“In fact, seeing as you crafted me into the fine specimen of manhood I am today, the next round’s on me.”
Sofia blushed.
“It’s good to have you back in town, Sof.” Decker nodded at Silas. “Now, go teach this joker a thing or two, okay?”
“I think I’m jealous,” Silas whispered in her ear, “but it seems I have Dex’s blessing.”
Her flush deepened. “That’s not what that was,” she hissed.
“That’s exactly what it was.” Silas sipped the foam off his Sam Adams. “Can I get a lesson tonight?”
He was trying to get a rise out of her; she smirked. “If you win me that giant panda, you’re on.”
“I love a challenge.” Silas raised his glass. She clinked hers against it.
They left the bar after the second round, while the band was breaking. Someone was lighting Roman candles on the beach and Sofia watched the fireworks reflect over the small whitecaps at the edge of the water.
“You love this place, don’t you?” Silas’s question was gentle, but the punch of guilt and fear that rushed through was anything but.
“I loved this place,” she corrected, turning away from the pyrotechnics and moving forward. “Past tense. I had some good times, but that was a long time ago.”
She slowed on the corner of H Street, giving the orange awning at Blink’s a meaningful look, but Silas kept walking.
“Not yet. Fry Doe slows my reaction time down.” His lips grazed her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. “And I have a panda to win.”
Sofia’s thoughts dried up en route from her brain to her lips. Instead, she let anticipation coast down her body, settling low in her belly.
The noise and the heat inside the Funarama were overwhelming after the cooler humidity of the boardwalk. Silas fed twenty dollars to a change machine like a professional. He scooped the quarters into his pocket. “You pick the machines, so we both know I didn’t cheat when I kick your butt.” He counted out half the quarters and handed them over to her.
Sofia picked the slightly older Skeeball machines at the end of the line. The smell of the raw plank floors drifted up as she dropped a quarter into her machine and pressed start. The balls clinked into place; the marquee lit up. Silas did the same. His smile was wolfish.
For the first few tosses, she lagged behind. She was more than ten years out of practice. True to his word, Silas was racking up forty- and fifty-point throws, tickets rolling out of his machine at a gleeful rate. She glared at his celebratory dance when his first two games bested her by well over five hundred points.
~~~
God, she’s gorgeous, Silas thought, watching her brow furrowed in concentration. He’d been paying attention and her scores were quietly improving. He’d have to step up his game; his pride was on the line. She bent to feed the machine, the long tail of her French braid trailing over her shoulder.
Her camisole hugged her breasts, teased the top of her hip-hugging denim capris. His sister would call those shoes slingbacks, or maybe wedges; Silas just appreciated the lean line of muscle and golden skin from ankle to knee. Her toenails were still painted shocking purple, and she wore a slightly tarnished ring around her pinky toe. Somehow, that dulling silver stoked the fire glowing hot and steady in his gut. She banked her first ball and squealed as it dropped cleanly into the coveted one-hundred point spot.
Sofia gave him an I-dare-you smile and picked up her second ball. Just as she tossed, he leaned over to kiss the spot behind her ear. The ball went wild, clattering into the ten-point hole.
“Cheater!” Indignity suited her. He wondered if the spots of color on her cheeks were embarrassment or arousal.
“All’s fair in war and Skeeball.” He dropped another quarter into his machine, focusing on the forty.
More than a few rounds later, Silas dropped his last quarter in. “Last round. Can you take another beating?”
Sofia tore off her strip of tickets. “Uncle. You win. For now.”
“For now?” The devilish twinkle in her eyes intrigued him. The digital calliope beckoned and he tossed three fifties in a row. Winding up for a fourth, he felt Sofia press up against him on his left side.
“I’m not that easily distracted,” he assured her.
“If you say so.” She bit his shoulder on the toss and the ball jumped two machines, rolling haplessly across the floor before coming to rest under Ms. Pac Man.
He circled her waist with one arm and hauled her close. “You fight dirty.” He’d only meant a quick contact, a little reminder of the simmering attraction between them, but Sofia held him there. She opened her lips against his, something between a moan and a purr rumbling in her throat, before rocking back on her heels. A Funarama employee was holding out Silas’s lost ball.
The boy’s eyes took an adolescent tour of Sofia’s curves. Silas took the ball with a sharp look, contemplating pinging it off the pimply kid’s skull.
Sofia missed the exchange. She was fiddling with her bundle of Skeeball tickets. “Are we turning them in now?” she asked, “Or can we play something else?”
“What’s your game?” She was surveying the game floor with the seriousness of an art collector in a gallery. There was a faint sheen of sweat at her hairline, and a stray hair that had fallen from her braid curled against her neck. Silas resisted the urge to tug the black band from her hair and let all those glossy dark brown curls tumble over her shoulders.
She chose the Wheel.
