Her hips stilled mid arch, cradling the length of him. God, terrible timing or not, it was good to be this close to her. Breathing in ragged pants, Piper kept her face turned away.
West lowered his forehead, resting it against the wet spikes of her hair. “Stop fighting for one second and listen.”
Her jaw worked as she spoke through clenched teeth. “Get. Off. Me.”
“No.” Blood rushed in his ears, his head pounding as he racked his brains for a way to apologize. But everything he came up with made him sound like a selfish prick for putting her in this situation. Of course—he was a selfish prick.
His lips brushed her temple. She tasted of salt and sun lotion. “I’m not ready to let you go yet.”
She twisted her head, the motion nudging his lips away. Hazel eyes, almost green now with bright fury, clashed with his. “I’m a cop. I know how to hurt you.”
“Yeah, I figured that.”
And he’d figured that, one, he’d earned her knee in his nuts and, two, it couldn’t hurt more than the pain he’d caused by reminding her of Michael’s death. They were at a stalemate. Neither could look away. The intensity built in his chest to a living, clawing thing until he had to either kiss her or let her go.
Her breath hissed out and she rolled her head to the side, the harsh lines of her jaw relaxing. Whether it was a temporary truce, or a trick to lull him into exposing his vulnerable nuts, he didn’t know. He released her wrists, propping his weight onto his elbows so he didn’t squash her on the deck. She rotated her wrists and flexed her fingers, bringing her arms back over her head and resting her palms on his biceps, pushing against him. He didn’t budge, so her fingers stayed there, splayed on his skin like petals. The stiff tendons in her neck softened and she swallowed, but he didn’t for a second believe she wasn’t still pissed.
“You could’ve died, moron,” she said.
“You’ve downgraded me from asshole to moron. That’s something.”
Her eyelids lowered, the inky black lashes forming tiny clumps from the seawater. Nails dug into his upper arms hard enough to leave dents. “I’ll rephrase that—you’re an asshole and a moron.”
“A moron for free-diving?”
“Clever-clogs, aren’t you?”
“And an asshole for scaring you.”
She said nothing, switched to her slightly-bored game face. Except he’d seen glimpses of the Piper behind the game face. The Piper who managed to sneak lunch into his office when he wasn’t looking, because he’d forgotten to get his own. He’d seen that Piper again at the bonfire—the naked yearning on her face as he danced with Zoe. The Piper who cried while he played the piano and the Piper who held back tears when she realized the community had reclaimed her.
His chest squeezed as his heart turned a slow summersault. He used the back of his fingers to stroke the smooth skin of her jaw. “I’m sorry I scared you, baby.”
Piper’s lower lip quivered and he grappled with the need to kiss the tremor away.
“It took me right back there. Back to that morning.”
West’s gut hollowed, then filled with cold, hard stones. Piper’s dad treated him like a second son, but he would’ve given West a solid ass-kicking for putting his girl through a nightmare—again. “I wish I’d been there for you—wish I’d been there instead of you.”
How many times after seeing Piper that day, wrapped in a blanket on Old Smitty’s boat, fighting to escape the men who’d half carried her onto the wharf, had he thought that? He’d never forget her soul-wrenching cries, begging to return to the inlet to keep searching for her father.
But it wasn’t until over a year later when he’d accompanied the Harland family to the formal coronial inquest that he heard the details of his mentor’s death. Piper delivered her verbal evidence in a wooden tone, never acknowledging his presence at the back of the courtroom. Not that he blamed her for hating him, because he’d hated himself for allowing the sight of her, so damn lovely even in her starched cop uniform, to affect him.
“But you weren’t there and because of the way things ended—” she paused, pressing her lips together, “—I couldn’t ask my best friend to come out that morning, since my brother wasn’t around.”
West shut his eyes and her words stabbed at him, tiny needles piercing his heart.
“I stayed home the night before. I didn’t go out with Ben and the guys—” he said.
She went rigid beneath him, her whole body stiffening to ironing-board straight. Looked like it was news to her.
