Wicked: Whispering Cove, Book 3

by Nikki Duncan

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Everyone remotely connected to Whispering Cove had heard about Hauk’s wife washing ashore with a note in her pocket detailing her life’s regrets. She’d never gotten the escape she wanted, but she’d compounded her impact by voicing her regrets at having married Hauk right out of school and having their daughter.

  “She was wrong, Hauk.”

  “And so are you. A good life balanced with family and ambitions are attainable here.” Hauk walked away and left Braydon with the thought that Hauk had accepted good. Then again, Braydon reluctantly admitted to himself, his perception of a Whispering Cove life, of Hauk, could be skewed.

  Several of their classmates seemed perfectly happy with the lives they’d created in Whispering Cove. Many were as successful in different careers as Braydon was in his. So what was his hang-up?

  Simple. It was fear. Fear of regretting life choices like his parents had.

  Braydon’s spine itched with the uncomfortable truth. He washed it away with a long draw of his beer. He wasn’t thinking about what he was afraid of—Danica, a taunting voice in his head whispered.

  No. He couldn’t possibly be afraid of Danica Kent or the impossible idea of them having a real relationship.

  “Does Dad know you’re taking me on a house call?”

  “Are you kidding?” Danica wrapped her arm around Sophie Michaelsen’s shoulders and pulled her close. “This is part of our plan. His to see you succeed. Mine to have you working with me one day.”

  Sophie’s reddish brown, curly ponytail dipped and swayed as she angled her head from side-to-side. “Would you really want me to work with you?”

  Vulnerability hazed the young girl’s voice as her eyes swam with doubt. Only Hauk’s love had been a certainty in Sophie’s life, because as much as she struggled to appear unaffected by her mother’s suicide, it had blown a hole of insecurity into the girl’s heart. A hole Danica wanted to see healed.

  Danica stopped on the lower step leading to the porch and turned Sophie to face her straight on. “I would love to work with you one day. You have a gentle touch. You care about people and want to help in any way you can.”

  “You think I’d be a good nurse?”

  “Yes. Or a doctor.”

  “No. Medical school is too expensive.” Sophie dropped her chin. “Dad couldn’t afford it.”

  Danica lifted Sophie’s chin. “There are scholarships, grants and financial aid. If medical school is what you decide you want, your dad will find a way to make it happen.” Even if I pay part of the way.

  She couldn’t watch another dream wither. “Now, let’s go check on Byron.”

  Like everyone did when visiting Byron, Danica rapped once on the screen door frame before going inside. “Byron,” she called, “I brought my new physician’s assistant.”

  A rapid shuffling, clinking bottles and a muffled curse came from the kitchen at the back of the house. “Back here, chickadee.”

  Suspicion narrowed Danica’s eyes at the weakness compromising Byron’s words. She and Sophie walked through the cheerful home filled with family photos and ivory doilies to match the window sheers. She’d felt at home her first visit, and the feeling grew with each successive one. Her grandparents were gone, but getting to know Byron and Ruth had filled the missing gap.

  “Do me a favor.” Danica leaned close to Sophie and whispered, “When we get in there, be a nosy kid. I want to know what he’s up to back there.”

  Sophie smiled a mischievous smile that said she knew just what to look for—she did live over a bar after all—and followed.

  Panting and bracing his forearms on the table, Byron lifted a gnarled hand in a wave. His arm shook to his shoulder before he dropped the limb back on the table. “That’s a might lovely PA you’ve gone and hired, Dr. Dani.”

  “Yes.” Danica winked at Sophie.

  While Danica set to taking Byron’s vitals, Sophie opened a few cabinets before pulling out an open bottle of rum and a half full drink glass.

  “Nosy kids.” Byron feigned shock. “No respect for boundaries no more.”

  Fondness for Sophie lightened his tone so no one took his complaining seriously. The grizzled man loved the young girl like she was his own, even if he didn’t say it. Danica had gotten the impression he felt the same way for most everyone in his town.

