by Jodi Watters
His smile grew. It wasn’t him. It was his ride. And when she used words like beaver, it made his cock grow, too.
“I’m having a hard time identifying a problem with that scenario.” He grabbed the beer from her hands. “I’m pro-beaver.”
Her grin matched his. “Son of a mother duck. That charm of yours is gonna put me in the unemployment line. That and your nice ass.”
Chuckling, he stowed the six-pack in the Jeep’s center console before appraising her, wavy blonde hair to high-heeled toe. “It’d be a shame to ruin that dress. How about you just take it off. I’ll unzip you.”
She rolled her eyes. “I do need to maintain some civility, considering this is my workplace and I’m technically on the clock. I’ll drive my own car and maybe we can meet somewhere?”
“No can do, darlin’.” He didn’t want her out of his sight. She might wise up and take off on him. Scrolling through the contacts on his phone, he put the outgoing call on speaker. “I’ll set up a cover story for you.”
Benny, the farm manager Marshall hired before he was born, answered on the first ring and Olivia’s mouth dropped open in shock.
“Hey, Benny. It’s Ash. I’m over here by the barn with Ms. Quinn and her car won’t start. It’s been a long night, so I’m gonna run her home and come back out in the morning to take a look. Not sure if it’s the battery or the alternator.”
“Sure thing, sir.” He didn’t seem surprised by the call. “You want me to come jump start it for you? I’m not that far away.”
Benny lived in a cottage on the northern edge of the property, tucked away in a strand of cottonwood trees.
“No, it’s late. I’ll take care of it in the morning.”
“Okay, then. Good having you home, son. It’s where you belong, no matter what Marshall thinks, but I sleep better at night knowing you’re out there fighting for our freedom. Spent some time overseas myself, back in the day. Hell of a mess for a guy to be in, it was.”
“Thanks, Benny. We’ll swap stories over a few drinks sometime.”
“Make sure to tell Ms. Quinn how pretty she looks tonight. Nobody plans for car trouble, but when it happens, you can’t fight it. Probably the best thing to ever happen to you both.”
Disconnecting the call, Ash smiled confidently, knowing any gossip would be tempered. He also knew their storytelling session would never take place. The Unit didn’t really exist. What they did, didn’t really happen. Not on paper and not off the lips of any operator worth his rank.
“Okay, darlin’.” Gesturing at his Jeep, he clapped his hands together. “You ready to rock out with your cock out? Let’s slide that dress up. Oh, wait. I think that’s what I do. You jam out with your clam out, right?”
Still shocked silent, she blinked those big eyes at him.
“There’s not gonna be any cock or clam out, Ash! Benny knows you’re fibbing! He was the one who owed me. I asked him to bring me the beer for, and I’m quoting here, a private after-party I’m hosting.” Gripping fistfuls of dress, she lifted the hem and looked toward the house, ready to run. “He’s doing the math right now and it only adds up to two, me and the boss’s son.”
“Liv, look at me.” He grabbed her hands, small and soft against his. She was the most delicate thing he’d touched in months. Maybe ever. “Benny’s not gonna say a word. He’s been around a long time and sees through Marshall’s bullshit. Plus, he and Rosa have a secret thing going, stretching back years. Marshall doesn’t have a clue.”
“Really?” Her grin was lopsided. “Well, those dirty horndogs. Now I know why he handed me the beer, turned beet red, and told me where the closest twenty-four-hour drugstore is. I wonder if her priest knows she’s showing Benny her religion every night?”
“I try not to think about it.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s always going to confession. Probably feels the need to come clean with God or she won’t get into heaven.”
“Don’t worry, she’ll get in,” he said, with a wink. “God is pro-beaver, too.”
Not his best as far as pick-up lines went, but it must’ve done the job.
Wincing at the tightness behind his fly, he watched Liv hitch her dress high, the ruffled hem brushing the tops of her bare thighs. Struggling, she flashed miles of creamy smooth skin as she alternately climbed and jumped into the Jeep.