“—but I understand why you didn’t call me, because I didn’t deserve to be your best friend.” He opened his eyes to find she’d closed hers.
Her chin dipped a fraction in acknowledgement, before she turned her head to the side again.
“Get off me,” she whispered. “Please.”
West eased up and rolled aside. Piper scuttled backward and used the bench to haul herself to her feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She stumbled to the door and the look she sent back over her shoulder hollowed him out. He’d failed as her lover, but what killed him was failing as her friend.
“Oh-god-oh-god-yeahlikethat-oh.”
Piper lay like a tomb effigy on her bed and pretended the couple in the next cabin weren’t going at it like proverbial bunny rabbits. Make that a tomb effigy with a pillow clamped over her face.
She heaved out another long-suffering sigh. God, they really were two enthusiastic love birds. But somehow she and West got through the rest of the day without snarling at each other in front of them.
Now everyone had retired to their cabins and the night settled to stillness. Still except for the slosh of waves against the hull, the odd rasping call from nocturnal kiwi digging for sandhoppers on Kahurangi Bay beach, and the sexual Olympics next door.
She’d insisted on West taking the double stateroom earlier, rather than have him curled like a prawn on the single bunk. Super illustration of the cost of being a soft touch, because on other side of The Mollymawk West drifted into blissful slumber while her lullaby—Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God—made her want to puncture her ear drums. Or take a cold shower. Or a swim.
Piper sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bunk. Swim it would be. Maybe the shock of cold water would clear her mushy brain. Ever since West blacked out on his dive she’d vacillated between the urge to kill him and bang his brains out—because she was so fucking grateful he didn’t die.
And the shock of West not being with Ben and the guys the morning her father drowned? She always assumed he’d been out partying—since his heart wasn’t broken into teeny-tiny pieces. He’d flipped her assumptions on their head with that little grenade of information. Not that it changed anything.
Piper stripped out of her pajamas and pulled on a swimsuit. So—quick swim, a run along the beach, and back to the boat for chamomile tea. By that stage the honeymooners should be sexually satisfied and fast asleep.
Piper crept into the galley and eased through the door onto the deck. A crescent moon hung suspended overhead, surrounded by the diamond-pierced velvet of the night sky. No big city lights to fade the stars into oblivion, no rumble of traffic to dilute the peace of waves meeting the sand. Just a gentle breeze scented with brine and the shifting of the hull under her bare feet.
She sucked in a deep breath, stilled when her night vision kicked in. A dark silhouette tucked into a corner drank from a bottle.
“Couldn’t sleep?” West said.
The huskiness of his voice licked sudden warmth under the small, but modest, barrier of her swimsuit. “Looks that way.”
A low chuckle in the darkness. “Honeymooners?”
“Yep.”
Easier than confessing the honeymooners were but a fraction of the reason for her restlessness. Add to the mix a dollop of sexual frustration, stir in a combination of guilt and anger, season it with her rapidly diminishing days on the island, and you had a big bowl of Piper-on-the-edge. “I’m going to t
ake a swim.”
West placed the bottle on the table beside him and stood, the glimmer of moonlight illuminating the smooth, kissable skin across his chest and shoulders, the pair of board shorts that hung low on his hips. “Think it’ll help?”
Help her stop thinking about him? Unlikely.
“Better than a sleeping pill.” Piper hustled to the end of the deck and climbed onto the ladder.
“Need a buddy, Pipe?”
“No.”
Her toes dipped into the water, and goosebumps rippled up her legs. Freezing freakin’ water—all the better to snuff out the dangerous heat swirling through her limbs.
“It’s dangerous to swim alone.”
“I’ll risk it,” she said, and dived into the water.
Swimming toward the line of foamy white breakers, Piper let the cold shock her into concentrating on nothing more than the rhythm of her strokes. Wading onto the beach, she shivered as the air knifed into her. She glanced back at The Mollymawk and long arms lazily slicing through the water.
Damn the man.
