by P. J. Mellor
“I’m going back to get glasses,” Rita said, turning toward the door. “If you’ll just set the tray out on the table on the front porch, we’ll join you and your lady friend directly.”
“I’m not his lady friend!” Reese’s objection went unheard as her hostess was already gone.
“Give it a rest.” Ben nudged her with his elbow. “Open the door for me, will you? Please? This tray is getting heavy.”
“Will you drive me to the courthouse?”
He glanced at the grandfather clock by the front door. Four-fifteen. The courthouse was closed until Monday morning. “Of course.”
Rita reappeared, tucking tendrils of dark hair back into her ponytail with one hand as she held the tray with four glasses of ice in the other. “Hold the door! Thanks.” She set the tray next to the first one and straightened. “Hi.” She extended her hand. “You must be Reese Parker. I’m Rita Weaver, Rick’s wife. Welcome to Sand Dollar!”
She motioned for them to be seated and began pouring tea. “So, what brings you to town and how long do you plan to stay with us?”
Dorinda’s words, begging Reese to keep her desire to change careers a secret, echoed through Reese’s mind. How much should she tell without breaking her boss’s trust? “Um, I’m actually here to look at some property.”
Rita’s dark eyes lit up. “Really? Which property? Maybe I can give you some advice.”
Ben settled back in the rocker and took a sip of his tea. His lips curved into a smile as he regarded Reese across the rim of his glass. “Yeah, which property?”
Why did she get the impression he knew exactly which property she wanted to scope out?
“Well, I’m not sure I know the exact location. That’s why I wanted to go check with the courthouse.”
Rita bit into a cookie and chewed. “Oh, that’s too bad. The courthouse closed about half an hour ago. Won’t be open again until Monday morning.” She took a sip of tea. “But I’m sure Ben or I can answer just about any questions you have, since we’ve lived here most of our lives.” She leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Rick tells everyone he’s a native, but he really didn’t move here until he was in high school. Don’t let on I told you, though, it would hurt his feelings.”
Nodding, Reese swallowed her last bite of cookie. “Okay. Well, I’m here to bid at a land auction. There’s an island with an old hotel on it.”
Rita’s shout of laughter echoed from the ceiling of the porch. “You’re kidding! Ben’s—”
“Starving!” Ben jumped up and shoved a cookie in his mouth, then pushed one into Rita’s. “I’m sure you are too,” he said, crumbs flying. “In fact, you should probably go get started on dinner. You know, before the crowd hits.”
Rita swallowed and glared at Ben. “What is wrong with you, Ben Adams? Have you lost your mind? Don’t you realize she’s talking about—”
“Yessiree!” He shoved Rita through the open door. “Mmmm! I can practically taste your cube steak already. You are making mashed potatoes and gravy with it, right?”
“Don’t I always?” Hands on hips, she glared out at him, then sighed. “I guess if you’re that hungry, I’ll start serving.” She leaned to look around Ben’s shoulder. “Nice meeting you, Reese.” To Ben, she hissed out a whisper, “I don’t know what you’re up to, Ben Adams, but I don’t like it.”
“Serenity Island!” Reese said, causing Ben to jump just as he settled into his rocker with some very steamy fantasies of what he’d like to do in the rocker with Reese. “That’s the name of the property.” She frowned. “I think. I know the hotel was named Serenity House. Maybe the island has another name?”
He pretended to ponder for a few minutes, then said, “No, I think I recall an old hotel out on the island in the bay. And, now that you mention it, I think you’re right. I think it is called Serenity Island.” Hell, he didn’t think it, he knew it. Certainly glad Rita had gone inside, he hoped Reese would stop talking about it by the time they went in for dinner.
“Looking for someone, Rita?” Ben concentrated on drowning his scoop of mashed potatoes in the thick, aromatic milk gravy to take his mind off the shorts and halter top Reese had changed into before dinner. He’d like to cover her in gravy and kiss it off. All over her hot little body. He licked his lips. “This gravy smells fantastic. You outdid yourself this time.”