  “She’s a tremendous help and you shouldn’t be drinking until we find out what’s going on. How are you feeling?”

  “Bullshit.” His cheeks reddened and he looked sheepishly at Sophie. “Sorry, chickadee. I feel old,” he shot at Danica.

  “I’ve heard it before,” Sophie said.

  “You aren’t as young as your grandson. Stop trying to act as if you are.” Danica smiled. “Where’s Ruth?”

  “Quilting group.”

  “She’s a busy woman.”

  “Keeps her from naggin’ at me.”

  “Well.” Danica pointed at the rum. “Maybe if she nagged you more you’d stop overdoing it. And stop sneaking around with the alcohol.”

  “You’re wasting your breath.” Braydon’s voice—warm and sexy—swept across her like his caresses from the night before.

  Sophie’s mouth gaped as her ten-year-old heart no doubt slammed against her ribs with an excited crush. It was a feeling Danica remembered well, because her heart still leapt with excitement when Braydon Mitchell walked in the room. Just as it had all those years ago when she’d first noticed him.

  “Granddad’s never been one to follow expectations.”

  “Unlike his grandson, whose picture could replace Webster’s definition of predictable.” Danica’s jaw clenched. She shook off the past and entered notes into Byron’s chart in her iPad.

  “Look in the mirror for predictability, Doc.” Braydon leaned against the counter beside Sophie. His long and lean fingers slid back and forth at the fold of his elbow. Stroking. Gliding.

  Danica’s skin heated. “You know nothing about me.”

  “Really?” His grin lifted his eyebrows, scrunching up the cut on his forehead. “Is that an argument you think you’ll win?”

  Braydon winked at Sophie, and the girl’s face turned to mush. He didn’t even realize what he was doing, which only made it worse.

  “Sophie.” Danica addressed the girl and gathered her stuff. “Let’s go.” She patted Byron on the shoulder. “You need to slow down and listen to Ruth’s nagging. I’m tired of seeing my favorite patients in the hospital.”

  “So that’s your answer.” Braydon trailed her down the hall toward the living room.

  “Sophie, would you wait on the porch for me please?”

  “Sure.” The curl of her lips promised she’d be listening from outside.

  With the impressionable ears outside, Danica moved closer to Braydon and lowered her voice. “If you don’t want to be called out for leaving a woman’s bed while she sleeps, then perhaps you should come up with a less clichéd habit.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You started whatever was going on between us. I ended it. Then you came to me and took it further. I’m ending it again.” She spun on her heel and headed for the door.

  Braydon grabbed her elbow and pulled her back around.

  Her skin sizzled beneath his hand. Damn if the angry heat didn’t morph into a warm desire and spread through her.

  “I…” His gaze lanced into hers, reading her as clearly as an x-ray. Dreams granted through touches and kisses tangoed across his green eyes. A blink broke his hypnotic stare. “Is Granddad going to be okay?”

  “He’s too stubborn to not be.” She didn’t want to say Byron was faking, but beyond arthritis, she could find nothing to support his symptoms.

  She stepped back again and headed to the door. He stopped her again. “Could we…?”

  She freed her elbow from his grasp and shook her head. “I have to go. Hauk is expecting us.”

  Danica left before he could stop her again. Before he could pull her in with his gaze
again. Before she could give in to the desire to taste him again.

  The boy she’d loved had been compelling. As a man he was nearly irresistible. Dangerous.

  Hauk is expecting us.

  Braydon ground his teeth and paced the length of wraparound porch he’d relaxed on the day before. Relaxation wasn’t happening this evening. She had called him out for walking but refused to see she’d done the same. Only she stepped too far.

  Danica rounded the same corner she’d taken last night to approach him, only her steps weren’t rushed by fear of concussed complications. This evening her feet dragged as if she lacked the strength to lift them fully.

  “Danica? You okay?”

  Her head jerked up. Shadows darkened her eyes. From exhaustion or the light, he wasn’t sure which.

  “Why are you here, Braydon?”