Yeah, like he wouldn’t follow. If she hadn’t wanted West’s company, she would’ve high-tailed it back to her cabin the instant she’d seen him in the shadows.
Didn’t mean she’d make it easy for him.
Piper ran for the cluster of rocks exposed by the low tide. Once around them, the next bay opened up to a long stretch of beach out of sight of The Mollymawk.
She had a good head start, but even still, his footsteps behind her came surprisingly quick. West, like his brother Del, had always been fast on his feet, beating the other island boys in a footrace as kids.
Slowing as she reached the rocks, Piper risked a glance over her shoulder. Sixty feet away jogged a tall, lean silhouette. Not in any hurry, West’s arms pumped with no visible effort. He intended to wear her down like a cat waiting for a mouse to keel over from terrified exhaustion.
Hah.
Piper put on a burst of speed, streaking past the last of the rocks, flying over the beach, splashing through the tiny waves and suddenly laughing, laughing like a loon, at how incredible it felt to run down a deserted beach at midnight.
“I can do this all night, West. You won’t wear me out,” she yelled.
“Not trying to,” his mild voice came right behind her.
“Shit!” She lost her rhythm and stumbled to a fast march. “Don’t you ever get tired of scaring the hell out of me?”
“Can’t help my panther-like reflexes.” West loped alongside her. “And I like the view from back there.”
She bet her freezing ass he did. Piper slid a hand down to her butt to check the thin nylon hadn’t ridden up too high. So far, so good.
Her fast march slowed to a brisk walk, and then a stroll. He wasn’t going to be shaken off by her power-walking. She crossed her arms over her breasts in case West’s panther-like reflexes extended to superior night vision. Her night vision uncovered cords of muscle contracting in his upper arms as he moved, a bare, wet physique, which gleamed almost white in the monochromatic landscape, and board shorts clinging to the long line of his thighs. And Lord, he smelled good. Salty, a little sweaty, and with a boatload of male pheromones on top of that. Good enough that she pinched her lower lip with her teeth to stop from leaning over and taking a bite.
“It’s good to hear you laugh, Pipe, to see you happy.” He moved closer as they walked, his arm brushing against hers.
Prickles of awareness skated along her nerve endings from the brief contact.
“I’m not happy.” Turned on a little, but definitely not happy. “I’m in a pissy girl mood, so for your own safety you should u-turn now.”
Before she jumped his bones right on the sand and shocked any stray kiwi still in the vicinity.
“Ah.” He made no move to turn away.
They kept walking and when he tried to link their hands, he laughed as she slapped his fingers away with a, “hmmph,” and a muttered, “Pissy, remember?”
“You can’t scare me off with your moods, you know. I’ve survived them all,” he said. “Besides, you’re a lot more fun now than at eighteen.”
“Fun? How am I more fun now?”
She thought of her life as it had been up until a few weeks ago. Days blurring, filled with work or squad call outs, brief outings with friends who weren’t cops, more work, raiding the shelves of the massive public library for something to do on those long nights alone, and then back to work. Sparse time in her schedule for fun.
“Well, you’re more fun to play with.”
Heat shimmered along her cheekbones and detoured south to parts that didn’t need to get any hotter. “Oh, shut up.”
He chuckled. “There’s the added challenge now of knowing you can kick my ass if I cheat.”
“So you’ll cheat to win, huh?”
“I’ll use any means necessary to win.”
Her breasts ached at the smoky tone in his voice, like he’d reached out and rolled her nipples between his fingertips.
“We’re not playing a game.”
“Then what do you call this series of steps we’ve been dancing to since you got back?” He tugged a short strand of her hair, but let go before she could flick his hand off. “I step toward you, you back off. You blindside me and I knock you off kilter. Isn’t this all a game, Pipe?”
Not to her. Not anymore.
But would she tell West her emotions had been roped into this game, where nobody could win and the best she could hope for was a painful draw?
No. Damn. Way.
“Sure.” She forced a casual laugh, but it sounded ragged and a little desperate in her ears.
