Ahead in the Heat

by Lorelie Brown

  “Sure you can.” He put one knee on the bed, easing over her. She slipped flat against the mattress. They were still soaked, leaving handprints and smears from random body parts all over the expensive blanket. Sean didn’t give a shit. He was using any weapon in his arsenal. “Come with me. I’ll introduce you to everyone I know. If you don’t find new funding for your center, I’ll still pay cash out of my own pocket, even though you let me go as a client.”

  She bit her bottom lip. “You know this isn’t about money anymore.”

  So he laid siege to her, though keeping it ostensibly innocent. Petting her hip, her thigh. The skin behind her knee was thin and fragile as crystal. Soft as silk, though. He wedged one forearm along her shoulder and head, and lowered his body to hers.

  They both gasped. The air had cooled the water on their skin, but beneath that was a searing layer of heat. Her breasts fit against him perfectly, cushioning him. There was something better about the two of them together. “Besides,” he whispered in her ear, “it’s a first-class trip to Fiji. I’ll get you drunk on good wine and feed you fresh pineapple.”

  She was breathy. Her lungs were working harder and harder. He framed her skull with his hand, holding her close.

  “You know how to entice a girl,” she said, half teasing.

  His cock found the heat between her legs as easily as Sean dropped into a layback on the front of a wave. Pushing into her was like coming home. Like practicing something until it became as easy as keeping the heart beating. Unconscious. Except this wasn’t practiced for them. This was still the first time, the only time.

  The magic of that realization hit Sean like a fist in the chest. His stomach flipped, and his hand closed on the back of Annie’s head. He pulled her up for a kiss because he had no idea what would show in his eyes. Her mouth gave in to his kiss as if they’d done it a thousand times.

  “Yes,” she whispered once he’d pulled his lips from hers. Her gaze darted over his features, and he wondered if he’d been too slow on the whole hiding gig. “I’ll go to Fiji.”

  He knew he should have been grinning. Smiling, at the very least. He’d just won. He’d gotten her to agree. But there was a very real part of him that felt about as feral as a wild tiger. He could shred meat with his bare teeth. It was more than agreement; it was victory, and one didn’t do something so tacky as smile over victory. The victorious were proud. Fierce.

  He increased his strokes, lifting her hips with his one free hand. His fingers were long enough to graze the cleft of her ass, stretch around to where she was so wet and plump and accepting. She cushioned every pump of his hips. More. She welcomed them.

  Her body strove toward his. Her mouth parted on quiet gasps that rapidly became less so. “Oh God. Sean, you are . . . Oh, you’re good. So deep.”

  “I can go deeper.” Except he balanced his threat with the opposite, drawing out until shallow thrusts barely kept the head of his cock within the opening of her body. She didn’t reach for him. Her heel found purchase in the sheets, knee locking as her hips sought him. But she stretched her hands up, up over her head until she was a lean line. An exclamation point of want and need.

  He put a hand flat over her upper stomach. Beneath his palm, her heartbeat pounded. Runaway train kinds of speed. She was just as affected as he was. There wasn’t a moment of this that didn’t seem scripted from his deepest fantasies. The ones he hadn’t even realized existed until she came around.

  He kept fucking her, because what else was there to do? He wanted. He needed.

  He never got what he needed. Not really. His surfing career was the only thing he kept balanced, and even in that arena, he still hadn’t reached his ultimate goals. Everything faded or waned over time. He wasn’t surprised by it, considering his basic lack of training to act like a human being.

  But knowing he was fucked-up in the head didn’t make him magically stop wishing for better.

  He wanted Annie. At least he had her now. He had her hard and long, and deep, and that would be enough. The way he made her scream again would be enough.

  Her hands rose from the way they’d twisted in the soft blankets and wrapped around his shoulders. Her wrists rubbed over his ribs, her fingertips dug into his lats, and she writhed hard enough that the middle of her back came up off the bed.

  He braced himself with one hand and framed her face with the other. “Tell me you’re coming.”

