Love on Lavender Island (A Lavender Island Novel Book 2)

by Lauren Christopher

  “Paige?”

  “I’m here.”

  He looked over toward the workbench that took up about eight feet of wall on the other side. She was standing in front of it, looking up at the rows of flight logbooks that lined the wall above the bench.

  “This place is like a museum,” she said.

  He followed behind her with the movie box in his arms and plopped it onto the table. “Sure is. We have flight records here dating back to the 1940s.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  He opened the box flaps and started looking through the VHS tapes, flipping them one by one: Top Gun, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club . . . but Last Road to Nowhere was nowhere.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I thought it would be here. Wrong era.”

  “Bring the box in anyway. Amanda might like some of those eighties movies, too.” She turned to look again at the books. “You and I had an argument here once.”

  His hands, already closing up the box, stilled. “What?”

  “That summer. I yelled at you. I might have hit you in the balls.”

  “Might have?”

  “Okay, I did.”

  He let go of the box and turned toward her. She was still staring at the books, her hand on her throat. The lantern light was coming in from the back and, as she stepped forward, it shone straight through her dress. He thought about mentioning it to her but, bastard that he was, decided not to. He cleared his throat and tried to look away.

  Concentrate, man.

  “You hit me in the balls?” he asked.

  That sounded familiar. He stretched for the memory. He could almost reach it. They’d been standing near here, in fact. She’d been young, her face puffed from crying, her brows knit in anger. “What did I do?”

  “Well, not enough to deserve that. I was just a newly hormonal teen.”

  He pushed the box back and turned more toward her. “Tell me. I’m trying to mend my asshole ways.”

  “Along with the cussing?”

  “That’s right. Not doing very well. I’m trying to mend my . . . jackal ways? How’s that?”

  “You could’ve gone with jerky.”

  He chuckled. “Thanks, Paige.”

  She turned her face away, then let a silence linger as she stared at the logbooks. “I wasn’t going to admit to any of this.”

  He stepped closer. Something was starting to feel dangerous about this conversation, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Is it something I’m apologizing for or you?”

  “You . . . or me. Both, maybe.”

  This just got more interesting.

  The light made her look almost ethereal, illuminating a halo around her hair and shoulders. She looked angelic. But the devil in him couldn’t help but note her shapely thighs and the outline of a beautiful behind that the light also provided.

  He rubbed the back of his neck to force his eyes downward.

  “I’m sorry for my part, whatever it was,” he said.

  “You were just ignoring me. I should be the one to apologize.”

  She turned and put her arms behind her, up on the workbench, which raised her breasts into an illuminated silhouette of the most beautiful form. He cleared his throat and rubbed his neck harder.

  “I followed you out here,” she said.

  He stopped and looked at her.

  “You and Samantha,” she added. “I had been playing in the orchard, and I saw you guys run in here, so I followed you. You had been making out with her over there.” She nodded her head to the other side of the hangar. “Her clothes were coming off. So were yours. And I bumped into this table, and a paint can went crashing to the floor, and you both turned and stared at me. Do you remember any of this?”

  He shook his head.

  “So she grabbed her clothes and went running out, and you came over here, zipping up your jeans, and lit into me. You called me a sneak and a pervert, and asked what I was doing over here. And I didn’t know what a pervert was, exactly, but I called you one back and swung the paint can and lobbed you in the balls.”

  He didn’t remember any of this. But he kind of liked the image of a little spitball Paige, swinging a paint can at his junk. A small grin escaped.

  “Sounds like I got what I deserved.”

  He could sort of picture the scene now. He didn’t remember being here with Samantha, but he could vaguely remember Paige. What he remembered were her puffy eyes.

  “You were crying,” he said, as the memory came into clearer focus. “I remember that. Were you crying because of what I said?”

  “The paint can I swung at you came back at me and opened, and red paint spilled down my front. And then you laughed at me. And you tried to call Samantha back in here to see it, but she was gone. So you had the laughs to yourself. You called me a clown.”

  He frowned. “Damn, Paige. I’m sorry. I was a stupid kid.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have been spying. Maybe I just wanted you to notice me.” She leaned her body against the bench. “I wanted your attention. I had such a crush on you.”

  She laughed again, but the words hit him hard in the chest. She’d mentioned that before, during their walk from Rosa’s. But he’d thought it was the wine talking.

  “You had a crush on me? Way back then? My idiot self?”

  She smiled. “I wanted you to look at me like you looked at Samantha. But you always ignored me—probably because I was a clown to you.”

  “No, probably because you were thirteen.”

  She smiled. “Well, that’s true, too.”

  “Trust me, Paige, if I’d met you a few years later, I’m sure I would have been thinking differently.”

  “Differently how?”

  “Differently like I am now.”

  He hadn’t meant to admit that. He hadn’t meant to tell her that his brain had been locked on her ever since she’d arrived—either trying to remember her, trying to figure her out, trying to protect her, or trying not to admit to himself that he was flat-out attracted to her. But he didn’t have the luxury of that. Somehow attraction to Paige seemed as if it came with a whole maze of other thrills, which sounded fun. But irresponsible. And—especially with Amanda here now—Adam simply couldn’t be irresponsible. That ship had sailed long ago.

