryn Fox

  It took a moment for Katy to find her voice. “How is someone toying with you?”

  “I put out two fires at Dresden Bluff.” He frowned, and the worry lines deepened around his mouth. “And I didn’t even know you were staying here until the phone call brought me here to the fire…to you.”

  At the mention of Dresden Bluff, Katy’s mind raced and fire pitched through her body. As Trent stood before her, staring down at her with those smoldering eyes of his, she did not want to think about Dresden Bluff, all the times they’d gone there, or the intimacies they’d shared.

  “Oh,” she managed to say through chattering teeth as she wrapped her arms around herself to stave off a shiver.

  Trent’s expression changed to one of tenderness as he stepped close and put his hands on her arms. He rubbed quickly, creating heat with friction. His voice dropped an octave when he said, “Look at you. You’re all wet.”

  Oh God, he had no idea.

  “Well, you’ve got pretty good aim with your hose,” she said, then realized how sexual that sounded. Jesus, Freud would have a field day with her.

  He grinned, and let his glance race over her body, which was naked and exposed through her wet nightie. He fell quiet for a moment, but she didn’t miss the want in his eyes. As a hush settled over them, they exchanged a long, heated look, one that slid through her like a warm aphrodisiac and had her thoughts careening in an erotic direction.

  Sexual tension grew heavy, thicker than the fog moving in over the ocean. Trent sucked in a breath and appeared to be waging some internal war. For a brief moment, conflicting emotions flickered over his face. When she spotted something dark, something remorseful in the depths of his eyes, she wondered what he was thinking. A frown touched his forehead as his glance trailed her curves one more time.

  He exhaled slowly, shook his head as if to clear it, and broke the quiet by saying, “Let’s get you inside before you catch your death of cold.”

  Katy gave a breathy laugh and felt some of the tension drain. “You sound like Grandma Margaret.”

  At the mention of her late grandmother, Granddaddy Errol’s wife, the lines on his forehead deepened.

  “What is it?” Katy asked.

  “There was just something about that person on the other end of the line. Whoever called about the fire had been disguising their voice, but there was something familiar about it.”

  Katy’s head jerked back with a start. “You think it was my late grandma?” She stared at him and wondered what he’d been smoking. Or worse, maybe he’d inhaled too much creosote over the years and the extended exposure was slowly killing off brain cells.

  Trent laughed. “No, I don’t. It’s just that sometimes Errol rolls his Rs. So did the caller.”

  She crinkled her nose. “You think Granddaddy started the fire? Why would he do something like that?”

  She took a moment to think about Granddaddy Errol and her heart lurched. He’d aged so much over the last few years, especially since he’d lost Grandma Margaret. His cloudy blue eyes had lost some of the shine except, Katy noticed, when they met hers. Since she’d come home, the wicked gleam that spoke of love and life had returned. She pushed back the guilt. God, she hadn’t meant to hurt her granddaddy when she’d left, and knew how much he wanted her to return home and have a family of her own, one that he could enjoy and watch over.

  “No. No, of course not.” Trent shook his head.

  Katy stepped in front of him to open the door. “Because I don’t think he’d put me in danger and—”

  Trent cut her off, leaned forward and put his mouth close to her ear. “Yeah, but maybe he knows as long as I’m around you’ll never be in danger, Katy.”

  His warm breath trickled along her spine and the heat in his voice when he spoke her name had her spinning around to face him. “I…I still don’t think he’d do something like this.”

  He dipped his head lower, and his lips were so close to hers she was sure he was going to kiss her. “No. You’re probably right.’ His voice was so deep, so full of desire, it seeped under her skin and brought on a shiver.

  From the top of her head to the tips of her toes, her entire body trembled. She was about to say something, but he touched her nightie and rolled the material between his fingers. Oh God, those fingers. She remembered how they touched her, how they felt caressing her body, how they felt inside her.

  “We need to get you out of this,” he murmured low.

  “Mmmm, yeah, good idea…” Katy’s mind drifted off, filling with erotic visions of Trent peeling the slip of material from her body and kissing a lazy path over her flesh until he reached the spot that needed his tongue the most. In her mind’s eye she envisioned him burying his mouth between her legs while he pushed two thick fingers inside her and brought her to orgasm. Another shiver wracked her body.

  When his warm chuckle reached her ears, her mind snapped back to reality. She blinked her eyes into focus, and when she caught the sexy, crooked grin on Trent’s mouth, she said, “Wait. What? Why?”

  Trent moistened his lips and she damn near orgasmed then and there. “It’s wet, remember?”

  Oh yeah, she remembered.

  “You’re shivering and we don’t want you to catch…”

  She cut him off, and realized he’d mistaken her shiver. “I know, I know. My death of cold.”

  His earlier words hit like a cold, wet facecloth. Trent was a nice guy, a sweet caring man who didn’t want her to get sick. He was not making a pass at her, no matter how much she wanted him to. And he was not at her house because he wanted to see her. He was there because someone was toying with him. Probably an old school chum back in town for the reunion.

  Speaking of toying…

  His enticing scent played havoc with her senses as he reached past her and pushed open the door. “After you.”

