Off the Hook

by Laura Drewry

  She tried to inch closer, but he smiled and pressed her back against the mattress.

  “What’s your hurry?” He chuckled, moving a little lower. “Got a date or something?”

  “I just—” Her brain stopped working the second his mouth found her breast. “Ohhh.”

  Curling her fingers through his hair, she tried to hold him there, but he wouldn’t be controlled. Instead, he slowed, taking his sweet time as he trailed his tongue from the tip of one breast to the other and then back again.

  Kate’s breath came in short, sharp gasps and then froze in her lungs when he slid his hand down her leg to her knee, then up again until she was all but vibrating, arching into his touch, silently begging for more.

  “Hold on.” His murmur had barely registered in her ears when his finger slid inside, deeper, as his mouth covered her aching breast.

  Kate’s fingers shot straight out, then fisted in his hair as she rode the heat of his touch.

  “I can’t…” she gasped. “I’m gonna—”

  His mouth was on hers that fast, hot and demanding, tormenting a desperate cry from her throat while he eased her leg up around his waist. He filled her slowly, completely, pushing her toward a place she hadn’t been in a very long time. Not since…

  “Perfect,” he murmured, pulling back, then easing inside her again. “God, it’s just like—”

  “I know!” she cried, laughing as he grinned down at her.

  Her senses swirled, dipped, and crashed with each stroke as he pushed them closer and closer to the edge. Threading his fingers through hers again, he eased her hand down to where they joined so she could touch their shared heat. Kate lifted off the mattress as he thrust into her with one final deep stroke, sending her spiraling off the edge. He held her tighter, closer, until the last wave began to ebb, then he buried his face against her neck and growled her name long and low as he crashed over with her.

  Spent, he collapsed on top of her, his heart pounding against her own, his face pressed into the pillow, while she wrapped all her limbs around him and hung on, in case he had any crazy ideas of moving.

  He didn’t. Come to that, when they’d been in Vegas together, he’d never been in any hurry to move or ease away from her, and she loved that about him. She loved the closeness, the taste of his skin after they’d exploded together, and she loved to feel him grow hard inside her again, sending her to the brink with the slightest of movements.

  Still buried deep inside her, he tucked his arms under her back and rolled them so she was on top, her cheek against his chest, and both of them panting as if they’d just sprinted a half marathon.

  Drawing lazy circles over her back, Liam twisted so he could kiss her temple. “Say it.”

  “Hmm?” she murmured, feeling more than a little sapped. “Say what?”

  “What you used to say to me every time we did that in Vegas.”

  “What? No.” Laughing, Kate used what strength she had left to try to pinch his arm. Apparently, muscle didn’t pinch.

  “A deal’s a deal, Kate.” She couldn’t see his face, but she could hear the smile in his voice. “You said if I lost the boxers you’d say anything I wanted you to.”

  “I did?” she asked. “I must have been delirious.”

  “Say it,” he repeated, this time with a gentle jab to her ribs, making her squirm. Then she squirmed some more when she realized it was making him hard again.

  “Okay, fine,” she sighed. “That was incredible. There, are you happy now?”

  “That wasn’t very sincere.”

  “No?”

  Easing herself off him, she pulled a few tissues out of the box on the side table and handed them to him while she went to the bathroom to get the garbage pail. With that taken care of, she climbed over him again, straddling his hips, then leaned over and tickled his chest with her tongue as she repeated the words again.

  “That,” she said, circling his left nipple slowly.

  “Kate.” Another growl, only this one sounded more like a warning.

  Moving right, she sucked the nipple between her teeth and flicked it with her tongue. “Was.”

  His whole body stiffened as she trailed lower, whispering, “Incredible,” as she dipped her tongue inside his belly button, making him fist both hands into the sheet.

  “Shit,” he roared. “Get my jeans—in the pocket! For the love of God, woman, hurry up!”