  But she definitely looked as if she didn’t mind he’d admitted that.

  She took a step toward him. He took a step back. She moved into the light again, and he couldn’t help but look at her hourglass body.

  “What are you thinking about now?” she asked.

  He tried to swallow. What could he admit to? That he was horny? That he was lonely? That he’d been fantasizing about her for days on the trail? That he could picture taking her right now against this worktable? He didn’t know what she could handle hearing. He cleared his throat.

  “Well,” he finally tried, “I don’t think you want to know all my thoughts. But I can tell you that you look amazing in front of that lantern. And that your clothes have been see-through ever since you walked into the beams. And that I’ve chosen not to alert you but have enjoyed looking at you instead.” His voice had fallen into a huskiness that he didn’t recognize.

  She took another step toward him. He didn’t take a step back this time.

  She put her hand against his chest and stepped closer still, and for a brief, insane moment he thought he might warn her. This would be a risky thing they were embarking on here, both of them trying to sell land to separate people, wanting the other one to help seal their own sale, and both still reeling from their parents’ mistakes—in their own and each other’s lives. But then she leaned up and kissed him.

  Her lips were everything he thought they’d be—yielding and sweet, with the promise of warmth and suppleness everywhere on her body. Paige was everything soft and silky and curved that he craved. Before he knew what he was doing, he slipped his hand behind her head and pulled her toward him, giving extra attention to that pouty bottom lip that had been driving him nuts for th
e last week. He wanted to devour her—her lips, her body, her softness, her comfort. He’d kissed plenty of women in his lifetime, but Paige felt different—she felt forbidden, wild, like something he’d been meant to find long ago but had lost his way.

  They banged up against the table, and he pulled them a little farther down the wall—farther into the shadows—and slipped his hand around her bottom, the other thing he’d wanted to touch since he’d seen her stuck in that window. It was as soft and fit in his hand as well as he’d imagined. He loved where it met her thigh: he could feel the sweet half-moon there, outside her skirt. He had to touch inside . . .

  He pushed her back, hiding them both from the light, and scrambled for the bottom of the skirt with both hands. Her hand grasped his, and he felt a wave of embarrassment for how adolescent he was behaving—that feeling of overzealousness, as if he’d never seen a naked woman before. But this particular woman felt, in a strange way, like something that, perhaps, he had never experienced before.

  He pulled back again to make sure she was okay with this.

  His answer was gazing up at him—her eyes had become half-lidded, her arms came up around his neck, and she looked at his lips with a teasing smile.

  And that was pretty much all the invitation he needed.

  He dove back down to taste more of Paige Grant.

  Responsibility be damned.

  Paige closed her eyes and waited for the thrill of Adam’s hands, which overcame her, warm and firm, fingers spread, slipping under her blouse, down toward her skirt, over her bottom, dragging back up to her rib cage, grazing the undersides of her breasts, then back down to her behind again. He kissed her bottom lip, running his tongue along it, pulling it gently between his teeth until her blood pulsed, and sending a thrilling sensation to every fleshy part of her before settling, languidly, between her legs.

  She tilted the bottom half of her body toward him, yearning for pressure, wanting his hands to touch her under her skirt. But his hands, instead, did a controlled exploration up her back, past her rib cage, his thumbs stroking her breasts, causing her to jerk in anticipation. She brought her heels back to the ground. She tried to stay calm. This, after all, was what she had longed for. She wanted to enjoy every second.

  She pressed herself against him. “Don’t you want to take my blouse off?” she whispered.

  Adam smiled against her mouth. “I’ve wanted to take every one of your blouses off.” He kissed the hollow behind her ear. “But I can’t be sure the wranglers aren’t coming here. How do you feel about getting caught?” He kissed her neck, sucking hard, and the sensation brought her off her heels again.

  She gasped for breath. The idea of getting caught was at the top of her turn-ons, actually, but she was embarrassed to mention it. She’d waited too long for this—sixteen years, to be exact—to screw things up.

  “I’ll be discreet.” He pushed her back into the darkness, his hands memorizing every curve of her body, first outside, then inside her clothes. He slipped his tongue into the nook behind her ear, and she sucked in her breath while his fingers moved along her inner thigh, under the skirt. The closeness of his fingertips was causing her to ache and throb, and she moved her thighs toward his hand.

  “God, I’ve wanted you,” he whispered into her neck.

  Her heart soared. This was what she’d always wanted—Adam crazed for her, Adam touching her, Adam desiring her body. She knew she was supposed to keep business separate from her feelings toward him, but right now she couldn’t separate anything. She held his hair as he kissed her neck, and arched her back to give him better access. His fingers moved her panties to one side, and she gasped and arched farther, just as a sharp beam of light came crashing into the hangar. Vaguely, Paige could hear the crunch of tires on gravel.

  “Adam? Paige?”

  A door slammed.

  Adam lifted.

  Paige scrambled upward from the table and pushed her skirt back down. This wasn’t the kind of discovery fantasy she’d had in mind.

  But dang, that whole kiss had been a fantasy.

  “We’re here, Amanda,” she called in a shaky voice.