  Katy slid her arms over her chest to hide the telltale hardening of her nipples as she slipped inside and made a beeline for her bedroom.

  Trent was a gentleman. A firefighter. Simply doing what good firefighters do. Helping victims of a fire, no matter how big or small said fire was. Yeah, there were sparks between them, but he did not want to sleep with her. He still hated her for leaving. She needed to get that through her skull.

  Flustered, she tore off her nightie, grabbed her housecoat, and in her haste she somehow tangled the belt around her arms. A noise behind her had her spinning around, only to come face-to-face with Trent.

  He stood in her doorway, leaning against the jamb with his hands deep in his pockets. His hot glance raked over her naked body and she had to lock her knees to keep upright.

  “Hey,” he murmured, and she heard the raw ache of lust in that one word.

  Katy swallowed. “Hey yourself.”

  A long pause, then he pushed off the doorjamb and took a predatory step toward her. “Looks like you might need a hand.”

  Katy sucked in a breath as her body pulsed. Okay, so maybe he did want to sleep with her.

  Chapter Five

  Trent’s gaze raced over Katy’s shapely contours as he took two long strides toward her and quickly closed the distance between them. The sight of her beautiful, naked body evoked a myriad of sinful thoughts and bombarded him with primal hunger. It was that raw hunger that threatened his last vestige of control. But he needed that control. Without it, he’d never be able to fuck her and get her out of his system.

  As he hovered over her, his cock ached and pressed so hard against his jeans he was certain it was going to burst through the zipper. He bumped against her body, and the heat of her flesh combined with the tang of her arousal, teased the desire rising up inside him.

  Oh fuck, how he wanted her…

  Without preamble, he grabbed Katy and drew her close. He slid his hands along her back, splaying his fingers wide as he pinned her to his body. She gasped when she felt his cock press hard against her stomach. He brought his mouth close to hers and tasted the sweetness on her breath.

 
She struggled against him. Surprised by her response and wondering if he’d read her wrong, he inched back. He wanted her but he certainly wasn’t going to act on those urges if the feelings weren’t mutual. “What is it, Katy?”

  “I’m all tied up,” she murmured in a low seductive voice that had his body moistening. He looked over her shoulder and noticed the tangled belt.

  He arched a brow. “And?”

  “And I…I want to touch you.” The need in her eyes did something to him, and the fact that she wanted this as much as he did touched him on a level that made breathing damn near impossible.

  Trent took a moment to gather himself, then shook his head from side to side as wild and wicked ideas pelted him like warm summer rain. Instead of releasing her, he slid his hands down her sides, and in a bold move tightened the belt even more.

  Her eyes widened with a mixture of surprise and pleasure. “Trent…?”

  He pitched his voice low. “Yeah, Katy?”

  Color crept up her neck. “What…what are you doing?” she asked, and he could sense her mounting desire.

  “Well, if you must know.” He grinned down at her. “I want you at my mercy.” With that, Trent drove his knee deep between her legs. “Now widen for me.”

  She immediately obliged, and he didn’t miss the intrigue in her tone when she said, “I’ve never seen this side of you.”

  “I’m sure there’s a lot you don’t know about me anymore.”

  The lust in her voice nearly pushed him over the edge. “Why don’t you show me?” she suggested as the sultry heat in her eyes raised his blood pressure to dangerous proportions.

  Trent stood back and looked at her. Jesus, he couldn’t believe how much he liked seeing her like this. So needy, so hot, and so goddamn aroused it was going to take every ounce of strength he possessed not to erupt at first contact.

  Impatience raced through him. He ached to kiss her, to pull her taut nipples into his mouth, to drag his lips over her flesh and to tongue her sweet, silky cunt the way she liked. Yeah, he knew what she liked, and knew how exactly how she liked it. Trent knew all her sexy secrets, and God help him, he was about to fulfill them.

  “T,” she murmured.

  His body tightened, and the sound of his nickname on her lips instantly erased the last ten years and brought them to a deeper level of intimacy. Something inside him gave and he felt like he’d been sucker-punched.

  “Katy…”

  She wet her lips, and the needy look on her face was so potent, everything inside him reached out to her. Desire danced in her eyes, and the way her body beckoned his became his undoing.

  Yeah, his plan was to fuck her. Long and hard. Until he got her out of his system. But when she called him T, then parted her lips and welcomed him home, his entire brain shut down, complicating his mission. He cleared his throat, rattled by the emotions she brought out in him.

  Her face suffused with color and her breathing changed. God, he loved how she responded to him.

  “T, please.”

  The impatience in her voice and the way she looked at him with such need and desire pushed him over the precipice. His lips crashed down on hers. As he pillaged her mouth, his body screamed go, but his last working brain cell screamed stop, warning him that sleeping with her was a bad idea. A totally, fucking stupid idea, because once he did his world would never be right again.

  Yeah, who the fuck was he kidding? His world hadn’t been right for ten years. So what did it matter?

  He pulled his mouth from hers and dropped to his knees, the need to be inside her so powerful he could barely think straight, could barely listen to that inner voice warning that he was headed down a path there’d be no coming back from. Christ, he needed this to stop as much as he needed it to continue.