  “I am. God, I am. Sean, it’s so much.” She shook her head, hard enough that her dark hair spread in a fan. “Too much.”

  “No,” he growled. “Just right. Come on me, Annie. Come all over my cock. You know you want to.”

  “Yes,” she breathed, except the soft breath turned harder and she drew it out into a sibilant promise. She went off like a firecracker, all explosions and gasping. Her body held him so closely that he thought the pleasure would turn him inside out.

  He took it. Threw caution to the wind and pressed his face to the bed beside her head. He didn’t want her to see him when he broke apart. The pleasure started at the base of his spine and worked its way out from there. Pure jolts made his cock twitch, and he buried himself as deep in her as possible. But that wasn’t all of it. He was . . . found.

  He’d simply fucked girls before. This wasn’t that; he was still panting as he tried to get his breath back. His blood rushed hard in his ears, leaving only a wave of sound. He didn’t have the brains to figure it out, not now.

  So when the doorbell rang, everything in him went swimming-in-the-Arctic kinds of cold.

  No one came to his house unannounced. No one invited, at least.

  Chapter 22

  If Annie hadn’t known better, her feelings would’ve gotten all bundled up in a knot of hurt in an instant. Sean levered off her about as quickly as if she’d said she had a communicable disease. “Shit, sorry,” he muttered. He swept in for one more mind-blowing kiss, but then he pulled away again.

  He stripped the condom off in one fast gesture and wrapped it in a tissue before tossing it in the wastebasket next to his dresser. He pulled a pair of boxers from the top drawer while she stayed sprawled out in the middle of the bed, resting on her elbows.

  Then he checked his phone, pulling up something she couldn’t quite see. But she thought it might have been a view of his front door. She hadn’t noticed cameras, but she wasn’t surprised that they’d been there.

  Sean clenched his jaw, cursed, and started laying out his clothes. His movements were slow and precise as he went in and out of his deep closet, starting with his trousers, and finally choosing a button-down shirt. No tossing on a pair of shorts just to open the door.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “I’m coming,” Sean muttered. It was jarring how the word had such a different implication moments ago. Annie now noticed the way Sean’s jaw was hidden behind a layer of dark scruffiness, since he hadn’t shaved in days—even though its strength was still obvious. It seemed to harden with his annoyance.

  “Expecting someone?” She folded up so that she could sit at the edge of the bed. She pressed her knees together and tucked her ankles to one side. It was one thing to be completely, lewdly open when in the middle of a heated, explosive moment. Now, she felt so exposed that goose bumps skittered across her entire back. She wrapped her arms around her chest, tucking one hand into her elbow and nibbling on the thumb of her other hand.

  He selected a gorgeous, expensive-as-hell pair of onyx-and-gold cuff links. Evidently he was more concerned about his image. “I knew they would come eventually, but I didn’t know it would be today.”

  She lifted her eyebrows, prompting him to explain more. “Words, Westin. You know how to use them better than that.”

  He sighed, drawing an expensive pair of sunglasses from a box on top of his dresser. “It’s Paul Ackerman. Odds are really, really high he’s the documentary maker.”

 
Alarm drew her to her feet, and she scrambled for her clothing. “Jesus, Westin! Are you going to tell him to go away?”

  He shrugged, holding both her shoulders. “He can’t break into my house or anything. He’ll just wait outside until there’s a sign of me, or . . . not.”

  “What does he want?”

  He cracked a smile, but it looked tight on his cheeks, a dull approximation of his usual charm. “There’s no real telling. He just scents blood in the water.”

  She shuddered, and only half of it was the cold creeping through her. “It’s kind of distasteful. All this. I mean . . . Why wouldn’t he have come to you first?”

  “Because obviously he seems to have something that he deems a big deal.”

  “What could it be? You haven’t done anything worth this.” Except . . . had he? She didn’t know him, not really. He had a little bit of a reputation for liking expensive women and the good life, and a little more for being Jack Crews’s buddy. But then again, if she hadn’t thought that she knew him on at least some level, she wouldn’t have painted her toes sparkly black and come over to do dirty things with him.

