Cold Feet In Hot Sand

by Lauren Gallagher

  “I guess they did, didn’t they?” He rested his forearms top of his knees. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Now that we’ve talked, I guess I understand. I’m just sorry it worked out this way.”

  “Me too.”

  “I feel kind of bad for hooking you two up, too.”

  “Nah, don’t feel bad.” He smiled, and actually meant it. “Things didn’t work out, but I think even Kristina would agree it wasn’t all bad. We just weren’t meant to be for the long run.”

  “Ever the optimist,” she said. “People like you disgust me, just so you know.”

  Nick laughed. “Hey, optimists like me have to exist to balance out the insufferable pessimists like you.”

  “Insufferable?” She snorted. “Please. What’s more insufferable than someone being incessantly cheery when everything sucks?”

  “I don’t know, maybe someone who’s pouring more doom and gloom on existing doom and gloom?”

  Deanna gestured dismissively. “Just trying to make sure it all matches, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh. Sure.”

  She glanced at him, then laughed in spite of her best efforts. “Okay, so being Mr. Cheery Sunny Optimism, do you think anyone’s ever a hundred percent compatible? I mean, Jason was a lying, cheating son of a bitch. You and Kristina wanted different things out of life. But, do you think anyone ever gets it right?”

  Nick chewed the inside of his cheek and rolled the question around in his mind for a long moment. “There’s an awful lot of people who seem like they’re happily married after a long time, so they must be doing something right.”

  “Think we can beat the secret out of them with a tire iron?”

  Nick burst out laughing. “Only you would think that way.”

  “Desperate times,” she said with a shrug.

  Shaking his head, he said, “Only you, Deanna.” He pressed his bare feet into the sand, pushing them past the warm, dry top layer to the cool, damp sand underneath. “What about you? Tire iron aside, you think anyone ever gets it right?”

  “Honestly?” She hugged her knees to her chest. “I think we all just kind of flail and stumble through the dating pool until we trip over someone who turns out to not only be the one whose bullshit we can put up with for the rest of our lives, but who can also put up with our bullshit for the rest of theirs.”

  Nick stared at her incredulously.

  She turned to him. “What?”

  He smirked. “Well if that’s not the most optimistic view of romance I’ve ever heard.”

  “Hey, you didn’t ask for the happy-go-lucky version.”

  “Is there one?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.” He paused. “That wasn’t part of your toast for the reception, was it?”

  Deanna snorted. “Oh come on. You know me better than that.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m asking.” He raised an eyebrow. “Which is why I suspect it was that or something much, much worse.”

  “Hmm.” She furrowed her brow. “So, you’re saying I shouldn’t have included the bit about what happened at the company party three Christmases ago?”

  His eyes widened. “Deanna…”

  She laughed again and elbowed him. “Oh, honestly. You know I wouldn’t have told that story.” Her eyes narrowed and she grinned devilishly. “Blackmail material like that has to wait for just the right occasion.”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “Never change, Deanna. Never change.”

  “Oh, I will.” Her grin broadened. “If only to keep you on your toes.”

  “Oh, great.”

  They both laughed, and after a moment, silence closed in once again. Watching the ocean with unfocused eyes, Nick only half-noticed the way the dim light from the bars and hotels played on the calm, dark water. He kept thinking back to this morning with Kristina, but then his mind would shift back to the present. Deanna was here. Still a friend, even if she was angry earlier. Even if he’d hurt her sister.

  He’d treasured his friendship with Deanna for years, and he was only half-joking about being willing to straighten a guy out with a shotgun if the fucker messed with her. Jason was lucky Nick had never gotten hold of him. No woman deserved to be treated like that, but Deanna? Jason had no idea what he’d screwed up or who he’d pissed off in the process.

  “You mind if I ask a personal question?” Nick said. “One that might be a bit of a touchy nerve?”

  Deanna turned her head. “Am I required to answer?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He took a breath. “You think you and Jason would have stayed together? If he hadn’t been cheating?”

  “Probably not.”

  He narrowed his eyes slightly, trying to see her better in the fading light. “Really?”

  Deanna shifted so she was sitting cross-legged, and absently brushed some sand off her skirt. “It’s… it’s hard to explain. The thing is, you know how all the girls at work gave me crap because it was high time Jason and I started having kids?”

  Grimacing, he nodded. Their co-workers had been relentless in needling Deanna about why she and Jason were still childless after so long together. She’d finally put a stop to it by telling one person—the biggest mouth in the department, which Nick assumed was a calculated move—that she was working with some fertility specialists, but things weren’t looking good.