With a huff of spent energy, she settled into the seat with a frown, a pool of black taffeta surrounding her. “I think I broke a sweat.”
Graceful she wasn’t, but there was an elegance to her that enchanted him. Whether they got naked later or not didn’t matter. It was the luckiest night of his life, either way.
“Let’s go, soldier.” She spurred him into motion with a suggestive grin and the impatient waggle of her fingers. “You’re not gonna see my beaver just standing there. Hustle that ass.”
He didn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t.
It hit him like a Mack truck. A blindside ambush out of nowhere. A walk-off home run by the opposing team in the bottom of the ninth.
And Asher Coleson amended his favorites list.
A hot blonde in a black dress would always make him smile, but if it happened to be Olivia Quinn, then she would also make his head spin, his dick hard, and his heart pound. And even though he’d never felt this urgent, exciting, and terrifying feeling before, it didn’t take a brain surgeon to know what it was.
Love. Or something dangerously close to it.
She’d lost her ever lovin’ mind.
Somewhere back around mile marker three of the Pacific Coast Highway, caution and common sense flew right out the open top of Ash’s ridiculously masculine idea of a car. Oh, the Jeep was fun, she had to admit. The salty ocean air softening her skin. The humid breeze lifting her hair, blowing it around her bare shoulders like a well-placed fan. Probably adding so much frizz she could audition for The Supremes. The stereo blasted classic rock, and she memorized the playlist like a crushing teenage girl, Pat Benatar belting out “Shadows of the Night” as if it were Ash and Olivia’s anthem.
It was freeing, really. Flying up the deserted highway hugging the Pacific Ocean, barely visible if not for the bright cast of the moon as midnight approached, the strong forearm of her hot-as-hell chauffeur shifting gears like he was spreading butter.
Staring at him through fluttering eyelashes—because God help her, she couldn’t stop the fucking fluttering—she catalogued the magnificent sight of him, one hand resting on the steering wheel, the other reaching for hers like a lifeline. His grip was gentle, almost tender. A man who knew his own strength and how to bank it. His big body was deceptively casual as he navigated the curves of the road, and Olivia had to admit, he was her dream man come to life, physically speaking.
Tall. So tall she had to lift her chin to look him in the eye. And tall by her standards was up there, considering she stood close to five nine in ballet flats. Optimal height to neck-nuzzle him on a cold night.
Muscled. Not bulky, expect serious roid rage and shrunken balls, muscled. More ripped, watch him do single-arm pull-ups all day without breathing heavy since he has zero percent body fat.
Gorgeous. Not pretty, elbow her away from the bathroom mirror so he could primp, gorgeous. Just utter male beauty enhanced by a few gritty scars, body hair where it should be, and the inherent rough edges that came with high testosterone.
Throw in striking blue eyes, swagger by the truckload, and an easy smile, and it equaled Asher Coleson. It equaled trouble.
Lifting her face to the stars, she closed her eyes and inhaled damp sea air. The wind whipped her hair like kite streamers and she vowed to let the night take over. This was more than two strangers having a drink before going their separate ways. More than the employee of a family-owned business getting to know the heir to the throne, a hardcore soldier likely to take over as president and become her boss one day. More than her rule of playing it safe, putting her career ahead of everything else, including a social life. A husband. A child.
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This night was about taking chances.
Ash tightened his grip, flashing her a reassuring smile, as if he’d heard the entire conversation in her head. Lifting their clutched hands to his mouth, he kissed her, his warm breath lingering on her flesh.
It was their first kiss, this simple brush of his lips across her knuckles, and Olivia felt a responding throb low in her belly, a pulsing that couldn’t have been more powerful if he’d put his mouth directly on her core. If he ever did—and the gleam in his eyes promised he would—she might combust.
The man was that potent.