West stopped on a dime and she snapped to a halt beside him, the tension between them a bungee cord. The light atmosphere, the undertone of flirtatious humor, vanished. She stepped back and a wave swirled around her ankles, her toes digging for purchase in the shifting sand.
Eyes glittering dangerously in the starlight, West closed the gap and caught her wrist, dragging her flush against him. “So, let’s play.”
Skin to skin, her brain short circuited. The only reply she uttered when his lips crushed hers was a soft moan. Nothing in the demanding pressure indicated playfulness. No teasing nibbles or caresses, no introductory this is just the appetizer kind of kiss. He kissed with full-throttled focus—a furious order for surrender. Her surrender.
Piper’s body flamed to life, from her parted lips, to her toes curled in the sand, to the dampness of her center, each vying for dominance. West’s tongue slipped into her mouth, deepening the kiss and stoking the fire higher and higher. She drowned in the taste of him—warmth, sea salt, pure heaven. Heaven mixed with the yeasty bitterness of beer.
Her last date, so many weeks ago she’d almost lost count, tasted of peppermint mouthwash when she’d kissed him goodnight. Like other men she’d gone out with he favored suits, the city nightlife, and sixty-buck bottles of wine. Yet none of those guys revved her engines as much as a shorts-wearing island man who drank beer. They didn’t challenge her in the sack, didn’t care if she only gave as much intimacy as she was comfortable with.
Bottom line—those men weren’t West.
Because West, while easy-going on the outside, would never let her get away with holding back. He wasn’t satisfied with half measures and she wanted a man to fight with her, fight for her. She wanted a man who would sometimes let her lead and at other times say, “the hell with this” and take what he wanted.
Like West took what he wanted now.
One hand threaded through her hair, his other gripped her hip, pulling her against his arousal. Piper swayed under the power of the kiss, shifting onto her toes so she could grind against the delicious length of him. The hand in her hair left to cup one butt cheek and she looped her arms around his neck. West broke the kiss long enough to growl, “Jump,” as he shifted her lower body higher. Piper jumped, her legs wrapping around his hips.
The play of muscles bunching across his shoulders temp
ted her. She inhaled the scent of sea and the faintest whisper of spicy cologne as she traced her lips over silky skin. West carried her a few strides away from the waves, dipping his fingers under the leg-line of her swimsuit. His touch whiplashed fire through her, forcing out another moan that she muffled by sinking her teeth into the column of his neck.
“Down, baby.” He breathed delicious warmth into her ear while clutching her butt with those strong, sure hands.
“Sorry, I don’t usually bite, I, ahhh—” She lost her train of thought when he nipped her earlobe, lapping the tiny hurt with his tongue.
“No, I literally mean, hop down.” His stubbled chin rubbed along her jaw, his lips curving against her cheek. “I’ve got both hands full of you and while that feels amazing, I need my hands free for other things.”
Other things.
Piper’s girly-bits liked that idea. A lot.
Unhooking her ankles, she slid down his legs, loving the rough brush of his hairs on her thighs. He claimed her mouth again as she touched the ground and her hands snaked around to grab his butt. How long had she wanted to get her hands on it? Forever. Piper dug her fingers into firm muscles and made like a limpet.
“God, I love your ass.” She tasted salt when she nipped his neck again, then trailed hot kisses up his throat.
“You’ve ogled it enough over the last few weeks.”
“Guilty.”
He caught her chin, took her lips in another knee-jellifying kiss. West lowered her onto her back, wedging himself into the juncture of her thighs. The sand, damp and cool, was forgotten. His weight covered her, the furnace heat of him warmed her, and the hard lines of his body—and, ohmigod, especially one part of his body—all conspired to momentarily distract her from the grittiness beneath her skin.
“I’ve never had sex on a beach before,” she gasped, when his hands, now free, peeled the swimsuit off her shoulders, exposing her breasts to the night air.
He paused, and even though starlight dulled the color of his eyes to a pewter grey, she couldn’t miss the desire in them.
Second Chances Boxed Set: 7 Sweet & Sexy Romances in 1 Book Page 22