Lovers at Seaside

by Addison Cole

  He leaned in for another kiss. “Wonder what tonight’s promise will be?”

  She could think of about a dozen promises she’d like to hear—all involving nakedness.

  “Better get that look off your face before someone snaps a photo and posts it with a caption that says, ‘Sexy Actress Drools Over Hot Artist.’”

  “That’s why I like you. You’re so modest.”

  “It’s embarrassing sometimes,” he said seriously. “How much you gawk at me.”

  She swatted him, earning a deep, sexy laugh.

  He pointed to the designs. “Focus.” Eyeing her with a heated look, he mumbled, “Man. You’re killing me.”

  “Sorry. Wait. You kissed me.”

  “Right. Sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath.

  She loved seeing her in-control man flustered, the way he continually flustered her.

  “I was thinking about our talk last night.”

  “And you decided a woman stuck between two worlds isn’t really what you were looking for?” She said it lightly, though the worry was real.

  “Not even close.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I realized you need roots. Thick, stable, unbreakable roots.” He turned to the designs, tracing the lines as he spoke. “I’m thinking about tree trunks, like these, as balusters, with roots curling under the edge of each riser. See the twisted limbs winding up the staircase? We’d use those as railings, with thinner branches, a few leaves, and if you want, a bird or two thrown in for Christmas between the risers and the railings. It would be free-form, not uniform.”

  Roots. He’d really heard everything she’d said last night, and she was deeply touched that he’d thought of her boy when he was designing such a focal point of the house.

  “I really love this idea.”

  “I thought you might.” He pointed to the drawings again. “I thought you could carry the same theme along the railing that spans the walkway overlooking the living room. I envision a mix of metals, with roots hanging over the edge of the wood, and maybe we create one large tree between each span, framed with decorative wooden posts to match the floors upstairs. We might have to get my buddy Blue to handle the woodwork; he’s an excellent craftsman. Or you can keep the traditional railings you have upstairs, of course.”

  “No, this is so much better and more meaningful.”

  “You sure? I know you’ll have plenty of changes, and that’s okay.”

  “This house feels lonely inside. I hoped that would change when the foundation took over and kids started using it. But now I can see what’s missing. It was built with all the highest-quality products, but it wasn’t built with heart. It’s not a home. It’s a house. How did I miss that?”

  “You were thinking of giving the kids the best.”

  “But this…” Her eyes moved over the gorgeous drawings. “This is the best. These designs are perfect just as you’ve drawn them. With a bird or two for Christmas.”

  “Ah, a tweak.” He leaned in for another kiss. “I’m glad you love them, but I’ve been working with you for long enough to know that tomorrow you’ll change your mind. So why don’t we set them aside for a day or two and then revisit them?”

  She slid her finger into his belt loop and tugged him closer, realizing for the first time that he’d worn a polo shirt instead of a T-shirt. She wondered if that was for the sake of her image, since they were visiting Abe at the resort again today, which seemed like a very Grayson thing to do. With that in mind, she decided to change out of her expensive slacks and blouse before they left and into something more casual. He’d put in so much effort already. Now it was her turn.

  ON THE WAY to Brewster, Parker and Grayson talked about their impending visit with Abe. Parker was determined to try to get through to Abe, and Grayson was equally determined to make sure she left Abe’s room just as confident as she was when she arrived. He wasn’t about to let the old man make her feel bad. Not now. Not after last night.

  Not ever again.

  She reached for his hand as they walked into the resort and flashed a smile that wasn’t practiced or fake. He knew the difference now, which surprised him. When had he started noticing those things? By simply reaching for his hand and publicly claiming their relationship, she eased a worry he hadn’t even realized he’d been harboring. It was one thing to kiss in a dark bar, and a whole different ball game to hold hands in the light of day at a posh resort where everyone dressed to the nines and acted like they were made of money—and he stood out like a sore thumb. Grayson had debated wearing slacks and a button-down shirt, but he wasn’t into pretending he was something he wasn’t. He’d worn a collared shirt, a step up from his normal T-shirts, but that was for Parker, not for these hoity-toity people.

