One Distant Summer

by Serena Clarke

He laughed. “Yeah, whatever. Because that’s what grown-ups say.”

  She shoved his arm. “Shut up.”

  “You shut up.” He reached out with one hand and squeezed her waist, making her squeak and lurch away, giggling, and water sloshed from her glass and slopped onto the floor.

  “Oops,” she said, looking down.

  Without warning or thought, he gathered her up and pulled her close. Her laughter stopped on one sharp intake of breath, and she leaned the top part of her body away. The bottom half, though, remained pressed firmly against him. He took the glass from her hand and put it on the countertop, his eyes never leaving hers.

  Suddenly, their pre-teen antics had morphed into something decidedly adult.

  Leaning back, she had exposed the soft skin of her décolletage and throat, and it was too much to resist. He lowered his head to her neck and let his lips fall there once, twice, over and over again, describing a random, teasing pattern. When his tongue brushed her throat, there was a salt-tang on her skin, and a tiny hum of pleasure escaped her. He felt the tension melt from her body, her hips arch toward him just a little more. He knew she must be able to feel him hardening against her.

  He looked up, checking her reaction.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked, her eyes heavy with something that could only be desire. She didn’t move.

  “Why are you?” he countered, still holding her.

  “I don’t know. Because you are.” She laughed, a short, disbelieving sound, as though she knew her answer made no sense. Then she shook her head. “We were finished with all this.”

  At that moment, he was sure she’d pull away, probably get mad again, and maybe storm out of his house. Then again, she didn’t seem to be the storming type. Her style was more the decisive, quiet exit.

  But instead of delivering a rapid rebuke, she deliberately ran one hand up each side of his body, under the cotton of his sleeveless t-shirt, letting her fingers trail slowly across his skin. He held his breath, telling himself not to hurry anything, but when she pressed closer, draping her arms over his shoulders, he felt the familiar tide of lust rush in.

  “Bloody hell,” he said, touching his forehead against the top of her head. “This is trouble.”

  She laughed. “You sound kinda fancy when you say bloody hell in that accent.”

  “That’s one thing I’m definitely not,” he said, abruptly lifting her up and setting her on the counter. She sat there for a moment, then put her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his hips. He took a step back, holding her tightly against him as he stood between the counter and the kitchen table. And then her lips were on his, and her hair was falling around them both, and he staggered slightly, the swell of desire making him unsteady. He stepped forward quickly to balance himself—clearly, dropping her on the floor would be a mood-killer. But just when he was about to breathe in relief, she exclaimed in surprise and arched forward, as ice suddenly burst from the dispenser in the fridge behind her, rattling into the tray and scattering on the floor.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, laughing. “That gave me a hell of a fright.”

  “Shit, sorry,” he said. He stepped away from the fridge, but immediately stood on an ice cube, and his foot went out from under him. She gasped, clinging onto him, and adrenaline hit as he tried to keep his footing while holding her at the same time. After a moment of complete panic, he managed to regain his balance. Heart pounding, he turned and set her on the table.

  She let go of him and released a long breath. “I thought we really were in trouble then.”

  “Yeah.” His heart was still thundering in his chest. “Not the sort of trouble I was hoping for. Sorry.”

  She laughed again. “That was pure slapstick.” Then she paused, and tipped her head. “What kind of trouble were you hoping for?”

  The provocative tone in her voice was unmistakable. He suppressed a grin. “The grown-up kind of trouble.”

  She pursed her lips, a teasing thoughtfulness coming over her face as she thrummed her fingers on his chest. “Like…being audited?”

  “Not quite,” he said.

  She grasped his shirt and pulled him closer. “Not paying the gas bill?”

  “No.”

  She wound her legs around him, her roaming hands setting his skin on fire everywhere they touched.

  “Overdue library books?”

  He shook his head. “Not even close.” The words came out raspy, and he caught her fleeting, knowing smile. Then she pouted.

  “I’ve run out of ideas. You’ll have to give me a hint.”

  “Okay.” He reached under the filmy cover-up she was wearing, and pulled on the strings securing one side of her bikini bottoms, letting them fall away undone. She didn’t move, so he repeated the trick on the other side. She sat perfectly still, watching, then looked him in the eye.

  “Speeding ticket?”

  He would have laughed at her fake cluelessness, but undoing her bikini strings had started to undo him, too. “You’re not getting any warmer,” he managed.

  She wriggled deliberately on the table, her voice breathy as she replied, “Actually, I am.”

  Looking down, he could see through the fine fabric that the front of her bikini had fallen down between the top of her thighs, where his hands were resting. All at once, electricity seemed to buzz in the tips of his fingers. Without saying a word, she squirmed again, so that his hands shifted higher on her legs, toward the ‘v’ that hid the sweetest place he’d ever been. He could take a hint too. He slipped one hand between her legs, and she parted them for him. In slow, unhurried movements, he gently, deliberately dipped one finger deeper…then another…letting her wetness slick his fingers, feeling his own body respond as he watched her reaction. It was insanely hot seeing her expression shift from teasing to abandoned, her eyelids heavy and her lips parted, her breath gradually coming faster and shallower. He took his time, playing in deliberate, teasing strokes, and when he finally reached the small, concentrated point of her desire she sucked in her breath, a sudden tension in her body. But it was the good sort of tension. The low, hungry sound she made proved that. He smiled, ready to show her exactly what his kind of trouble was made of.

