Passionate Kisses 2 Boxed Set: Love in Bloom

by Magda Alexander

  “You’re early.”

  The voice came from behind her, and she turned, startled. He wore the same shorts and polo shirt as earlier, but his expression was relaxed, not the tight, professional smile he’d had around Carl.

  “Hi,” she said, suddenly shy.

  He reached over and took the tote bag from her shoulder, slipping it over his own. He carried a rolled-up blanket under his other arm. For a moment she wondered if he’d kiss her hello, but he just stood there with a grin. “Hi yourself.” His gaze traveled downward, taking in her thin, sleeveless green dress. It matched her eyes, though she doubted he could see that in the darkness.

  Unless he got closer to her. A lot closer.

  “Thought maybe you’d change your mind,” he said.

  “I did,” she said as they began to walk. “About ten times.”

  “Only ten?”

  She glanced over and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. How did she explain that after he’d asked her to meet him there, she’d thought and rethought her decision? That she’d gone home, taken a long shower, had dinner with Dolly, and finally spilled her guts to her aunt?

  And that Dolly had not only given her full approval, but reminded her that opportunities were meant to be taken, and the heart was meant to be followed.

  Pearl wondered exactly where her heart might take her. Around Jace, she couldn’t guess.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

  They walked on in silence, past the couple on the bench and the woman doing yoga, until they reached a long sweep of sand protected on one side by a swath of black rocks. The rocks stretched from the tall grasses above the beach all the way into the water. During the day, at low tide, people waded out to the end of them looking for sharks’ teeth and shells.

  Jace set down the tote bag and spread the blanket wide. He held out his hand, and Pearl stared. Am I supposed to take it? Then with a flush she realized he was looking at the bottle of merlot still clutched in her fingers. Fighting for composure, she handed it over, along with a corkscrew. With a smooth pop, the cork came out, and a minute later he handed her a full glass.

  “Cheers.” He clinked his glass to hers.

  “Cheers.” Their eyes met over the rims of the glasses, and sparks crackled in the quiet night air.

  “Want to sit?” he asked.

  “Sure.” She sank to the ground, wondering how close he’d get. Would he sit pressed against her? Or on the far side of the blanket, which now seemed too large?

  He ended up about a foot away from her, legs stretched out to the water.

  “Carl and I didn’t get a chance to see the diner,” he said without preamble. “We stopped by after we saw you, thought maybe Dolly would still be there.”

  She choked on her wine. “We’re talking business?”

  “No. But I knew you were wondering. You’re probably second-guessing everything I’m doing down here.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  He took a long sip. “No. Not entirely.” His fingers pressed the sand beside him into a firm circle, into which he settled his glass. “But I want you to know that this -” He motioned to her, to him, to the space between them. “Whatever this is, and wherever this goes, it doesn’t have anything to do with Evans or the diner. I’m here tonight because I wanted to see you. Without anyone else around.”

  Then he leaned across the blanket and kissed her. One hand went to her face, pushing her hair away from her cheek. The other went to her hip, curving around her and pulling her toward him with just enough possessiveness that a sound broke from the back of her throat. Her wine glass fell from her hand.

  His tongue teased her lips open, and before she knew it she was inching across the blanket. Closer. I want - I need - to be closer to him. Both his hands went to the small of her back, then slipped down to cup her ass, until with one strong, sure movement he’d pulled her into him.

  Her fingers fluttered against his arms, hard as steel. Good God, there is nothing halfway or lukewarm or uncertain about this man. His mouth went to her jawline, her neck, her ear, where his breath turned hot. “You are so sexy,” he whispered, and she almost came apart. “So beautiful.” He pulled back a little so he could look her in the eye. “Still as feisty as high school, too.”

  She narrowed her gaze. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “No, there isn’t,” he agreed.

  A pair of seagulls squawked above them, shattering the silence. Jace let her go and leaned back on one elbow. “I gotta tell you, I always felt kind of bad about what happened the night before I left.”

  Her face flushed in the dark. “I didn’t.”

