by Jill Shalvis
business wondering, being so curious about him, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She dropped her hand from his mouth. “You and One-of-Three go out for a long time?” she asked.
“Three years.”
“Three years…in the past tense?” she asked.
“You fishing?”
Hell yes. She just didn’t know why.
“Past tense,” he said, letting her off the hook. “I don’t still see Susan.”
There was something in his expression. No, scratch that. There was absolutely nothing in his expression at all. He was carefully…blank. “Real life wasn’t as romantic on the mainland as it had been on the rig?” she asked, trying to joke.
He laughed at that, drily. “You think things were romantic on the rig?”
“They must have been at least a little romantic,” she said, “if you and Susan did the deed there for three years.”
“The deed? We really need to work on your sexual vocabulary, Supergirl. ‘The deed’ could refer to any number of things—”
“I don’t need to know specifics!” she said quickly. Yes, you do, said the devil on her left shoulder. Olivia ignored her. “But three years together, that’s a long time. You must have really been in love.”
“Thought so at the time,” he said. “But it didn’t work out. It’s been over for a while.”
He looked a little sad, which was hard to take for some reason, but it suitably distracted her from panicking that they were still moving. “Over over?” she asked.
He looked at her for a long beat, and then a ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “You asking for any particular reason?”
She huffed out a forced laugh. “No. Of course not.”
“You’re interested in me.”
“That’s absurd. That’s…ridiculous. I don’t even know you. I—”
He leaned into her so that she felt cradled between the arm along the back of the ride and the hand he’d set on the armrest at her far hip. “It’s over over,” he said, and held her gaze. “You know what this means, right?”
She shook her head.
“It means it’s your turn to share with the class.”
She stared at him, those butterflies in her belly fluttering to life again. Her longest relationship had been with her handheld shower massager.
“You ever love anyone, Olivia?”
Well, she loved her shower massager, but somehow she didn’t see herself admitting that. “Love?”
“Yeah. Love.”
She’d been with guys. She’d had crushes. She’d even really liked a few here and there…but she’d never been particularly successful at getting to the next stage and staying there.
Maybe because your first kiss happened on camera.
Or maybe because your first boyfriend was a fellow actor, who’d been…acting.
But the real answer was even more revealing—she’d never figured out how to let anyone know the real her. Instead of answering, she risked another look around. They were on the upswing again. “Oh, good God. We’re going around another time.”
“Breathe,” he murmured. “Just keep breathing.”
Right. She gulped in air. “I’ve heard it’s a pretty rough existence out there on the rigs,” she said, desperate for a subject change.
“Yeah,” he said. “Rough. You could definitely say that.”
She met his gaze.
“We lost someone out there,” he told her. “My best friend, Gil. And nearly Tanner, too.”
“My God, how awful,” she breathed. “What happened?”
“We had a gas explosion, and a fire.”
She couldn’t even imagine. Here she’d been thinking about how hard she’d had it. Poor little Hollywood kid, abandoned by her people, boo hoo. “Were you hurt?”
“Minimally,” he said. “I don’t remember much of it, not the last few moments leading up to it, or right after. Opened my eyes in the water, and that was it.”
He looked angry at himself that he couldn’t remember. “Sometimes,” she said quietly, “remembering isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes we’re better off not remembering.”
He nodded and looked off into the night. “Sam, Tanner, and I left the gulf after that. We’d saved every penny we could during those five years to start a charter company together. We did it in Gil’s memory.”
“Pretty great way to honor him,” she said.
He gave her a small smile. “Gil would’ve been real pissed off if we hadn’t followed through with the plan because of him.”
So he’d come home with Sam and Tanner and started the charter company, she thought. And then his dad had died, leaving him as the man of the house for his mom and sisters.
Which she knew he most likely had taken on without complaint, because he had a backbone of steel.
She’d never met anyone like him. “You’ve had a rough few years,” she said.
“And also a pretty great few years.”
She stared at him, warmed by just looking at him and also by the realization that she liked him. The man he was. She liked him, and trusted him. And she was tempted by him in a way she’d not been tempted in…well, ever. She hadn’t let herself become attached to anyone because this way she was always prepared when they left.
But with Cole, she had the feeling it was already too late.
“What about you?” he asked. “What did you do before coming to Lucky Harbor?”
“I went to college.” Several times, in fact.
He smiled. “You’re going to make me work for this. That’s okay, I’m a patient sort. Where did you go?”
“NYU.” The first time.
“Impressive,” he said.
“And then San Francisco University.” She paused. “And New Mexico.”
“Ah,” he said. “You had the wanderlust bug.”
“More like the ADHD bug,” she admitted. She’d happily gone along collecting degrees like some women collect earrings, soaking up being in school for the first time in her life, loving the freedom.
She’d finally stopped when she’d had no choice, when the money had run out and both her mother and her sister were hounding her to go back to acting.
She’d refused. Still aimless, she’d gathered all the stuff she’d collected and had in storage and had done what no one would have ever expected of her, the one thing she’d been yearning to do since Mrs. Henderson had told her of the idyllic Lucky Harbor.
She’d moved here and opened up a shop and, for the first time, was living like a real person. Not off a script or her forged bio.
That had been a year ago, and though she was literally living paycheck to paycheck, she’d been happy—until the past month, when her mom had started making noises about needing money again.
But the night pushed that worry away for now. So did sitting so close to Cole, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his thigh pressed to hers, the easy strength of him, not to mention the fact that he smelled more delicious than chocolate fudge brownies—which was really saying something.
“I’d love to hear about your family sometime,” he said quietly, as if he didn’t want to spook her.