  He didn’t have to tell her twice. She had him suited up in record time, but when he moved to roll her over, she refused to budge.

  “What’s your hurry?” she said, lowering herself down on him inch by inch. “You got a date or something?”

  For every second of torture it was for him, it was double for Kate, but torture had never been so sweet or so freakin’ amazing, and she finally collapsed on top of him; he didn’t even try to move, just pulled the blanket up over them and held her tight in the cradle of his arms.

  It was probably a good thing Liam hadn’t taken all of Finn’s stash, or Kate might not have let him leave for the rest of the night. Hell, she didn’t even like it when he climbed out of bed a couple of hours later to go to the bathroom.

  What she did like, though, was watching his bare butt as he walked. She couldn’t see him once he went into the bathroom, but she knew what was coming and she wasn’t putting up with that kind of crap here.

  “Li—” She’d barely gotten the first syllable out when he leaned back and flicked the bathroom door shut. Grinning, Kate snuggled down under the covers. “Thank you.”

  Chapter 10

  If my uniform doesn’t get dirty, I haven’t done anything in the baseball game.

  —Rickey Henderson

  “She’s your what?” Ro roared so loud, even Jessie flinched.

  Liam lifted his mug and took a long, slow sip as he leaned back against the counter. “My ex-wife.”

  He hadn’t given Ronan any time to get comfortable, just dumped the whole story on him the second he walked in. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, it was better to do stuff like this fast.

  “Your ex-wife. And so you thought it would be a good idea to bring her here? Shit, Liam, why don’t we give Mandy a call and see if she wants to help, too? I bet between the two of them they could fuck the whole thing up for us without batting an eye.”

  “Ro,” Jessie said, using her calm negotiator’s voice. “If you’d calm down for a second, we can explain.”

  “Explain what? The fact my brother got married and divorced and never bothered telling any of us? Or the fact his ex-wife has been here over a month and nobody bothered telling me that’s who she was?”

  Even with Jessie’s mouth pinched tight, they could all tell she was trying not to laugh.

  “Okay, well, all of that,” she chortled. “But in Liam’s defense, he wanted to send Kate packing the second he realized it was her. I’m the one who insisted she stay.”

  “Are you out of your freakin’ mind, Jessie?”

  “Clearly,” she snapped, all signs of laughter gone. “Because no one in her right mind would stay here and put up with the amount of bullshit you guys keep slinging at me. So sit down, shut up, and listen.”

  Liam could easily hide his grin behind his mug, but Finn had to scramble away from the table and stick his head in the cupboard to hide his. Nobody ever yelled at Ronan the way Jessie did. It wasn’t that Liam or Finn was afraid of him; it was usually just easier to tell him to fuck off and walk away. Very few things got settled that way, but it sure saved a lot of fights.

  When Finn finally got himself under control, he pulled two mugs out of the cupboard, filled them both, and handed one to Ro, who’d reluctantly flopped down on one of the chairs.

  Liam let Jessie do most of the talking, only filling in bits of information when prompted. And by the time she’d finished, Ro was no longer the hulking mass of anger he’d been when it all started. Instead, he was sitting back in his chair, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, with his coffee mug resting a
gainst his belly as he nodded slowly.

  To hear Jessie tell it, the Buoys wouldn’t be in half the shape it was if it hadn’t been for Kate, and that wasn’t far wrong, because she really had worked her ass off for them.

  And what a cute ass it was. For the better part of the last week, Liam had spent his nights getting reacquainted with it and every other part of her, and he’d been handsomely rewarded for his time. Hell, it wasn’t just nights he’d spent with Kate—they took every moment they could with each other. Even this morning in the sweatbox, he’d—

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Ronan choked as he suddenly sat up, his sharp gaze narrowed right in on Liam.

  “What?” Liam asked, blinking himself back to the conversation at hand and away from that cute little ass he’d had in his hands a few hours earlier.

  “Please tell me you’re not stupid enough to hook up with her again.”