  “It wasn’t the most gentlemanly thing to do.”

  “Maybe not.” But it was damn hot.

  “I’m sorry I never called afterwards. Or texted, or emailed, or anything.” He lay back and folded both arms under his head. “I’m kind of surprised you even gave me the time of day when I came back here.” He stared at the stars. “I was kind of messed up in high school.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  He rolled onto one side and looked at her. “I don’t know. You always seemed like you had it together. Weren’t you like top of your class or something?”

  “Top ten.” She might have been the top, except for the long shifts she worked to help out Dolly and Bill. “That’s just a number, anyway. Grades don’t make up a person.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But they’re part of it. I figured you’d be on the first plane out of here, headed for Harvard or Yale or someplace like that.”

  She stared across the dark water. Waves lapped the shore, the sound rhythmic and familiar. “You and everyone else.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  After a few minutes, she shrugged. “Like I said last night, I couldn’t leave the diner. I mean, they didn’t ask me to stay; it wasn’t like that. I could’ve gone anywhere and Dolly and Bill would’ve supported me.”

  “So…” He ran the back of his hand along her bare arm.

  “I felt like I owed them.” She crossed her legs. “Pass me that bottle, would you?” If they were going to have this conversation, she needed a little more liquid courage.

  He filled her glass, then topped off his own.

  “My mom basically took off when I was five. Dolly is my mom’s sister. She and Bill took me in. I don’t even know who my father is.”

  His brows lifted. “Didn’t know that.”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “It kind of is. Most people around here had the happy family growing up. At least the way I saw it. Most people had parents who cared, who were around, even if they were divorced.”

  “Not everyone.”

  He nodded. “Not everyone.”

  She drank deeply. “Everyone gets dealt a crappy hand at some point. It’s the way we handle it that turns us into the people we are.”

  He cracked the knuckles of one hand. “You ever hear from your mom again? See her?”

  Pearl shook her head. “She didn’t want to have any contact with me. Handed me over to Dolly the day after she was arrested for possession, and that was it. I have no idea where she is. Probably drugged up or passed out in a bar, if she’s even still alive.”

  “Shit, Pearl.” Something in Jace’s expression changed, went soft and open. “Would never have guessed it was something like that.”

  “Like I said, it’s okay. I’ve known what my mom was about since I was a kid. Dolly was the best thing that could’ve happened to me.”

  He look back out at the water. “You know, I used to think I wouldn’t mind having Dolly as a mom. All those times Toby and Bryce and I wound up in the diner late at night, she was always there. Always taking care of us, fussing over us like we were her own kids.”

  “That’s my aunt.”

  He rested his head on his arms again. “It isn’t personal,” he said after a minute. “Bringing Evans down here to meet her. And me working on the sale. I mean -”

  “You mea
n you don’t want it to be personal,” Pearl said, her throat tight. “You mean it’s just a business deal. Just a client and just a property.”

  He sat up, and she thought for a split second she saw tears in his eyes. He cleared his throat. “I know it’s not, Pearl. I know it seems like I’m a louse for doing this, but…it’s complicated. Hard to explain.”

  “Try me.”

  He looked at her, those blue, blue eyes catching her off-guard with their intensity. “It isn’t a really pretty story.”

  “I told you about my mom.”

  He stared at the sand, the sea, the sky. Finally his gaze came back to her. “My home life was shitty. My dad beat my mom, beat me, beat the wall, the dog, whatever he could get his hands on. He was smart and a good worker when he could hold down a job, but mostly he was a drinker. A heavy one. And a mean one.”

  Pearl clutched the stem of her wine glass.

  “I couldn’t wait to get out of his house. I swore I’d never be like him. I was going to leave Venice and never look back. I’d find a way to go to school, get a job, and find an apartment. I wouldn’t throw away my life the way he did, and I’d be a thousand times better than he ever was.”

  “I’d say you are,” she said softly. “I’d say you’ve done all of that.”