Rita smiled, her face lighting up. “Thanks, Ben, but you haven’t tasted it yet. And yes and no. I guess I was just hoping. We have four other guests, the Mills brothers. At least, I think they’re brothers. They aren’t very sociable. They leave every morning, after breakfast, with their tackle boxes. Other than the breakfast buffet, they haven’t eaten in the restaurant since they checked in.”
Reese looked around the restaurant attached to the hotel, oblivious to the fact she was practically flashing her nipple at him. “It’s filling up fast. If they don’t get here soon, they won’t get a table.” She took a bite of the tender meat and had to bite back a moan. “Oh, Rita, this is fabulous! It’s a good thing I won’t be staying long. I’d gain weight!”
“You could afford it.” Rita smiled. “How do you stay so thin? I enjoy eating too much!”
Reese swirled a bite of meat in her mashed potatoes and gravy. “I don’t eat much at home. Seems like I’m always running late. Then, at work, I’m too busy most of the time. Plus, I walk a lot.”
“Yeah,” Ben chimed in with a grin, picturing her walking. Naked. “She wanted to walk to the courthouse earlier.”
Rita’s robust laugh filled the dining room. Ben wondered if the pink flush spreading up Reese’s neck went lower. Like across her surprisingly decent rack. Decent for someone so skinny, for sure. Wait. He had to stop thinking about sex with her. It wasn’t his goal. His goal was to scrape up enough money to prevent her from buying his island.
Wiping tears of mirth from her eyes with the edge of her ruffled apron, Rita grinned down at his dinner companion. “I don’t care if you’re used to walking a lot or not, that would have been quite a hike!”
After Rita and Ben’s laughter subsided, Reese swallowed her last bite of mashed potatoes. “It’s pretty far from here, I take it?”
“Oh, it’s not all that far,” Rita assured her with a pat on the shoulder. “As the crow flies, that is. But on foot, you’d have to walk a winding path through town to get there. A five-minute drive would take a good forty-five minutes to walk. Plus, there are a lot of little hills. I’ve walked it a time or two and wouldn’t recommend it,” she added as she walked away.
“I don’t suppose busses run from here to there?”
Ben chuckled. “Now, why would you want to take a bus when you have a limo right here?”
Reese shot him a deadpan look. “Maybe because I’ve ridden in the limo.”
“Aw, c’mon. I didn’t even charge you for the broken seat belt.” Lean this way a little more. I want to see your tits.
“It was broken before I even touched it! You already admitted that.” To his disappointment, she leaned back and glared at him.
“Will you two stop arguing?” Rita hustled over to the table with a rolling cart bearing several pies and a towering chocolate cake. “You need a dessert. It’ll calm you down.”
She had no idea how uncalm he was at the moment. Especially below his belt.
“I have strawberry rhubarb pie, apple pie, peach pie, and lemon meringue,” Rita continued, oblivious to his sexual turmoil. “I also have my fudge suicide cake. You can get any of them à la mode, except the meringue.” She took a huge, lethal-looking knife from the tray below and smiled. “Which will it be? It’s included with the price of the meal, in case you were wondering.”
Reese honestly couldn’t remember eating as much as she’d ingested since arriving in Sand Dollar. Hand on her full stomach—fullness had to be the reason she felt a flutter there when she looked across the table—she said, “Oh, thanks, but I don’t believe I’ll have any. I—”
“Don’t insul
t the cook.” Ben smiled at Rita. “We’ll take a small slice of each pie, with ice cream, please. And, of course, a big ole piece of cake. To share.” He winked at Reese, who sat in numbed shock. “You can thank me later.”
Reese bit back a groan as she lumbered up the stairs. So full, she felt she might roll back down the stairs. She took comfort, though, in knowing if she did, she’d take out the irritating man behind her.
“Hand me your key.”
Paused to catch her breath at the newel post, she glared at him through her lashes. “In your dreams.”
“Hardly. You’re not my type. I’m just trying to be hospitable. After the way you chowed down, I figured it took all your strength just to digest it and walk up the stairs.”