  To Finn’s credit, he didn’t actually rat Liam out, but he didn’t even try to stop the snort that ripped out of him.

  Liam didn’t care what any of them said. Being with Kate again was the best thing that had happened to him since…well, since being with her the first time. It didn’t matter that there were things they avoided talking about; all that mattered was the way it felt having her with him, beside him, under him.

  Or even better—on top of him.

  “So where is she anyway?” Ro asked. “Working out what she’s going to do with her commission once her boss buys this place?”

  A streak of red shot across Liam’s vision so fast it was as if something had exploded in his retina.

  “Go fu—”

  “Whoa.” Kate’s voice froze the rest of his words on his tongue. “That doesn’t sound like it’s going to be something you should say in front of ladies.”

  If Liam didn’t already love her, watching her glide into the kitchen and head straight to Ronan with her hand out would have done it.

  Decked out in a filthy pair of gray sweatpants and an old, ratty blue T-shirt, with her long hair pulled back in a messy knot and a couple of dark smudges across her forehead, she looked even better than she did the day she arrived.

  But, holy hell, did she stink.

  “You must be Ronan,” she said. “I’m Kate; it’s nice to meet you.” She didn’t give him time to say anything, and when he made to stand up to shake her hand, she waved him down. “I’m guessing by now you’ve heard the whole sordid story about your brother and me, yes?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  Kate’s eyes widened as she chuckled uneasily. “Believe me, I think we’d both like to say it wasn’t quite as crazy as it sounds, but…yeah.”

  Without even looking, she reached over, tugged Liam’s coffee mug from his hand, and took a long sip, wiggling her free hand back and forth until she returned the mug.

  “Oh, and by the way,” she said as she swiped her forearm over her mouth, “I don’t work on commission, so even though it would have been much more fun planning a retail retreat, in case you can’t tell, I’ve been out in the garden all morning, literally up to my elbows in manure.”

  “Oh, we can tell.” Liam snickered.

  “Watch it,” she warned. “Or I’ll make you help. Jessie gave me the rundown on what you guys usually plant, but I made the executive decision to increase the size of the plot a little, because Liv’s going to need a big garden to work with.”

  Ro’s mouth opened slightly, then closed hard, his eyes getting wider and wider as he watched Kate lean against the counter next to Liam, as if she was as big a part of the Buoys as any of them.

  And she was. At least to Liam.

  He shoved that thought down as deep as he could, then lifted his mug again, not to hide his grin this time but to hide his frown.

  “Anyway,” Jessie muttered, rolling her eyes over a small smile, “you’ll be happy to know, Ro, that the only big job left to do is the landscaping. I don’t think Jimmy cut the grass or weed-whacked since he shut this place down, and he clearly didn’t spend a single minute working on the path or trails.”

  “That’s it?” It seemed to take Ro a second to blink away from Kate.

  “Well, no,” Jessie said. “We still need to give everything another once-over before we open, but the yard work is the only big thing left.”

  “What about the plumbing? The sink in Orange has been leaking since—”

  “Done.”

  “The dock? Those chains were—”

  “Done.”

  Ro continued to spout off things and Jessie continued to respond the same way, until Finn tossed the clipboard with the torn-and-tattered list at him.

  “It’s done,” Finn snapped. “All of it.”

  They all watched as Ro’s eyes moved slowly over each handwritten line, squinting around the scrawls and strike-outs as he tried to make it all out. Then he whistled quietly and lifted his mug in salute.

  “Well, shit,” he said, finally smiling. “I guess that means I can spend my three days here out on the water, then, eh?”

  “Yeah, right,” Jessie snorted. “There’s still stuff to do, so finish your coffee and suit up.”

  “That reminds me,” Kate said. “The showerhead in my cabin started dripping this morning. I tried to tighten it but it didn’t help, so if one of you has a second, would you mind having a look at it? Just watch the bucket—I’m trying to catch as much of the water as I can to use on the garden.”