  “Oh God, T,” she cried out and arched her back.

  He slid his tongue over her quivering body, brushing her nipples and taking his sweet time to draw her pebbled nubs into his mouth. He sucked long and hard until his mouth had had its fill, then his tongue drifted downward. He gripped her legs and spread them even wider.

  Christ, he ached to pay homage to her pussy, to feast on her hot, wet clit, and swipe his tongue across her sensitive bundle of nerves. He ached to hear her scream his name during orgasm. Ached to release inside her just one more time.

  Just. One. More. Time.

  But again something inside him screamed that once would never be enough. Not with her. Not with his Katy.

  He was just about to close his mouth over her sex when a noise sounded outside. Someone or something had rattled the door so hard the glass nearly shattered. Heart racing, Trent rocked back on his heels and glanced up at Katy. She was staring down at him, equal mixtures of arousal and unease spreading across her flushed cheeks.

  Trent worked to find his voice. “You expecting company, Katy?”

  She shook her head quickly. “No.”

  The noise sounded again, but this time it came from the other side of the beach house. Trent twisted and glanced out the beachside window. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Katy said, breathless. “I heard noises outside earlier before you showed up. I brushed it off as the dock.”

  “That’s not the dock.”

  Trent climbed to his feet and scrubbed his hand over his jaw. He could see how much the banging had scared Katy. Her eyes were wide, blinking rapidly, and her chest was rising and falling erratically, although he could also blame her body’s responses on her arousal.

  When he noticed the open curtains, he sheltered her exposed body, reached around her and released the bound strap. He draped her house coat over her shoulders to cover her up.

  “Thanks.” Katy went straight to her window to draw the blinds. Her voice sounded sheepish when she said, “We forgot…”

  “I know.” Which was so unlike him. He wasn’t into exhibitionism and coveted his privacy. Unlike Katy, he could never be a TV personality. He was just a small town boy who liked to remain behind the scenes. But in his quest to be inside her, he’d lost his ability to think straight and it had him forgetting the basics, like drawing the curtains and hiding them from the public’s eye.

  The front door rattled again, and Trent tensed. He gestured with a nod. “I should go look.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” He could hear the worry in her voice, but underneath he detected disappointment. She wanted this encounter to play out every bit as much as he did. “Do you think it could be an old high-school buddy pulling a prank on you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” With the reunion and everyone returning home, the thought had occurred to him. It also occurred to him that no matter how much he wanted to make love to Katy, whoever was out there had stopped him in the nick of time. Before he did something he might regret later.

  Trent stepped back and turned as Katy pulled on a pair of jeans and T-shirt. “Wait. I’ll come with you.”

  “No. You stay here.”

  He left her in the bedroom and walked to the front door. He inched it open and peered outside. When he met with silence, he stepped out into the night and glanced around. He spotted movement at the end of the long sandy lane and bolted from the house.

  When he reached the street and heard a whistle, his mind raced. What the hell was going on?

  “Harold?”

  Harold turned. “Yeah, boy, what is it I can I do for ya?”

  Why would Harold be out strolling the streets at night, especially after his recent incident at the hospital?

  He tapped an impatient foot. “Well out with it, boy, I ain’t got all night, ya know.”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Taking a stroll.” He tapped his chest and gave a mischievous wink. “Gotta keep the old ticker ticking, boy.”

  Trent glanced behind him and judged the amount of time it would take to get from the beach house to the street. Harold was old, frail, surely he couldn’t have banged on the door then made it to the street in such a s
hort time.

  Trent decided to ask anyway, but it sounded crazy, even to himself. “Were you just up at the beach house?”

  “No, lad, I wasn’t anywhere near the place. Why? What’s up?” Curiosity lit his cloudy eyes.

  What’s up was that someone had banged on the door and broken up an intimate encounter between Katy and himself, and Trent suspected it had been done on purpose, which begged the question was someone trying to get them together, or pull them apart? He considered it a moment longer and then thought about the distance of the lane. Honestly, he had to be crazy to think Harold would—or could—do such a thing. Christ, maybe he’d gotten paranoid over the years.

  Just then Katy came rushing down the lane, looking mussed, sexy and breathless.

  Harold greeted Katy then turned back to Trent. “So what’s up, lad?” he pushed.

  Trent didn’t dare say anything about anything. Harold along with Byron and Errol, the other two that made up the gruesome threesome—lawless ruffians when younger—were worse than any of the gossiping women at Whispering Salon. Those three would have rumors about Katy and him spread in no time at all.

  “Nothing. We heard a noise, is all. Probably the dock coming loose.”

  “Yeah, prolly,” Harold said.

  With that Harold turned, resumed his whistling and strolled down the street toward home.

  “You don’t think…” Katy began.

  Trent shook his head. “I don’t know.” Silence hung heavy as he glanced up and down the road, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

  Looking a little unsure, Katy blinked and pointed her thumb behind her. “Did you want to…”

  Trent raked shaky hands through his hair. “I should probably go.”

  “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just that…I…uh…”

  Sexually frustrated and emotionally battered, Trent drove his hands deep into his pockets before he did something stupid, like pull her against him and finish what they started.