  As they crossed the lobby, Grayson had no way of knowing if the men ogling Parker recognized her, or if they were simply admiring the beautiful blonde in the sexy little sundress. The dress that stopped a few inches above her knees and made him want to run his hands up her luscious thighs. He’d been pleasantly surprised when she’d gone inside in her fancy slacks and blouse and returned in the dress, acting a little less rigid, even more flirtatious and, it seemed, more comfortable in her own skin.

  “Love you in this dress,” he said as they waited for the elevator.

  She blinked a few times before answering, as if she were weighing her answer.

  “Thanks. I wore it for you.”

  That made him feel good. They stepped into the elevator, and when the doors closed, he folded her into his arms. “Your heart is beating so fast. Nervous?”

  “Yes, but I think it has more to do with you than Abe.”

  “Sweetheart, that’s the best kind of nervous.” Conscious of her lipstick this time, he kissed her cheek, and when she made a sound of appreciation, he kissed her again, kissing his way over her jaw to the sensitive skin just below her ear. She rubbed against him like a cat, purring as he devoured her sweet, tantalizing nape. The sexy sound vibrated through her chest to his.

  “More,” she whispered.

  He sealed his teeth over her neck and gave it a little suck, remembering how it had driven her out of her mind last night. She clutched the sides of his head, forcefully holding him in place as he kissed and sucked and took his fill. Her feminine scent beckoned him, and he quickly lost himself in the murmurs she made.

  “More,” she said again.

  He glanced at the elevator. Six more floors. He had to have more of her. He dropped his hands to her thighs, squeezing as they slid up her trembling legs beneath her dress.

  “Grayson,” she whispered.

  “Hm?” He eyed the control panel, acutely aware of how little time they had, and ran his tongue from her shoulder up the smooth column of her neck.

  “Nothing,” she said hurriedly. “Don’t stop.”

  No chance he was stopping now. He grabbed her—Bare butt? Hot damn. He’d been dying to touch her last night but had known she needed a different type of intimacy and tenderness. But now she clung to his head, whispering, “Yes, yes, yes,” as he touched her. Now she wanted this as much as he did. He put his mouth beside her ear, whispering erotic promises. The sounds she made fell somewhere between a whimper and a plea, making him wish they had all day to themselves.

  He touched his forehead to hers, trying to regain control. Her nails dug into his biceps as he sucked her neck.

  “Grayson, Grayson, Grayson.”

  “You’re so beautiful, baby.”

  Eyeing the control panel, he debated hitting the stop button, but their visit with Abe was too important to Parker to blow off for self-gratification.

  Two more floors.

  “Later,” he reluctantly choked out. One more floor. “I don’t want to mess up your pretty lipstick, but I want that sexy mouth of yours.” He framed her face with his hands, holding their mouths a breath apart as his tongue dipped into her mouth and swept over hers. She jumped right into the seductive game, meeting every stroke of his tong
ue with a slick of her own and driving him out of his mind.

  When the elevator stopped, he pressed his lips to her forehead and said, “Oh yeah, baby. You’ve got a naughty side.”

  Chapter Nine

  I HAVE A naughty side? I have a naughty side. Ohmygosh! I have a naughty side! Parker’s body was humming from head to toe. That probably shouldn’t thrill her so much, considering she’d just done something she’d never imagined doing in an elevator, but it did! She must have a naughty side, because when Grayson had whispered to her, she’d wanted to act out each and every one of his dirty suggestions.

  Grayson’s hand came around her waist as they stepped from the elevator, and her body heated up again. Holy cow. How am I going to think in there?

  “Mind if we stop at the restroom before going to see Abe?” he asked, calm and casual as ever.

  Darn him. Her entire body felt like a bundle of exposed nerves.

  He leaned close to her ear and said, “You’ve got me wired so tight I’m going to explode if I don’t get some seriously cold water on my face in about ten seconds.”