Knowing to pick her battles, although it galled her to know he was right, she fished the card key out of the pocket of her shorts and slapped it into his palm. “Knock yourself out. I mean, thank you,” she amended when he scowled back at her.
“Stop smiling at me like that. It creeps me out.” He turned to open her door and she stuck out her tongue. “I saw that. Real mature.”
“What? How did you see me?” She trailed him into her room and dropped onto the upholstered chair by the bathroom door.
“I saw your reflection in the brass plate on the door.” He opened the little refrigerator and peered in. “Did you drink all the beer already?”
“There wasn’t any beer. I … Wait! You were up here earlier.” Her eyes narrowed. “Was there beer in there then?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He pulled her to her feet, not stopping until they were chest to chest—well, okay, maybe it was closer to chest to abdomen—his arms securely around her. “Let’s change the subject.”
She struggled. A little. “What are you doing? Let go of me.”
“I like this outfit better than the garb you had on at the airport.” He swayed back and forth, making it difficult for her not to brush against him.
“Well, I was told dinner was casual. It’s warmer here than in Houston.” Walking shorts and a dressy halter top had seemed like a safe choice. Eyes wide, she looked up at him. “I was dressed appropriately, though, wasn’t I?”
“Uh-huh. You have real nice legs for such a skinny, short person.”
“Gee, thanks.” Her palms flat on his chest, she pushed, but he remained plastered to her.
“I do have a question, though. I wondered about it all through supper.” The tip of his index finger brushed a fiery trail along the plunging neckline of her top.
Her nipples immediately stood at attention, but she’d be darned if she’d let him know how his touch affected her.
Licking her dry lips, she swallowed. “Wh-what’s that?”
Reese’s posture relaxed. Ben wondered if she was aware she’d snuggled a little closer.
He should leave her. Now. But the enticing glimpses of nipple she’d taunted him with throughout their meal haunted him. All the reasons he should walk away marched through his fevered brain.
Whether she knew it or not, she was in Sand Dollar to ruin his life by taking the one thing he wanted most, his grandmother’s island.
By the time he’d realized Gram had neglected to pay property taxes for years before her death, and that he’d also been remiss in the years since she’d passed, he owed way more in back taxes than he could cough up. Which was why he was busting his butt to scrape up the back taxes by working as a taxi and limo driver, doing any odd jobs that came his way. Hell, he’d even prostituted his beloved boat by running a charter fishing business in addition to the commercial fishing he did himself.
He had been running on empty emotionally for longer than he’d care to admit. That had to be the reason Reese Parker was having an effect on him.
The scrawny woman in his arms was so not his type, it was laughable. Yet, he felt drawn to her, anyway. Go figure. Just proved how desperate and horny he had become. Maybe it was a case of any pussy in a storm. Yeah, that had to be it.
Now she wanted to know what he’d been thinking about during their meal, he’d tell her.
“I wondered if you had on anything under that pretty little blue top.” Ignoring her little gasp, he pushed on. “Then, when you leaned down to lick the last of the fudge frosting from your plate—”
“I did not lick my plate!”
His hips bumped his erection against her bony pelvis. Instead of shoving him away, she bumped him right back. She was feisty.
He liked that.
“I can think of a few other things I wouldn’t mind seeing you lick….”
“I’m going to ignore that. Back to our conversation. You said something about when I bent over?”
With a grin, he nodded and dipped his finger below the edge of her top, eliciting another gasp. The tip of his finger grazed a puckered nipple and his grin stretched. “I saw the edge of these.” He flicked his fingernail over the erect tip of the first one, then the other breast.
Reese’s breath hissed through her teeth, but she didn’t move.
Taking that as a good sign, he ran his fingertips up under each strap, then shoved them down to her elbows, baring her perky little breasts.
To his continued delight, though they were definitely perky, they weren’t all that little.
He reached out and plucked the hard nipples, squeezing them, rolling them between his thumbs and forefingers until she whimpered. “You like that?”
Blinking, she nodded.
“What else? Do you want me to do more?”