  “The thing is,” Deanna said, “I wasn’t really going to a fertility specialist. Jason and I started talking about having kids the year before we got married. We figured we’d wait a year or so before we started trying.” She blew out a breath and stared down at the sand in front of her. “Every year, usually right around our anniversary, the subject came up. At first, neither of us wanted to right away. Then he was leaning towards it, but I wanted to gain some seniority in the company. Finish my MBA. Pay off this debt or that one. And towards the end, I was running out of reasons to keep putting it off.”

  “So, when you found out he was cheating, you guys were probably about to start trying?”

  Deanna shook her head slowly. “A few months before I found out about his girlfriend, he’d asked about having a baby, and he got really pissed because I was still on the fence about it. And I didn’t even have a reason this time. He asked me point blank if I wanted to have a baby with him at all.” She turned to Nick. “And that’s when I realized I’d been putting it off all this time because no, I didn’t want to have a baby with him.”

  Nick swallowed. “Why not?”

  “Because I was unhappy with him,” she said. “And even though we were married, and I meant it when I made my vows, I realized I’d just kind of… checked out. My bags were mentally packed, I just couldn’t make myself call a cab and leave.” She laughed bitterly and looked out at the water again. “I guess he did me a favor by cheating. I’d probably still be married to him and wondering when the hell I’d work up the nerve to leave.”

  “Wow,” he whispered. “I always thought you two were happy.”

  She met his eyes. “Likewise.” A faint smile pulled at her lips. “We really suck at reading each other, don’t we?”

  Nick laughed. “That, or we’re both just really good at keeping our cards close to the vest.”

  “Something like that.” She put a hand on his arm. “Just so you know, for future reference, if you need to talk about something like this—before you call off a wedding or something—I’m always here for you.”

  “Thank you,” he whispered. Deanna smiled, then leaned toward him and hugged him. As he held onto her, he added, “And the same goes for you. You know that, right?”

  “Thank you.” She held him a little tighter. “I’m sorry things fell apart with Kristina. I was really hoping you’d be happy.”

  “Me too.” Still holding onto her, he closed his eyes and sighed into her hair. “Thank you, Deanna. For listening.”

  “You’re welcome.”

&nbs
p; As she let him go and pulled back, he started to take a breath to say… something. The second they made eye contact, though, he forgot whatever it was that had been on the tip of his tongue. He forgot all about that breath he’d been taking.

  He’d never looked at her like this. As far as he knew, she’d never looked at him this way either, but she was now, and so was he.

  Oh my God, Deanna. I never realized how beautiful you are.

  Now he understood what people meant when they talked about time standing still. The whole world came to a halt just then, earth and time holding completely still while an inkling he’d never noticed grew to an epiphany he couldn’t ignore. Blood pounded in his ears as he realized his entire perception of Deanna and the space between them—the lack of space between them—had shifted. Tilted. Warped. Suddenly? Slowly? Just now? Over time? He couldn’t put his finger on it, on when or how it happened, but he couldn’t step back and pretend it hadn’t.

  Before he realized what he was doing, he reached for her

  face. She closed her eyes and tensed when his fingers brushed her cheek, but she didn’t pull away.

  Deanna opened her eyes. Her gaze flicked from his eyes to his lips and back again, and when she moistened her own lips, Nick shivered.

  Then her eyes darted to his mouth again. She slowly lifted her chin. Just as slowly, he leaned closer, and there was no mistaking where this glacial momentum would take them if they let it.

  Her breath whispered across his skin.

  Nick swallowed. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “I know.”

  But she kissed him anyway.

  Three

  Up until this moment, she’d never given serious thought to kissing Nick, but in the seconds before it had happened, there had been no other possibility. No other alternative. Maybe she’d never thought of it before, but tonight, she’d needed it to happen, and it had. It was.

  It ended all too soon, after more minutes had ticked by than she could possibly count. She drew back and looked up at him. She could barely see him in what little light crept down the beach from the distant bars and hotels, but she saw him well enough.

  How did I ever not see this? How did I ever overlook you?

  Nick touched her face. “What are we doing?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t want to stop.”

  “Neither do I.” He was the one to kiss her this time, tilting his head and moving in to claim her mouth.

  Deanna couldn’t get enough of his kiss. It had been years since a man had kissed her this way, touching her face, her hair, her neck, kissing as much with his hands as with his mouth. His tongue parted her lips, and his fingers drifted into her hair as he deepened the kiss.

  Her gut tried to warn her this was wrong, and on some level maybe she believed it, but in the moment, she couldn’t convince herself this was wrong or why it should be. Why this was anything other than a long, long time coming.

  Nick slid his fingers up into her hair again. Then he leaned into her, and with his hand on the back of her head like a safety net, she let him guide her down until her back landed in the soft sand. Once the ground had her firmly in place, when there was no longer a danger of falling, she tugged at his shirt until he got on top of her.