Releasing her hand with one last squeeze, he downshifted and pulled into a graveled area right off the highway, a few miles north of Del Mar. So small you’d miss it if you blinked, there was parking for only a handful of cars. The Jeep’s headlights illuminated a narrow path to the beach below, accessible if you were willing to traverse a rocky slope descending ten feet down to cool sand. In flip-flops and a bikini, she’d be game. In heels and a party dress currently puddled around her waist, she wasn’t.
“Wow,” she whispered, after he killed the engine. “How’d you find this place?”
Directly in front of them, wave after thundering wave crashed onto shore, the hypnotic rhythm of the ocean at her wildest. The frothy white caps were lit by the glow of the moon, the endless water beyond mirroring a starry sky.
He grabbed two beers from the six-pack, twisting the cap off one and handing it to her.
“Rosa used to bring me here as a kid. She liked the seclusion. Nobody around to look twice at a heavily accented Hispanic woman towing around a white child who called her mama.”
Relaxing back into the seat, he pointed his unopened bottle toward the buoy bobbing miles away from shore, its light blinking white amidst black water.
“The summer I turned six, I swam all the way out to that point, stopping to tread water and terrorize her. She nervously scanned the ocean, cussing up a Spanish storm once she spotted me, demanding I get my ass back to the beach using elaborate arm gestures. She did the sign of the cross until my feet hit land, then swore we were never coming back. An idle threat.”
“You swam all the way out there? At six?” Olivia tried to measure the distance. The best she came up with was freaking far.
“I could’ve done it when I was five, but she was still making me wear orange floaties then. Forced my hand with the promise of a cherry snow cone. I’d pop them when she wasn’t looking, but she’d just blow up a spare set. I’d still get the snow cone, though.” His smile wasn’t as sheepish as it should be. “She was a terrific lady, and I was a terrible kid with something to prove.”
“According to Rosa, you walk on water, so that’s probably why she let you slide. And she’s still a terrific lady. Dotes all over Hope. And you, too.”
He gave a pleased nod and stared at the panoramic view out the windshield, better than any drive-in movie. “I come back here from time to time, when I’m in town and need to think.”
“If you called your nanny mom, what did you call your real mother?”
“Claudia.” And with that simple response, he twisted the cap off his beer and tossed it in the cup holder.
Olivia hadn’t heard the swim story before, but she knew all about his boyhood antics. Rosa often regaled whoever would listen with similar memories, lovingly calling him both her mijo and a diablo con ojos azules, despite his current age.
Ash was no longer a little boy, but he was a blue-eyed devil for sure.
Thanks to her constant chatter, she also knew he’d joined the Army when he was seventeen, the same week his mother died, and when he wasn’t out saving the world, he spent time in a condo in Mission Bay, Rosa and her homemade tamales visiting him on those rare occasions. Hope often joined her. Marshall never did.
Taking a short pull from the sweating bottle, he tilted it toward her and nodded. “Yep. Still better than wine.”
She smirked, her own beer untouched. “What do you think about when you come out here?” When he didn’t answer, she added, “Maybe why you grew up calling Rosa mom and your mom Claudia?”
“More like, what’s the meaning of life and are eyebrows considered facial hair?” He pulled her hand into his, flattening his palm over hers. Callused and capable against soft but strong. “Not many people this far west have such a pretty accent. How’d you end up so far from home, Liv?”
She leaned back against the seat with a groan, rolling her head toward him. “I don’t really like to talk about myself.”
“After I just shared a precious childhood memory? No fair, darlin’. Cough something up.”
His ladykiller charm was back, locking down heavy conversation. She’d known him literal hours, but when he called her darlin’, serious was out and superficial was in.
Lifting the beer to her lips, she swallowed the bitter liquid and recoiled. “My God, that’s awful.” Holding up the bottle suspiciously, she winced. “Exactly how I imagined river water and bear piss would taste.”
He barked out a laugh. “That pretentious winery is rubbing off on you.”
“It’s not pretentious. It’s vibrant and interesting. And it pays the bills,” she emphasized.
“Why wine? Why California instead of—” He paused, trying to pin down her accent. “—I’m guessing South Carolina?”