  But before he could take her any further, she took a hold of the front of his board shorts, determinedly working them down just enough to let him free. With a groan of anticipation, she slid forward on the table until he was pressing right against her, on the very verge of sliding into her hot, wet sweetness.

  Then he realized—he didn’t have any protection nearby. He held her steady, just out of the danger zone. Because with her hard up against him, irresistibly luscious and eager, it definitely was a danger zone.

  “We have to stop,” he told her.

  When he stepped back an inch or two, she moaned, her frustration echoing his own. For a moment he drank in the sight of her there on the table, her hair wild and her cheeks flushed, her legs apart…and there was only one thing to do.

  He ran his hands up her legs again, pushing the cover-up out of the way. She glanced at the window, obviously suddenly remembering where they were, so he reached over and adjusted the wooden blinds. “No one can see now.”

  Finally, he could do what he’d hungered for when she stood before him in the living room that night. He dropped his head between her legs, and she leaned back on the table, breathing out a low sigh of surrender as her sunglasses fell from her hair. Almost in disbelief, he took his chance, immersing himself in her heady essence, losing himself in the woman who had been his dream and his downfall, his teenage crush and now his adult obsession.

  Within what seemed like barely a minute, he felt her arch abruptly under his tongue, and she exploded into an orgasm. One ‘oh’ after another escaped her as her hips lifted off the table, her fingers digging into his shoulders, and he rode her wave, keeping up his pace, burning with his own acute need. Finally, sated, she took hold of his head and pushed it away. Then she struggled upright and grabbed
onto him, pulling him close and burying her face in his neck. He held her tightly in return, his breath coming unevenly. Her chest rose and fell in time with his own as she clutched the back of his shirt.

  “Oh my God,” she said into his ear. There was a wobble in her voice.

  He stood up straighter and adjusted his board shorts. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just…my God.” She blew out a breath against his neck, and he could feel her shake her head.

  “Come on.” He lifted her from the table and lowered her to the floor, then took her hand. “We can do better than this.”

  He went to kiss her, but she laughed, her cheeks flushed, and ducked away. He swiped one hand over his lips, still damp from her bliss, and tugged gently on her hand with the other. He had no idea if she’d go with him, or turn and walk out, like she had that night in the living room. To stack the odds in his favor, he brazenly picked up her bikini bottoms and put them in his pocket. Then he turned to go, still amazed that any of it had happened.

  And she followed.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Liam’s hand was firm around hers as he led her up the stairs. Which was lucky, because her legs were ridiculously weak—probably because she’d gone from zero to sixty in a crazily short time. In his room, she sank gratefully onto the bed, and he shuffled her across, tucking a pillow under her head. Then he grabbed a blanket from the end of the bed, and pulled it up over them. It wasn’t cold, but it felt good to snuggle in.

  “That was…unexpected,” she said.

  “Yeah.” He studied her face. “Bad unexpected, or good unexpected?”

  “Couldn’t you tell?”

  He laughed, and she felt her cheeks get even hotter.

  “Good unexpected, then,” he said. “And fast.”

  “So freaking good,” she admitted, her voice a little husky.

  “I enjoyed it myself,” he said, and she could have sworn he looked proud. Typical man. Although he had every right to be pleased with himself, after that. It felt like the entire area between her belly button and her knees was still humming. She forced herself to think straight.

  “Except we’re not supposed to be doing any of this,” she added. “Remember? We’re just making it okay for Sam, until I go.”

  He looked away, hesitating, then back again.

  “Right,” he said, his tone casual. “But he’s not here. So I thought I’d make it okay for you instead.” He shrugged. “And it seemed like that was okay.”

  “You can stop fishing for compliments now,” she told him.

  But he just grinned, and tucked the blanket around her.

  She looked around his room, which didn’t seem to have changed at all since that summer. Then, with a jolt, it occurred to her that Ethan’s room was just down the corridor. Was it still exactly as he left it, too? She shook the thought away. Because nothing was the same as it had been then…not the important stuff, anyway.

  She noticed a worn blue notebook on the nightstand next to the bed, and reached for it, curious. But Liam stretched over her and put his hand on it, and lifted it away.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Just…notes,” he said. “Nothing really.”

  She watched as he put it in the nightstand drawer. “Hidden depths, huh?”

  “Don’t get carried away,” he told her dryly, and she laughed.

  He turned back to lie close to her again, his head propped on his hand, watching her like he was waiting to see what she’d do next. She had no idea—she didn’t even know why she’d agreed to come in for a drink in the first place. Especially when she’d known the drink was just an excuse.

  Or maybe she did know why, even if she wouldn’t admit it to herself.

  And…it hadn’t turned out so bad.