  CHAPTER 17

  Paige heard Adam bite off a few swear words and break his fall against a cluster of old paint cans, then quickly work his jeans back in place. He ran his hands through his hair, whispering a steady stream of curses under his breath.

  “How’re you doing?” Paige walked out into the light so Amanda might focus on her. “How was dinner?”

  Amanda was trying to see around her shoulder into the darkness, frowning, but Paige kept walking toward her, shading her hand over her eyes to block the headlight beam. “We were looking for some old movies for you,” she said to distract her.

  “For me?” Amanda looked around again.

  Paige waved hello toward the car, and the headlights snapped off.

  “Yes, did you say you didn’t get a chance to see Last Road to Nowhere? That’s what we were looking for. We, um . . . didn’t find it.” She ran her hand down her hair to make sure it wasn’t all over the place, just as Adam emerged with the box in his arms. He looked disheveled and sexy and slightly dazed.

  “We were only able to find these eighties movies.” He cleared his throat. “Not sure if that’s your thing?”

  Amanda frowned at them both, looking around the hangar with suspicion. But then her face softened as she saw Adam holding the box.

  “You were finding those for me?”

  “We were,” Adam said.

  “Can I see them?”

  “Box is heavy. I’ll carry them into the house for you.”

  As he continued his trajectory past her, the car turned off and Bob stepped out.

  “Sorry, Adam. Amanda didn’t know where you were. We saw your dinner dishes half-eaten, and she got worried.”

  Adam threw Bob a glare as he continued marching across the meadow, box on his shoulder, but Bob just swallowed a smile, gave Paige a wave of apology, and crawled back into the car.

  “Let’s go see what movies Adam found,” Paige said, grabbing the lantern off the floor and putting her arm around Amanda. “You might like some of these.”

  Once back at the house, Paige watched Adam and Amanda go through the VHS tapes and pick out those she’d like to see. Amanda kept calling the tapes “vintage,” which made Adam laugh.

  “Your grandfather probably had some old record albums out there, too,” he said, inspecting each of the tapes.

  “Really? Vinyls?” Amanda’s eyes grew wide. “Can we go find them?”

  “Sure, we can look. His taste might have leaned more toward country, but I think he might have had some jazz and rock, too.”

  “Let’s go look!”

  Adam smiled. “How about during the day? It’s dark out there right now. Paige and I had a hard time.”

  He glanced at Paige but then quickly cut his eyes away.

  Paige could hardly look at him, either. What had that been? That was lunatic lust that had been released there in the hangar. Adam kept glancing at her, then rubbing his hand over the back of his neck as if he wasn’t sure what had just happened himself.

  But as far as Paige was concerned, that was hot. And he was hot. And she wanted a repeat. Or at least a finish.

  Adam had been everything she’d always fantasized he’d be—aggressive, passionate, unstoppable. She watched his hands move the dishes off the table and thought about how he’d moved them over her body, how they’d cradled her breasts, how they’d cupped her behind, how they’d explored as if he couldn’t get enough of her.

  He glanced up at her again, seemingly asking what she was thinking, but Amanda said something, and he turned away.

  He and Amanda eventually found the old VHS player under one of the sheets in the darkened living room, tucked a few more sheets into the upholstered crevices so they could sit on a couch and face the old television, then Adam brought a few lamps into the room and tested them.

  “Better?” he asked.r />
  Amanda nodded enthusiastically.

  He came back into the kitchen to clear away the dishes, and she followed behind him while he complimented her on her cooking.

  “I used to cook all the time at home,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Adam turned on the sink. “You’re welcome to experiment with whatever food you want here. Just tell me what you need from the store.”

  “I bake, too.”

  “No kidding?”

  Paige left them to continue their conversation and went to gather her bags. She wanted to leave them like this. Adam looked so happy, and Amanda’s face had softened into pleasant surprise when she’d realized that Adam was interested in something she could do.

  Paige wanted more of Adam herself—definitely—and more of his hands, and more of that mouth, and more of those kisses. But she also wanted Amanda to have what she needed from him.

  “I should go,” Paige announced from the kitchen door when she had everything assembled.

  Both Amanda and Adam looked up with identical expressions.

  “No!” Amanda said. “We want you to watch the movie with us.”

  Paige glanced at Adam, who nodded, although he still seemed unable to completely meet her eyes.

  “Just one movie,” Amanda said.

  “One?” Paige laughed. “How many are you planning on watching?”

  “Maybe three. But stay for the first one. Your pick.”

  Adam lifted his eyebrows and gave her a slight grin.

  She stared back at these two people she was coming to care for—with their identical begging eyes and hopeful smiles—and dropped her bags. She knew her heart was approaching a danger zone. She knew she might get hurt. She knew she was becoming too attached. But she’d be careful.

  Very careful.

  “Okay, just one,” she said.

  The next morning, Paige rubbed a crick in her neck and opened her eyes as she struggled to figure out where she was. When she blinked a few more times, she was able to peer through the dim lighting at draped white sheets, pine wall paneling, and a blackened television. Her head was on a pillow propped on a rolled couch arm. She got up on her elbow and looked around. Adam’s living room.