  He clasped his hands around one knee. The seagulls returned, swooping low over their heads. “It means something to me,” he said after a while. “That Marshall trusted me to be a part of this deal. I know he did it partly because I grew up here, but I don’t think that’s the only reason. I hope it’s not, anyway.”

  She finished her wine and set the glass aside. As much as she didn’t want to dwell in the past, circumstances sometimes made that tough to do. A breeze lifted the hair from her neck, and she closed her eyes, breathing in the salt air. Wish it could be easier, the waves seemed to echo as they fell on the sand.

  “Hey,” Jace said after a minute.

  Pearl opened her eyes as he pointed at the horizon.

  “Falling star,” he said.

  She squinted. “Really?”

  “Yeah. There. Another one. See it that time?”

  “No.”

  He wriggled across the blanket and took her chin in his hand, turning her head ever so gently to the right. He pointed again, a little higher this time. “Look,” he whispered in her ear.

  Shivers went clear through her.

  “Think of a wish to make.”

  But she didn’t need to. The only thing Pearl might have wished for happened in the next moment, when Jace stopped looking at the stars and turned to kiss her.

  Chapter Seven

  She tasted like wine and toothpaste. Jace tried to take it slow, to let his tongue wind around Pearl’s as his hands moved along her hips, but it was tough to hold back when all he wanted was to tear off her dress and see if the skin below her navel tasted the same as the skin along the curve of her neck.

  Her fingers threaded through his hair, pulling him closer. She was more aggressive than the previous night, certainly more aggressive than her sixteen-year-old self, and for a fleeting moment he wondered jealously who else she might have been with in the years between that kiss and this one. Her head fell back, her throat exposed, and he growled as he made his way from her chin to the hollow just below it. He nibbled, loving the way she moved under him.

  “You taste good,” he murmured into the soft skin of her exposed collarbone. He ran a finger under the strap of her dress, filmy green and not leaving much to the imagination.

  “You feel good,” she said as she ran her hands over his upper arms. “I don’t remember you being this - this built back in high school. A girl could definitely get used to being held by these arms.”

  His chest puffed up a little at the compliment and he drew her close, pulling her into his lap until her legs sneaked around his waist. Her dress hitched up to her knees, and he ran his fingers up her bare legs until she shivered. Behind them, the waves rolled closer.

  She took his face in her hands and bent close, nibbling his bottom lip. The effect turned him to iron. Her tongue caressed him, moving inside his mouth at the same time she rocked against him. Jace gripped her bare thighs, then slid his hands around to her ass, where they found a tiny strip of lacy thong and not much else. Oh, hell. He almost lost it right then. It was all he could do not to flip her onto her back and bury himself inside her. Instead, he drew in a long breath and melted against her. His hips moved in rhythm with hers, matching the motion as his fingers pressed into the oh-so-smooth, soft flesh of her bottom. She didn’t break the kiss. Neither did he, though part of him wanted to watch her expression.

  His groin tightened with the beginning of an orgasm, and he pulled away, panting. “You gotta slow down,” he whispered. “You’re gonna make me come.”

  She leaned back and crooked a brow. “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “No.” He ran the back of his hand down her cheek, loving the tint, the way her chest rose and fell with pleasure. “I just want to take my time with you.” Hell yeah, he wanted to make love to Pearl DeVane, but he wanted to make the moment last. He wanted to peel off her clothes and cradle the length of her naked body, not jet off into his boxers like a teenage kid.

  Reluctantly, he rearranged her dress into place and then leaned back on both palms. After a moment she slid off his lap, though she left one leg languidly dangling over his. Her hair caught in her mouth as she looked at him, her lips still full and pink from his kisses. “I had a crush on you the first time I saw you,” she said. “I was a freshman, and you were coming out of the locker room right before last period. You and a whole bunch of other junior guys.”

  “No shit? I wasn’t sure you even knew who I was.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Please. You and Toby and Bryce? You were like the Three Musketeers of Venice High. Everyone knew who you were. When you kissed me that night in the diner, I thought I was dreaming.”