  Because he wasn’t just muscle-flexing, guitar-playing, clever-tongued eye candy. Much as she liked all those things—a lot, apparently—he was more than that. She had to acknowledge the way he shouldered life’s painful complications, and his need to do the right thing, even as he frustrated the hell out of her. Despite what he’d just said, there was an intriguing depth to him, a loyalty and moral compass that was very obviously doing battle with their mutual desire. She was feeling the same kind of conflict herself—the push and pull of an unexpected, off-limits attraction—but for him, the stakes were even higher. She wished she could read his mind, figure out how he could swing from practically cursing her name, to lavishing her with the hottest kind of attention. And she still didn’t know why he was even here, back in the bay, at all.

  “So…why did you come back, after all this time?” she asked.

  He tangled his fingers in the strands of hair that trailed over her shoulder. “I don’t know,” he said. “It just felt like everything reached critical mass, you know? I have this friend, Grant…he builds houses, and I help him out a few times a week. Keeps me from seizing up in front of the computer. I go to the gym, too, but manual labor works out the knots better than anything. In your body and your mind.”

  She nodded, running a finger over the curve of his bicep. “That explains the muscles on a confirmed computer geek.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “Anyway, we’d just finished building a house for Grant’s brother and his family. And we were all there, having a few drinks to celebrate. And I realized…” He stopped, rubbing the edge of his jaw, where a dark whisker shadow was starting to show.

  “What did you realize?”

  He cleared his throat. “That everyone was moving on. All around me. Moving forward.”

  “And you weren’t?”

  “No. Not really.”

  She rested her palm on his chest, and he covered it with his hand. Underneath his shirt, she could feel the reverberation of his heartbeat, steady and regular, keeping on.

  “So I came back here to…restart,” he said.

  “Like your computer.”

  “Yeah.” He laughed. “I think some of my coding got messed up.”

  She frowned. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll live.” He waved a dismissive hand. “What about you, though? How’s your coding?”

  That was kind of a complicated question. “I don’t know. I think I’m rewriting it at the moment. Trying to decide what the next lines will be.”

  “When you go home.”

  He said it matter-of-factly, as though he was totally fine with it. Which was perfectly okay with her. She swallowed, but it didn’t lessen the lump in her throat. She crossed her ankles and pressed her thighs together, trying to stifle the lingering heat where his mouth had been.

  He was totally fine. She was perfectly okay.

  “I might have a tour to do.” She shrugged. “Still figuring out the details.”

  She could be cool about it too. No need to tell him the tour would be opening for a guy who’d dumped her and moved on with someone younger, prettier, and thinner.

  But then he was running his hand along the ridge of her thigh, following the curve under the cover-up she was still wearing, over her bare hip and into the dip of her waist. Then back down her leg. Then back up and over the curve.

  “I love that,” he said, in an appreciative tone.

  “The tour?” she asked. But she knew what he meant. Under his hand, her skin was alive, her nerves humming, waiting for the next place he’d touch her.

  That place started up a slow, hot burn of anticipation all over again.

  The space between them was suddenly taut with expectation.

  “Not the tour,” he said. And he tugged at her cover-up. She wriggled out of it, with his help, and then he reached behind her and undid the strings of her bikini top. When she took it off, her breasts spilled free, and she was entirely naked beside him.

  “It was dark last time,” he said, his voice heavy with wonder and desire.

  “Now you see me,” she said simply.

  He nodded. “I do see you, Jacinda Prescott. I see you. That’s who you are.”

  At that moment, she
remembered their exchange after he rescued her from under the house, and told her that he knew she was Cin Scott.

  No, she’d said. Not here, I’m not. Here, I’m Jacinda. I’m me.

  You could be, he’d said.

  And now she was. Why had it taken his company, his touch, to bring her back to herself? He resented her, hated what she’d done. And yet…he was caressing her with a tenderness that could only be genuine.

  And, he was still fully clothed.

  She quit the self-analysis, and focused on the one thing she knew. There was a tall, dark, and stinkin’ hot man in bed with her, and she was wasting time.

  “Who I am, is a woman in need of action,” she told him, pointedly grabbing the front of his tank. “And you are a man who’s overdressed.”

  He raised one eyebrow. “Am I?”

  She worked her way closer, pressing her breasts against him, feeling the heat of his body through the cotton shirt. Then she dragged it upward, and he pulled it over his head. She smiled as he threw the shirt somewhere off the bed, and ran her hands over his broad, sculpted chest, warm as though he was still standing in the sun. Shirtless again. And so completely lickable. But still overdressed.

  She tucked one finger into the waistband of his board shorts, but he was way ahead of her. He shucked them off, and then they were gone from the bed too, and she was suddenly on her back, looking up at him. He leaned down and planted a kiss on her exposed throat, sending a shiver through her body.

  “Now I’m not overdressed,” he said. “And you’re going to get your action.”

  She laughed, but that one kiss had already set her senses alight. “Well, you sure know how to talk to a lady.”

  “It’s not about the talking,” he replied, his expression suddenly dangerous. “It’s about the doing.”

  And then he was doing all the things she’d thought about over in her bedroom at number ten, all the nights since that first time, intensified by the night she’d walked away drenched with her need for him, her panties in her pocket. If he’d guessed what she was thinking and doing in her room in the dark, while he was lying in this room, not even a stone’s throw away…