  She followed his gaze to his impressive arousal. The smile lifting her cheeks must have made her look like she was gloating, which she most definitely was.

  “Sorry,” she said lightly before popping into the ladies’ room.

  Ten minutes later they were standing beside Abe’s bed. Parker’s heart was beating so hard she wanted to hook herself up to one of his blinking machines to make sure she wasn’t having some sort of attack. But it wasn’t because of what she’d done with Mr. Naughty in the elevator. Seeing Abe, who looked as though he’d aged ten years overnight, had shocked her back to reality. His skin was ashen, and his breathing sounded rough, like he had rocks in his throat. Parker’s heart ached for him. She wanted to climb into his bed and hold him so he wouldn’t suffer alone, despite how mean he’d been to her and Bert.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Abe. How are you feeling?” She reached for Grayson’s hand, needing his support to steady her nerves.

  “I’m still here,” he grumbled.

  Would he rather be dead? Grayson cocked a brow, and she knew he was wondering the same thing.

  “I’m glad you’re still here. My friend Grayson is with me again today.”

  “I figured.” Abe sounded bored. “Lacroux?”

  “Yes, sir,” Grayson said. “How do you know my name?”

  “You think I let just anyone into my room? A friend, you said,” he scoffed. “A little money goes a long way. I knew who you were before you came into the room yesterday. Ironworker. Pretty darn good one, from what I’m told.”

  “Thank you,” Grayson said, giving Parker a what-the-heck look.

  Given Abe’s wealth, Parker wasn’t surprised he’d had them checked out. That was practically a no-brainer in her industry. Although she was surprised at how quickly he’d done so.

  “Talk to me,” Abe snapped, and launched into a coughing fit. His frail chest rose off the mattress, his neck muscles straining with each gravelly hack.

  Parker grabbed tissues from the bedside table and placed them in his hand. “Are you okay?”

  The doors opened, and the nurse hurried toward the bed. “Sir?”

  He waved his hand dismissively, clearing his throat with a long, low sound before lying back on the mattress again. The nurse ran an assessing eye over him, then left the room without a sound.

  “We can come back another time,” Parker offered.

  He waved his hand again. “Talk.”

  Parker squeezed Grayson’s hand. She’d practiced what she was going to say in her head on the way over, but nothing she’d practiced felt real. It felt practiced, like a role, and that wasn’t what she wanted, so she let her heart speak for her.

  “I’m sure you don’t want to talk about the past, but—”

  “Don’t tell me what I want to talk about.” Abe curled his fingers around the sheet. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to take control of a situation?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m nervous.” She swallowed hard at the unexpected confession.

  “Nervous is good. It means you’re alive,” Abe said with a nod. “Spit it out or your boyfriend’s going to explode.”

  She looked up at Grayson, who did in fact look as though he was still tightly wound. He cracked a smile, and a hint of seduction from their secret tryst passed between them, helping to put her at ease.

  “This isn’t easy for me to explain,” she said, “but I’m going to try.”

  “Quickly,” Abe said.

  “Yes, sir. Quickly.” She drew in a swift breath. “I loved Bert. Regardless of what happened between you two, he was a good, kind, talented man, and I wasn’t there for him when he passed away. I was on location, filming.” She felt Grayson’s eyes hone in on her, and she realized this was new information for him, too.

  “I never had a chance to say goodbye, and he never told me why he left me the letters you returned. But I know you were important to him, and Bert was important to me. And I hate that you both lost out on all those years when you could have been close. You were family!” No amount of acting lessons could have prepared her for the anger and sadness spewing from some deep emotional well she didn’t know existed. “There are people who would kill to have family. I would kill for a family. I grew up in foster care, dreaming about the very thing you threw away. Pushing him out of your life was selfish and mean, and I want to understand it. To, I don’t know, mend the fence before, before…”

  “Before I die,” Abe said flatly, his unseeing eyes pointing away from her.