  She knew he liked surfing and loved the water, and he’d worked incredibly hard to make enormous recovery gains. But none of that added up to knowing him.

  “I see that look,” Sean said dryly. He’d turned to the mirror to finger comb his hair. His gaze caught hers through the glass.

  Her stomach stilled even as her heart fluttered. “What look?”

  “The one that says you’re wondering what I’ve done to earn a situation like this.”

  She swallowed as she shook her head, and she could feel herself trying to keep her eyes wide. She stopped midshake and sighed. Her gaze dropped to her toes. “If it makes it any better, I don’t want to doubt you.”

  He took so long answering that she had to pull her head up and look at him. He wasn’t returning the look. He’d braced his hands wide on the edge of the pale wood dresser. His shoulders were a study in a well-muscled, perfectly formed man. The caps were curved and thick with muscle, but the span between was a smooth V. His neck had thick tendons, and his short, cropped hair showed off the place where they met the heavy sweep of his skull. She could put her thumbs there and dig in, and he’d probably only thank her for it.

  He turned back to her, but not before grabbing his slacks and pulling them on. “C’mon. I think I’m going to answer the door after all. If you want to be naked, you can, but you don’t seem like the type.” He was teasing, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it.

  She had to put on her damp bikini bottoms after shaking them out over the tile floor of the bathroom. Her board shorts went over them, and they were wet too, since it wasn’t as if they’d strategically draped their clothing in places where they’d dry. She had to scoop them up from the floor where she’d dropped them so shamelessly an hour and a half ago. She and Sean had been way too impatient.

  Her cheeks and the back of her neck flamed, but Sean was so preoccupied with his troubles that she didn’t have to worry about him noticing.

  He stood, tossing on and buttoning up his shirt. Every inch of skin that disappeared turned him into a different person. As his abs and that tan were hidden, he became more put together.

  He’d seated himself in a chair next to a window and was brushing off his black shoes with a soft cloth. Between his eyebrows was a deep divot of worry. She wanted to go to him and give him a giant hug. See if he’d allow himself to rest on her shoulder a minute. It wasn’t like her at all. She’d always found it easiest to comfort those who were . . . God, who were less powerful than she was. That wasn’t a particularly pleasant thing to notice. She gave the kids who came to her center plenty of sympathy and love and compassion. She ought to be able to find a little for the man whose penis had just been in her.

  Maybe she should stick to the idea of buying him a beer afterward. He’d been off the painkillers for several days, or his new physical therapist wouldn’t have given him the go-ahead to surf today. If anyone needed a break from healthy living strictures, it was Sean.

  At least the T-shirt he’d given her was warm and soft, the cotton broken-in by probably hundreds of washings. Since she was fairly small chested, she pulled it on over her bare skin, figuring that a wet swimsuit to create damp triangles was probably more distracting than going without. Emblazoned across her chest was TRESTLES, the legendary California break. She tugged her hem down. “Trestles, that’s where you grew up, right?”

  His mouth twisted, but he leaned back in his chair. His wrists rested on the lightly padded arms, and he stretched his legs out in front of him. “Kind of. Six miles inland.”

  Her brow wrinkled and her head tilted. “That far in? The story from the magazines is that you were practically a beach bum. Lived there when you weren’t in school.”

  He gave a smile that was all bare teeth and wicked intentions. “That’s true enough. But it’s not the whole story.”

  “Then what is?”

  “That’d be what Paul is after, it would seem. You promised me Fiji, remember? I’ll tell you on the plane.” He seemed to be holding on by a thread as he slowly stood. He was a man at the top of his game; he shouldn’t ever look creaky or like his bones were hurting him. Hell, he hadn’t been affected even when they were.

  “First class?” she asked, injecting a teasing tone into her voice. It was hard. Fucking hell, it was hard when her throat felt so tight that she thought she might cry any second. It went along with the burn at the back of her eyes. And wasn’t that absolutely absurd?