Swallowing, she gave a curt nod. “Suck—suck them,” she said in a raw whisper.
Instead, he drew the top back to cover temptation. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his mouth. But he knew he wouldn’t want to stop there. And maybe he couldn’t stop there.
Too much was at stake.
He needed to keep his wits about him. And his dick in his pants.
“If I sucked your tits, I’d want to do more.” He tweaked her still erect nipple through the silk and stepped back. “We don’t know each other well enough for that. Not yet, anyway.”
A blush bloomed on her chest, then rose to her cheeks. “Maybe I didn’t want you to do anything more.”
“Liar.”
6
Reese stood, legs clamped tightly together, her rigid nipples aching, long after the click of the door to her room told her Ben had gone.
She didn’t want to do anything more. Not anything sexual, that was for sure. Really. She was just lonely, being in a strange town with no one she knew. That had to be the only reason she’d reacted to someone who was so totally opposite of anyone she’d ever been attracted to before. Ever.
Dazed, she took a leisurely shower, letting the hot spray hit her square in the face. Afterward, still wide-awake, she wrapped her robe tightly around her and reached for her phone.
Tucking her feet under her on the end of the soft couch by the window, she tried to block her encounter with Ben from her memory while she waited for the connection.
“Paige? Are you busy? You weren’t asleep, were you?”
Her friend’s husky laugh vibrated against her ear. “Of course not! Bailey and I were just sitting here talking about you, wondering how you were doing. How was the flight?”
“No comment.” She pulled her robe closer and lowered her voice. “Paige, I’m in foreign territory here and I’m worried….”
“Beer?” Rick waved a longneck his way when Ben stepped onto the porch.
Ben hesitated less than a second before dropping to the chair and grabbing the cool bottle. “Thanks.” He twisted off the cap and took a long draw.
“You know what she’s here for, don’t you?”
Eyes fixed on the waves rolling to shore, Ben waited a beat. “Yeah.”
“If you don’t want to haul her around, I could probably find someone else.”
“What? And miss gouging her for the fares? Nah, I can take her. ‘Sides, I need the money.” He took another swig.
“We’re al
l sorry the fund-raiser wasn’t more of a success.”
“Hey, you tried. I appreciate it. But, Rick, bottom line is, I should have known better. No, hear me out,” he said when Rick looked like he was going to argue. “Gram used to beg me to use my degree to make something out of myself.” He grinned. “Well, something more than a glorified beach bum, as she used to say. But did I listen? Hell no! Life was a party and I was determined to be its honored guest. I was too busy having fun to realize when the old girl was declining. Guess I saw just what I wanted to see.”
“That’s how she wanted it,” Rick said softly. “She didn’t want to be a burden to anyone.”
“I know. I get that. But I should have noticed. She was my family. The only family I had left. I saw just what I wanted to see when I visited. And I didn’t visit nearly as often as I should have, and you and I both know it. I should have at least checked to make sure her finances were in order and she was paying her taxes, for God’s sake! It just never occurred to me. Then, after she was gone …”
“Don’t beat yourself up. Miz Winnie wouldn’t have wanted you to do that. She was a proud and private woman.” Seeing how quickly his friend was drinking, Rick handed him another beer.
“But after she was gone—”
“You were pretty torn up.”
“Stop making excuses for him, Rick!” Rita stepped onto the porch, letting the screen door slap shut behind her. “That’s been Ben’s problem. Everyone always made excuses for his behavior. Even Miz Winnie, the last time I was out to see her, did it.” She slapped Ben’s shoulder, none too gently, as she walked to the cooler and took out a beer. Lowering to sit on her husband’s knee, she offered a small smile to Ben. “Ben, honey, it’s time to grow up. Some life lessons are hard to learn. This may be one of them. Hard as it is for you, maybe you need to come to terms with the fact you may not be able to save Winnie’s island.” She took a sip and swallowed. “How’s the tax money coming along? Did Rick tell you we’re planning another barbeque and bake sale next week? I’m just praying the tropical storm they’re predicting misses us.”