  “I wish we’d had more time to get to know each other back then.” He laced his fingers through hers.

  “We have time now.”

  He nodded. “I’m staying at the Days Inn. Want to come up for a drink?”

  She took a long few seconds to answer, and he wondered if he’d misread her cues.

  “A drink would be nice,” she finally said, and his heart settled back into a normal rhythm. But then his cell phone buzzed in his pocket.

  He was about to press Ignore when he saw the caller. “Damn. Give me a minute?”

  She nodded, and he clambered to his feet and walked a few steps away. “McClintock.”

  “Hey, buddy, how’s it going?”

  Jace wasn’t sure he qualified as Carl Evans’ buddy, but he wasn’t about to correct anyone who had the kind of power that mega-millionaire did. “It’s going.”

  “Stopped by your hotel room before I headed back to the city.”

  Shit. Had Jace missed a meeting? “I’m sorry, I didn’t know -”

  “Nah, no worries. Just thought I’d run into you. I forgot you’re from around here. Probably catching up with some friends tonight, eh?”

  “Something like that.” Why did he feel suddenly guilty? He glanced over his shoulder at Pearl. She’d crossed her feet at the ankles and was looking past him at the water.

  “I’ve got a situation I have to deal with up in Atlantic City,” Evans went on. “Just got a call. I’ve got a project up there that’s run into some snags.”

  “Oh.” Jace’s throat went dry. Carl Evans didn’t like snags; Marshall had made that clear when the agency first took him on as a client.

  Do whatever it takes to make this deal happen. On time.

  “Probably won’t be back down here until next week. So you can move things ahead with the diner, yes?”

  Oh, sure. Just like that, with a snap of the fingers. “Of course,” he said. He shoved one hand into his pocket. This time, he didn’t look back at Pearl; he didn’t need any more guilt eating away at him.

  Business an
d pleasure, business and pleasure, the waves seemed to sing. Jace thought he had it under control, the complicated puzzle of the diner sale being inextricably linked to the one woman he couldn’t stop thinking about. Dolly’s Diner and Pearl. The sale and his heart. He’d thought he could keep them separate.

  Yeah, right.

  “Great,” Evans said. “See you next week. Oh, and if you get her to sign the papers before I get back down here, just have Marshall fax them to me. He knows where I stay.”

  “Will do.” Jace hung up.

  “Everything okay?” Pearl asked. The seagulls had returned, swooping and squawking above them.

  Scavengers, Jace thought. Looking for scraps wherever they can find them. “Everything’s okay,” he said, his voice tight, but when he turned around, he saw that Pearl had packed up the wine and the glasses and his blanket.

  “Sounded like a business call,” she said. She held out the rolled-up blanket. “I keep forgetting that’s why you’re here.”

  “Pearl, wait.”

  She tossed the blanket to him. “I should probably get home, anyway. It’s tough on Dolly, being alone at night.” She slipped on her sandals and headed up the beach. Her next words came over her shoulder, light on the breeze and almost lost in the sound of the waves. “Maybe this wasn’t meant to be.”

  Chapter Eight

  Pearl offered to work the breakfast shift the following day, in part because she couldn’t sleep and in part because she wanted to keep an eye on the diner. She and Jace hadn’t said more than a dozen words to each other after his phone call on the beach the night before. Maybe she’d overreacted. Maybe she hadn’t. But as they returned to their cars, he hadn’t said anything to reassure her either way.

  Oh, his kisses. Oh, his hands on her bare skin. But he wasn’t there in Venice only to see her, and those were the words that kept returning to her head. A piece of her refused to trust him when he said they had nothing to do with this. Dolly and the diner and Pearl and Jace were unquestionably linked. She’d be a fool to think otherwise.

  “You know, you’ve cleaned that table three times,” Dolly said as the diner clock beeped ten. She sat at the counter, coffee mug in front of her. The breakfast crowd had disappeared, and they were alone except for the cook, who’d gone out back for his smoke break.