  “You…”

  “Is Byron okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there a medical emergency?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Go away.” Some of her spunk returned, but it was only evident in her command. Her feet still dragged as she turned toward the door.

  He started to indulge her, even spun on his heel to go the way he’d come. The give-it-to-me glaring green flyer he’d dropped on a chair caught his eye. He grabbed it and crossed the distance to her.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  She stepped around him and reached for the door. He slapped his palm against the frame.

  “Braydon, I’m not in the mood for you.”

  “Too bad.” He shoved the flyer at her. “I want an answer.”

  She glanced at the paper and then back at him. “Sure. Clearly that’s provided you with some entertainment, but don’t expect me to answer it.”

  “What?”

  She pushed the paper back at him. The bold headline drew his gaze and had him grinding his teeth again. She seemed to drive him to the habit often.

  Single? Seeking life mate?

  His pulse points pumped. “You give me shit for not staying all night. What makes you so damn righteous?”

  Danica’s mouth and eyes gaped for only a moment before she shook her head. “I’ve had a shitty afternoon. I don’t know what you’re carrying on about.”

  “I’m talking about this ludicrous ad.”

  “And I’m not in the mood to attempt to care.” She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Now back off and leave me alone.”

  She shoved against his chest and opened the door.

  “No.” Thrumming blood crashed through his skull like white-capped waves beating at a boat’s hull. Reason was obliterated. Braydon followed her into the kitchen he hadn’t taken much notice of the night before and, grabbing Danica’s belt at the small of her back, halted her retreat.

  She wriggled free and spun on him. He edged her toward the butcher block island.

  “I’m not interested in a life mate, Dr. Kent. But I’ll take the advertised physical.” His cock lengthened as images of her hands exploring his body leapt into his mind.

  Pinning her with his hands gripping the counter at her hips, he leaned in until his chest almost brushed hers. Until his dick almost rested against her stomach. Until his lips almost claimed hers. “I should walk away, stay away, but damn if you don’t reel me back in.”

  “I can recommend a therapist.”

  “Screw a therapist.” He closed the distance and took her mouth with his.

  Danica didn’t resist as he’d expected. No. She pushed to her tiptoes. Teasing. Taunting. She rubbed against him, raising a leg between his.

  Her tongue tangled with his while she continued lifting her leg, gliding her smooth skin up his thighs. The legs of his shorts bunched up. She moved her hips, pushing herself against him before retreating. The slow move massaged his balls and the sensitive skin beyond.

  He pulled her shirt over her head and then pulled on his own, resisting the urge to bend his knees and sink more heavily onto her massaging leg.

  “Damn, you feel good.” Lust turned his voice guttural, telling him he was already nearing the plank’s ledge. The drop would be steep, but he was going to enjoy the walk.

  He popped the clasp on her bra and captured her breasts in his palms. Perfect handfuls with her nipples shouting Ahoy there matey, come aboard, his inner pirate awakened. He could plunder or seduce. Or a little of both.

  Braydon stepped back, tossed Danica over his shoulder, and carted her upstairs to her widow’s peak.

  Again expecting arguments, he was surprised when she instead spent the trip exploring his back and dipping her fingers inside the drawstring waist of his shorts. Just inside her bedroom, she pulled the string and sent his trunks tumbling to the floor.

  Stepping free before they tripped him, Braydon continued toward the doors leading outside.

  “I’m going to make you scream from your perch above town, Danica.” He sat her on her feet and knelt before her. “When you step out here, you will think of me.”

  He eased her shorts and lace thong down her lean legs. “You’ll remember the feel of my mouth pleasuring you as you grip the rail for balance.”

  Power pulsed along his spine and set his scalp to tingling. Gripping her pelvis gently, he walked forward on his knees and nudged her to the rail. “Grip it.”

  She did.

  He kissed her stomach just beside her belly button where he knew her to be ticklish. “Brace yourself.”

  Trailing the tip of his tongue over her dancing skin, he eased lower.