“Close. Georgia.” She remembered the day she and Macy packed their cars with as many possessions as possible, driving caravan style across the country, garbage bags of clothes and second-hand kitchen supplies riding shotgun.
Macy had written Go Big or Go Home on the back windows, citing subliminal motivation each time they looked behind them. Neither needed the reminder written in hot pink washable paint. They had no home to go back to.
She slipped off her shoes and stretched her legs, resting bare feet on the dashboard. Ash didn’t seem to care. His gaze was on her exposed skin.
“I was born and raised in Savannah. It’s a beautiful old town with cobblestone streets, parks on every corner, and horse-drawn carriages blocking the flow of traffic. I’d never been more than a mile outside of town, but it didn’t matter. No other place could ever be as good. I grew up thinking I’d stay forever, even though my cousin Macy forced me to be Miss California every time we played beauty pageant.” She flashed him a wide grin. “Not that I fought her. Everybody knows in real life, Miss California always wins.”
“Don’t stop on a cliffhanger,” he said, when she went quiet, lost in thought. “What state was Macy?”
“Texas. Big hair, big mouth, big attitude. She fit the profile.” She’d also stuff her Snoopy training bra with cotton balls to get the big boobs, too, but Olivia left that out. “My dad owned a hardware store, and we lived in the apartment above it. If he was working and I needed him, I’d run down the stairs and ring the silver bell on the front counter. It was just the two of us until I started fourth grade. Macy came to stay with us while her parents went on vacation. She was in third. They never came back.”
“Jesus.” Ash scowled. “Where the fuck were they?”
She pointed at him. “That’s exactly what my dad asked them, word for word. They just decided they were done being parents, I guess. Wanted to travel the country in a used Winnebago and smoke pot every day. Be one with nature. My dad made up for it, though. He treated Macy like his own. Never said an ill word about his piece of shit brother and sister-in-law.”
“What about your mom? Did she get tired of being a parent, too?”
“No. I think she got tired of being poor. She met a man on a riverboat casino, won a twenty-five-hundred-dollar jackpot, divorced my dad, and moved to Tampa. I was five. Haven’t seen her since.”
He made a disgusted sound. “It sucks to learn so young that people disappoint, doesn’t it?” He was speaking from experience.
“It turned out for the best.” She brushed off his concern. “My dad was the bomb. Macy and I never wanted for a thing. And my mom still keeps in touch. Calls to tell me happy birthd
ay every year, exactly seven days after my real birth date. Because who can expect a woman to remember the actual day she gave birth to her only child?”
Ash was onto something with the whole disappointment thing.
“The upside is,” she continued, her voice optimistic, “I use it as an excuse to binge eat birthday cake twice in one week. She’s still married to the riverboat gambler. They breed Schnauzers and own a chain of car washes in Orlando now.”
“I’ve heard that can keep you busy.” They shared the smile of a child with a shitty parent. “So how did the reigning Miss California actually end up here?”
This was the part she hated. “Dad died. Stage four lung cancer a year after I graduated high school. I dropped out of community college where I was seeking a degree in, get this, Bakery Science and Management.” She looked at him sideways. “Yes, you heard that right.”
“Sounds about as legit as Auctioneering. I’m sorry about your dad.”
“Me, too. And as it turns out, my skill level when it comes to baking maxes out at dumping a box of brownie mix into a pan. Macy finished her senior year early, we sold the hardware store for a pittance, got evicted from the apartment above it, and flipped a coin. Heads, Texas. Tails, California. Macy’s big hair has never forgiven me.”
Grinning, he swept a finger across her palm, tracing the lines. “Where does wine come into this?”
His touch was distracting. “We were broke a month after we rolled into town. Nobody told us that everything cost twice as much money here, and we had squat to begin with. I needed a decent paying job like a sick person needs medicine. Marshall was my medicine man.”
He was silent awhile, staring out at the black sea. She had no idea what he was thinking, until he looked at her with eyes so much like Marshall’s it took her aback.