She’d been telling tales about her past for so long that they always slipped easily off her tongue. Naturally. And since she’d never really cared what anyone had thought of her, she’d never felt particularly guilty.
But she did now, because already Cole was different. She found she cared that she’d let him believe her family was gone, that she was alone, and she wished she could take it back and start again. But she couldn’t.
You could try the truth…
She opened her mouth to say…what? What could she possibly say? I lied because I’m a coward? Or I lied because you don’t know this yet but you’re going to leave me like everyone else always does, and it’s my little way of protecting myself from pain?
Lame, and she was afraid it was also a little pathetic.
Tell him, said the usually silent angel on
her right shoulder.
Don’t tell him, the devil on her other shoulder said. We haven’t gotten to sleep with him yet! You’ll blow it!
Olivia shook her head. Cole wouldn’t understand. He was strong of mind and body. He was honest to the very core. He didn’t shy away from the difficult or the hard-to-take. He didn’t shy away from anything. If she told him the truth now, he’d stop looking at her like…like she was interesting.
Like he wanted to eat her up with a spoon.
The Ferris wheel clicked to a stop before she could decide what to do. They were back on the ground. She stared at Cole in amazement, and he grinned.
“Yeah,” he said. “You lived.”
Tiny let them off the ride. Full dark had fallen now. Long fingers of fog were riding in, sliding along the water’s surface, dancing around their heads. They walked back to the beginning of the pier, where Olivia expected Cole to break off and go his own merry way. Instead, he kept stride alongside her toward her shop. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“Walking you back to your car.”
“No need,” she said. “It’s not like this was a date or anything. There’s no getting lucky at the end of the night, you know.”
Apparently uninsulted and not at all bothered, he laughed. She wasn’t sure what was so funny.
“You are,” he said, reading her mind.
At her block, she headed around to the back door of her shop, where it was pitch-black, as usual.
Cole stared up at the light that wasn’t lit. “You need to put that on a timer so you’re never out here in the dark like this.”
“I have a timer,” she said, fumbling through her purse for her keys. “I just can’t get it to work.”
“I can—”
“Not necessary.”
He waited until she opened the shop door, and then he stepped in behind her.
“Hey,” she said. “I said you’re not going to get lucky…” She trailed off because he wasn’t even looking at her. He was flicking the light by the door on and off.
Nothing was happening.
“New bulb?” he asked.
She sighed. “It doesn’t work, never has.”
He shook his head in reproach. “You have a new bulb?”
“You’ve already fixed my front door and office lights, Cole. I can’t let you—”
“Could’ve been done by now, Supergirl.” Then he leapt onto the landing railing, balancing there with absolute ease as he reached up with his good arm and unscrewed the bulb.
She stared up at him. “You’re injured. You can’t—”
“Here.” He handed her the old bulb. “Grab me a new one, yeah?”
She blinked. How the hell could such a laid-back, easygoing guy also be so alpha? “Please?”
“No worries, babe. I won’t go until I’ve fixed this.”
“No.” She had to laugh. “I meant ‘go grab me a new bulb, please.’”
He looked down at her, eyes glittering. “I like the way you say please.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Fine,” he said. “Would you get me a new bulb, please?”
So of course she did.
When she got back with the bulb, he had a penlight in his teeth, shining it at his hands, which were working a piece of duct tape around and around a wire. He looked like he knew exactly what he was doing, and her pulse kicked.
Which was absolutely juvenile. She’d seen good-looking guys handling tools before.
Actors, she reminded herself.
Fakers.
And there wasn’t a single fake bone in Cole’s body.
He reached down for the bulb without looking at her, and she handed it over.
“Where did you get the duct tape?” she asked.
“Had some in my pocket.”
Of course he did. She watched as he shoved the roll of duct tape back in said pocket and pulled a screwdriver from another.
He twisted one end off, and in the blink of an eye, the thing had turned into a hammer. He hit something a few times, turned it into yet another tool, played with the wiring, and then screwed in the new bulb.
“Hit the switch,” he said. He paused. “Please.”
Damn, he was good. She hit the switch, and then blinked as a circle of light flooded over them.
He hopped down with his usual easy agility. “Turn it off again.”
She turned it off without question.
Then he stepped into her, bumping her body with his.
“Why did I turn it off?” she whispered.
“For this. Which, by the way, I’m going to owe Tiny for after all.”
And then…
Oh, God, and then.
He kissed her.
Chapter 12
The moment Cole’s mouth touched Olivia’s, he caught some serious voltage. Not electrical this time, but two hundred volts of pure sexual energy.
Her lips were soft, and sweet.
So damn sweet.
And yet somehow not sweet at the same time. Wanting to savor her, he moved slowly, sliding his hands up her arms, over her throat to her jaw, his thumbs caressing her as he tilted her head to suit him.
And man, did she suit him.
She let out a soft, wordless murmur, and then her hands were on his chest. He liked that. Her fingers dug in a little bit, signaling that she was about to either push him away or pull him in.
What’s it going to be, babe?
After the longest heartbeat of his life, those fingers of hers curled, gripping his shirt.
He was going to take that as a good sign.
Her mouth parted, and then she was kissing him back. He let her take control for a moment, a rough groan escaping him when her hands slid from his chest into his hair.
Things went hot then, detonation hot, and only when they were both breathless did she pull away.
“Don’t take that the wrong way,” she gasped.
“There’s no wrong way to take that.” His voice was more than a little rough. He couldn’t help it; all the blood had drained out of his head.
Staring at him, she put her fingers to her own lips. “That was…”
Spectacular, he thought. Heart-pounding. Perfect—
“Interesting,” she finally said.
He stared at her and then had to laugh. “You’re not easy on the