  With her body pinned beneath him, Nick’s kiss was breathless and desperate now, hungry and relentless, and she returned it with the same feverish fervor. He gripped her hair tighter, kissed her harder, but even as he did, he kept his hips above hers, lifting slightly when she tried to press her hips against him, like he didn’t want her to know how aroused he was.

  Deanna hooked her leg around his waist and pulled him down to her. Nick groaned into her kiss as his hard cock dug into her hip. His body pressed hers into the sand, molding against hers like the sand molded to her back and shoulders. The kiss deepened and intensified, and with every touch, there was less and less turning back, less chance of this doing anything but happening right here, right now.

  “Come here,” Nick breathed, and rolled onto his back. Deanna sat up, pausing just long enough to shake some sand out of her hair and clothes, then got on top of him. He curved a hand behind her neck and pulled her into another kiss, and as his tongue slid past her lips again, his free hand slid between their bodies. Beneath her skirt. Up her thigh.

  Deanna shivered, moaning into his kiss as he teased her through her panties. His fingertip circled her clit through the thin layer of fabric, and her body moved of its own accord, her hips rolling just right to press against his fingers.

  “Oh God,” she whispered, barely breaking the kiss. Her eyes rolled back as he brought the very beginnings of an orgasm to life with his slow, gentle touch. It felt amazing, but she ached for more, and her own voice seemed to come from miles away when she said, “Fuck me, Nick.”

  “With pleasure.” He drew her down into a deep, violent kiss. She ground her hips against his, and the way his cock rubbed her pussy, she thought for sure she’d come any second.

  Abruptly, though, he froze. Then he broke the kiss and let his head fall back onto the sand. “Fuck. We don’t have any condoms.”

  “I have an IUD,” she murmured.

  “Thank God,” he growled, and kissed her again.

  There was nothing graceful about this, just primal lust and blind fumbling and had they not been so caught up in kissing, they both probably would have whispered frustrated curses as they struggled with his zipper.

  But the zipper finally gave. And he pushed her panties aside. And before she knew which way was up, before she could think once never mind twice, he was inside her, and they were moving, and hot sand ground beneath her shins and bit into her knees, but it didn’t matter because his thick cock fit perfectly inside her.

  They kissed as clumsily as they’d struggled with their clothes, but their hips had it right. Smooth, fluid, striking that delicate balance between fast enough to turn them on and slow enough to keep this from being over too soon. Every time she moved, her clit rubbed against his body, and she whimpered as her climax closed in. Their bodies moved together like they were made for this, like there was a reason they fit together so goddamned flawlessly.

  Nick groaned, screwing his eyes shut, and arched his back beneath them, thrusting upward as she rode him faster, and Deanna couldn’t hold back anymore. Her lips parted in a soundless cry as electricity radiated from her clit, sending waves of cool ecstasy to every last nerve ending in her body with every thrust and every motion.

  He groaned, squirming under her, so she rode him faster, her vision blurring as every stroke pressed her clit against his body just right and slid his cock across her G-spot. They tried to kiss, but both were breathing too hard, so she closed her eyes and let her head fall beside his. Nick’s breath rushed past her ear, each exhalation sharper and faster than the one before, and she rolled her hips a little more just to drive him out of his mind.

  “Jesus Christ,” he breathed. “That’s amazing. Fuck, I’m gonna come, I’m—” He sucked in a sharp breath as his back arched beneath her. Deanna rolled her hips faster, harder, taking him as deep as she could.

  “Oh God, oh my God...” Nick grabbed her hips and pulled her down in the same instant he thrust upward, burying his cock as far inside her as he could, and he moaned as his entire body shuddered with the force of his orgasm and his last ditch efforts to take a few deep, erratic strokes.

  With a soft whimper and one last shudder, he relaxed. She collapsed over him. He stroked her hair and kissed her. Sparks still crackled along the length of her spine, and her entire body tingled as she and Nick lazily made out in between trying to catch their breath.

  And with the need sated, the delirium cleared, the passion cooled, Deanna’s heart pounded with an altogether different rhythm. Her stomach tightened. Reality set in.

  Nick’s hands slowly loosened their grasp on her hips. When she pushed herself up and looked down at him, when his eyes widened and lips parted, she didn’t have to ask if the
same epiphany had worked its way into his mind.

  Oh shit.

  What did we just do?

  Four

  Nick and Deanna didn’t make any eye contact as they fixed their clothes. There was a public restroom not far away, and the need to clean themselves up and shake off all this sand was a convenient enough excuse for them to duck into separate concrete-enclosed spaces.

  Alone with his thoughts and his conscience, Nick avoided his own eyes in the dingy, graffiti-covered mirror as he brushed sand off his skin and clothes. He’d probably be chasing sand out of his hair for days, and his skin crawled as a few grains sprinkled from his hair, down the back of his neck and under his collar.