  “Yes,” she admitted sadly. Grayson pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

  Uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Parker looked for signs of emotions in Abe, but he hadn’t flinched or sighed, huffed or fisted his hands. When he finally turned his gray-blue eyes toward them, he looked markedly older than he had only moments earlier. His sunken cheeks hung loosely from his angular cheekbones and jaw. The hollow crescents beneath his eyes seemed darker, more pronounced, and his colorless lips were unmoving. Had he looked this way all along, or was this new?

  He finally inhaled a labored breath. “That was a mouthful.”

  “Yes. Sorry,” she said softly.

  “Honest.” His eyes widened. “And mean for America’s sweetheart.”

  “Sorry.” Shoot.

  “It’s okay,” Grayson whispered to her.

  “Is it?” Abe asked in a stronger voice.

  “Yes,” Grayson said confidently. “She needed to say it, and you probably needed to hear it. Only you can decide that, but she definitely needed to say it.”

  Abe nodded, new lines mapping his deeply etched forehead. “The Bert you knew, was he focused? Driven? Smart?”

  “Yes. All of those things.” Parker’s heart was racing. Her inability to read him was more unsettling than his anger.

  “He wasn’t, you know,” Abe said. “When we were growing up, when I was going to college, then working night and day in the chain of convenience stores our father owned in order to learn the business from the ground up, he was playing the part of a starving artist. Sleeping who knows where, painting.” He cringed, as if the word tasted acidic. “He couldn’t have run the family business. He didn’t have the wherewithal to manage a chain of thirty stores, to work fourteen-hour days, to manage the financials and legal divisions. We would have lost it all. He was too soft, like our father.” Another word he didn’t seem to care for.

  Something inside Parker snapped at the demeaning things he’d said about Bert. “I don’t want to argue about if Bert could or couldn’t have run the business, and I don’t really care what you thought of his lifestyle as he was finding his way to being the incredible photographer he was. I just want to…” What? What do I really want? Why am I here? She stumbled over the thought. She’d wanted to fix their past, but she realized she couldn’t, and it wasn’t her place to try. Still, she felt a need to soothe Abe’s bitter heart, even if he d
idn’t know it needed soothing.

  “I just want you to know that Bert loved you,” she finally said. “And I know he would have liked to reconcile. He was hurt when you returned his letters, but I know he would have forgiven you if he’d been given the chance.”

  “I read his first letter,” Abe snapped, anger returned to his narrowed eyes. “He wanted to fight it out, to defend himself.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Grayson threw back at him. “If the tables were turned, wouldn’t you have wanted to defend yourself? To fight it out until you could see clearly again? Until you and your brother, your own flesh and blood, were on solid ground?”

  She looked at him, but Grayson’s eyes were trained on Abe. His jaw was tight, his tone firm, but his eyes were full of compassion.

  Abe stared straight ahead, giving Grayson his profile. “Didn’t take much to convince our father not to trust him. Tsk. So easy. So pathetic, the two of them.”

  Grayson’s hand left her waist and fisted by his side. Compassion gone. “You pushed your brother out of the business?”

  Tension rose in the room like a fever spike, threatening the powder keg standing beside Parker and the one in the bed. She held her hands up. “Enough. I don’t want to do this. I made a mistake.” She choked back tears. “I can’t. It’s too upsetting.”

  Abe turned toward her. “You came here to tell me my brother loved me, because you grew up in a crappy system with some fairy tale in your head about what life should be. I listened to you. Now you listen to me.” He wagged a shaky finger at them.

  Parker pressed her lips together to ward off the anger and hurt vying for release. Grayson gripped her hand so tightly she knew he was barely holding it together, too.

  “You think you’re telling me something I don’t know? Something that’ll change who I am?” Abe scoffed. “Nice is for the weak. I’m not a nice man. That’s my cross to bear, not yours. My daughter ran off to join a rock band, or some such nonsense, and never looked back. Good riddance. My wife left me for another man.” He smacked his hand to his chest. “Nothing breaks me. Pride kept me going. Strength and pride. That’s what makes a man.”