  Liam cleared his throat quietly, trying to cover up his smirk. It was Kate’s fault the thing was leaking; she was the one who insisted there was enough room in the shower for both of them. There wasn’t, but neither of them cared, not even after Liam bashed his head on the damn thing twice.

  To see her standing there now, though, innocent as light, no one else in the kitchen would have guessed.

  Once they’d finished their coffee, Kate went back to the garden while Jessie took the boys into the office and tried to explain the new reservations system to them. Unlike before, when Jessie did it all by hand, everything was online, including payment options. She could still add reservations manually if need be, but the whole thing looked fairly user-friendly, and with Olivia moving in next week, she could be their tech support if anything went sideways.

  The first two weeks of June were booked, and spots were filling up in July and August, which was great, but if they didn’t fill up the whole of June, none of the rest would matter. They needed every single spot filled and paid for if they were going to get anywhere close to what they needed.

  As they sat there watching, another reservation popped up in the admin side of the system: half of the third week of June booked.

  “Hell yeah!” Finn cried. “Now we’re cookin’.”

  Liam wanted to be excited, too, but he couldn’t be. Not yet. Two months from now, if they were all huddled around that computer with their name still on the deed, then he’d be excited. Until then, he was going to keep trying to come up with ways to bring in more cash.

  There was one option, something he hadn’t told any of them about yet, but going that route brought a whole slew of other problems with it.

  They spent most of the afternoon in the bar, going over the business end of the whole operation, from schedules to the boat situation to where they might be able to cut expenses. With the number of people they had booked in at the start of the season, they were going to need both boats in the water every day, which meant they were screwed if something went sideways with either one.

  It was a chance they’d have to take, though, and all they could do was hope that regular daily maintenance would keep both boats in top running condition.

  Finn leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over the top of his head. “So if we scrap hiring a dockhand, that’ll free up those wages plus save a little on what it would cost to feed that person, and then Liam and I’ll just have to do that job.”

  Jessie’s head was already shaking. “You can’t be out on the boats all day, come back, clean and packa
ge the fish, and then do maintenance on the boats; that’s crazy. When are you supposed to sleep?”

  Finn turned to Liam and they both shrugged.

  “Season ends in mid-September.”

  “That’s not funny,” she said. “I can work the fish shack. I mean, I’m not as good as Finn—”

  “Who is?” Ro snorted.

  “—but I can clean and fillet better than most people.”

  “That’s true.” Finn nodded. “But then we’ll need someone up here in the lodge while you’re in the shack.”

  “What about Kate? She has a degree in hotel management. I could train her up in no time, and if she has any questions, she just needs to call me on the radio.”

  She lifted her gaze to Finn first, then to Ronan, before they all turned to Liam. He knew what they wanted him to say, but he couldn’t, because he didn’t know.

  “What?” Ronan asked, swiveling on his stool. “You don’t think Kate can do it?”

  “No, I’m sure she can do anything you throw at her.”

  “Then what? Is the shine wearing off already? You ready for her to leave?”

  Liam ground his teeth together for a second, then cocked his jaw to the side. Punching Ro wouldn’t help, but it might wipe that freakin’ smirk off his face for a while.

  As if he could feel it coming, Finn stepped away from the bar and moved a little closer to Liam. “She works for Foster, remember?”

  “Thanks, dipshit, I’m aware of that. But I thought she and Liam were—” Ro stopped, dragged his impatient gaze to Liam. “Aren’t you?”

  Liam bobbed his head slowly from side to side. “It’s complicated.”

  “So uncomplicate it for me.”

  “What do you want me to say?” Liam asked, annoyed not just at Ronan but at himself.

  Neither he nor Kate had come out and said anything about the nights he’d spent in her cabin, but it wasn’t a huge secret, either. Everything from the way she helped herself to his coffee to the dwindling box of supplies in Finn’s drawer gave evidence of what was going on.