  The problem had to be that she was out of her depth. She wasn’t the crying type, but then she hadn’t ever felt so completely at sea before. She didn’t understand what Sean was hiding that had to be this desperate. It was some publicity, right? No big deal. Except that the story involving his childhood seemed to be freaking him out. And in turn, his tension was leaching into her.

  Annie didn’t want this. She didn’t want to care for him so much. She wanted all of it to go away . . . and she felt absolutely helpless and unable to fix it. “Ready?”

  He gave a solemn nod. “If you want to leave, I get it. You’re not in any way involved with the situation.”

  “I’ll stay.” The words came out much steadier than she’d expected them to.

  Ten minutes later, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d made the right call.

  Paul Ackerman was a plain-looking man for being in filmmaking. He had carefully parted brown hair and a short-sleeved white shirt. At least he hadn’t worn a black tie.

  Sitting in the corner of the living room, Annie tucked her toes under her butt in a sleek black leather chair. “You look more like a Mormon missionary than the man who can make or break Sean’s career.”

  Sean shoved back a smile and turned away from Mr. Ackerman. He shot Annie a Behave kind of look. She wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at him. Better she be there to make him smile and laugh than he should have to go through this alone.

  The guy blinked at her. His mouth folded into a wry smile and his gently rounded cheeks lifted. “Ma’am, I have no power to break Mr. Westin’s career. I only have a few questions.”

  “Then you should have come to me first,” Sean growled. “I don’t have any problem with shooting footage.”

  “That’s great! Then you won’t mind answering my questions? I’d like to start early in your life for this project.” He spread his hands wide. “I want to start with Trestles, then pan inland. To . . . Mission Viejo, right?”

  “I don’t talk about my past,” Sean said.

  “Where you went to high school is a matter of public record,” Ackerman replied blandly. But he was studying Sean with such intensity, Annie knew something was wrong. There was more loaded under those words that she didn’t understand.

  Surprisingly Sean backed down. His eyes narrowed, and the muscle in front of h
is ear jumped harshly in the hollow of his cheek. “Fine. We’ll talk.”

  Surprise parted her lips. After all this, he was just going to sit down with the man and give an interview? Except he hadn’t said that, not exactly, had he? He’d said they’d talk. That wasn’t the same thing as agreeing to answer a whole mess of questions.

  Though what did he have to hide, anyway?

  She pushed up from her seat and twined her fingers through Sean’s. “Hey. It’s your choice. Do you want me to be here? If you want space, I could totally make myself scarce by heading home.”

  “Actually . . .” Something dark flitted across his expression. His mouth almost disappeared when it flattened. He shook his head. “It’s probably too big a favor.”

  She squeezed his fingers. “What is it?”

  He sighed. “I’m afraid this will come out wrong.”

  Ackerman was tracking every word of their conversation with an avid, predatory gleam. Sean spotted it. He gave the slightest, faintest sneer she’d ever seen and folded his hand around her elbow to tug her away toward the kitchen, next to the lanai. “Is it okay if I ask you to take a walk?”

  “I can’t just go upstairs?”

  “I . . .” Sean swallowed his words, then shrugged. “Look. I dunno how polite I’m going to manage to stay with this guy. It depends what he asks me. And . . . all things considered . . .”

  All things considered, they’d only fooled around a few times. That wasn’t the same thing as a serious relationship, and she wasn’t looking for one of those anyway. Not with Sean. She folded her mouth into a smile. “I’ll take a walk on the beach.”

  Relief lightened his face, made his mouth ease into something that was almost a smile. Whatever else could be said, there was no doubt that this whole situation had him on edge. “I appreciate it.”

  Leaning up on her toes, Annie kissed him. Because it was either that, or find another way to admit how damn happy it made her to be able to give him something. Even if that meant something so stupid as being able to give him distance when he needed it. She’d always thought of herself as independent, but maybe that was another way to say she was lonely. And she didn’t want to feel lonely anymore.