  With the boat-dotted bay at her back and the evening bustle of town reaching around from the front of the house, Danica raised her face to the sky and followed his commands.

  “Spread your legs for me.” His thumbs stroked back and forth at the edges of her neatly trimmed mound. He wetted his lips in anticipation.

  She rolled her hips as she spread her legs and bent her knees.

  His cock twitched with the excitement of her silent surrender. She was everything he’d expected. And nothing. Predictable and surprising. Reserved and wanton. She enticed him when the qualities in other women sent him running.

  Positioned perfectly for her pleasure, for his own, she glanced down. Desire dilated her gaze. Her musky arousal floated on the air in a gentle glissade. A rumble rose from his gut, vibrating in his chest, and his balls tightened.

  His hips rocked forward, eager to thrust, to fill her, to absorb the thrill of her hot, wet pussy wrapping around him. Squeezing. Milking.

  Not certain how long he would survive the assault of her arousal on his senses, he swiped his tongue along her swollen lips and captured her weeping moisture. He thumbed her clit in time with his probing tongue. Her knuckles whitened on the rail. Her legs shook.

  Vibrating with her mounting orgasm, she groaned.

  His body bellowed for completion, but he was going to watch her go over. He was going to awaken her while the town wrapped up the day.

  He licked and kissed.

  She gasped and squirmed.

  He probed.

  She writhed.

  A boat horn called home and a seagull squawked near the lapping shore.

  Braydon flicked Danica’s clit.

  Her control shattered. Her head dropped back and her scream joined the sunset’s concert.

  Then, before he’d swallowed the last of her orgasm, she dropped to her knees and pushed him to his back. “My turn.”

  He’d thought himself in control. He’d miscalculated.

  Chapter Five

  Danica didn’t know who’d plastered outrageous flyers about her around town, but shock and outrage fled the moment Braydon had stepped into her kitchen with angry passion filling his eyes.

  The afternoon of screened phone calls from the single men of Whispering Cove and the stress of hours spent working a car accident ceased to matter, because as irritating as Braydon’s anticipated departure was, she enjoyed his company.

  His rage sparked her own as vitally as his touch snapped her body to at
tention.

  “You shouldn’t have put those flyers up.” Braydon’s sudden return to the paper he’d shoved at her earlier broke the peace of sexual aftermath she’d found from round two on the widow’s walk floor.

  Danica turned to face him and worked to keep the disappointment off her face and out of her voice. “And you claimed to know me.”

  “You’re not hard to figure out.” Derision creased the edges of his mouth.

  “And yet you believe I placed those ads around town.” She got up and went for a lightweight robe in the closet. The thin cotton wasn’t much in the way of protection, but she couldn’t make a stand in the nude. “As if I’d invite men I hardly know to barrage me with lewd phone calls when my attentions were needed by teenagers in mangled cars.”

  He followed her inside. “I—”

  She spun around and belted the soft robe. “Do you really believe I would stoop to such drastic measures to build my business through my sex life?”

  “Danica—”

  She waved him off. She’d tried to dismiss the flyers earlier with a joke about them being his, but the joke was as flat now as it had been then.

  “I’m beginning to think you plastered the town with advertisements about me to justify another visit.” She scooped his shorts off the floor with her toes and tossed them up into his face.

  “I expected better from you, Braydon.” He caught them calmly, but she continued her tirade. “I mean, hell. Even when I was an awkward geek crushing on you in school you were never cruel.”

  He tossed his shorts on the bed and moved to her. Cupping her face, he stared at her for several humming seconds. “I didn’t make the posters. I wouldn’t.”

  She hesitated more from the sincerity in his claim and his touch than the actual words. She’d given him ample reasons to make her look foolish. He never had. And he hadn’t been unkind or made fun after learning who she was a few days ago.

  “I believe you, but the facts are the same.”

  “What are those? Do I dare ask?”

  “You know nothing about me if you have such a low opinion of me for even a minute. Shit, I knew from the start of this we shared no common ground beyond sex.”