“I’m feeling lucky.” She fished in her pocket. “One last quarter. Think I can hit the jackpot?”
“Nope.” He loved watching the fight rise in her eyes, loved watching humor temper it.
“If I get it, I get all your Skeeball tickets, too. How’s that for a bet?”
“You’re on,” he said. “But if you miss, I get all of yours.”
“Done.”
When she dropped her coin into the machine and sent the light spinning along its path, Silas felt something slip into place in his heart. He wouldn’t have found her in New York, slaving away to the paper gods of justice. He wouldn’t have found her in the overpriced clubs or the dive bars his buddies favored. He wouldn’t have found her at his father’s country club in New Jersey.
She was here. And she didn’t even realize it.
“Holy shit!” Sofia jumped up and squeezed him, her giddy laughter in his ear. “I won!”
He held her there, painted toes off the floor, drinking in the spicy, elemental fragrance of her warm hair. Her body pressed against his, and he could feel unbridled pleasure at the win flying along her skin, pulsing through her. He couldn’t imagine there being anything better than this. Everything about her just fit.
The Wheel was spitting out a seemingly endless reel of tickets. All the adults, and a few of the kids, around them stopped to see what the commotion was. Reluctantly, Silas set her down. Raising her hand like a triumphant prize fighter, he addressed the small crowd.
“She won the Wheel.”
Sofia tore off her tickets and held out her hand. With a little bow, he handed her the stack of folded tickets from his pocket. She took them and turned for the prize counter, but not before taking his hand to tow him behind her.
They didn’t have enough for a panda, but Sofia traded her tickets in for a perfectly horrible purple glass mermaid statue. When Silas laughed, she very seriously informed him that the mermaid was for the cashier’s window at the Landing.
“Well, in that case, she’s perfect.”
Sofia tucked the mermaid into her straw purse. “To the ring toss?”
“How about the milk bottles? I’m feeling like a sure thing.”
Sofia’s wry smile was worth the bad joke.
The hawker was a guy in his early twenties. These days the hawkers worked the crowd with a headset, but the essential game was unchanged. Silas handed him a five for three chances. He felt like a high school kid again, trying to impress a beautiful girl with his athletic prowess. Sofia leaned again
st the counter, watching him gauge the throw. In the bright lights of the midway, she could have been a high school girl, too.
His first ball went a little to the left, but it nicked a bottle hard enough to knock over the first pyramid. He squared his shoulders.
When the third pyramid of bottles clattered to the floor of the booth, Silas whooped. He whirled Sofia off her feet, giving her a smacking kiss before setting her down again.
“So,” asked the hawker, “what would the lady like?” He gestured to the row of super-sized animals hanging above.
“The panda.” They spoke together, giggling as the hawker fetched it down. Sofia hugged it hard, and Silas was reminded of the deal they’d made in Dex’s bar.
“You two have a good night.” The hawker sent them off, already drawing in new players for the game.
Silas struck out for H Street. “Come on, panda girl. Let’s get you some fried dough.”
~~~
Sofia couldn’t remember being so happy in Hampton, not since she was a child. With the panda looped under her arm, she walked in easy time with Silas. At the first cross street, he reached for her hand.
Blinks was a blaze orange shrine to fried dough. The porch overhang was crowded with people waiting for orders; the line stretched down the stairs into the sidewalk.
“What do you want?” Silas asked.
She handed him the stuffed panda. “This is on me.”
Silas took the bear. “Cinnamon and sugar.”
She snuck a glance at him while he leaned against the signpost. As if he felt her eyes on him, he turned to her. The street light threw his face into deep shadows, but his intent was unmistakable. She shivered, understanding pooling low in her belly.
Rejoining him with the fried dough, she gestured across the street, where several empty benches lined the beach boardwalk. Silas set the panda down to one side to take his fried dough. He looked at hers, brows raised. “Cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar?”
She nodded. “The only way to have it.” The first bite was perfect, crisp from the fryer, soft inside, sugary and sweet. She hummed with pleasure.
“Remind me to take you for fried dough more often,” Silas said, sinking his teeth into his own.
They ate in silence, watching the amateur fireworks displays from the beach, followed by the Hampton police on their quads breaking up the lawbreakers. She started to hand Silas a napkin, but he licked the sugar and cinnamon from his fingers with a wink. Sofia swore she could feel his mouth on her own skin.
“Look,” Silas said pointing to the sky above them.
A red Chinese lantern drifted over the beach. It caught a column of air and spiraled gently up before flying out over the Atlantic. They watched it until it burned out over the horizon.
“I’ve never seen one before,” Sofia whispered. “Not like that.”
“Me neither.” Silas stood, snagging the panda by one plush paw. “Come on. Let’s walk home on the beach, see if we can find where they’re launching them.
They walked along the boardwalk until they reached a set of stairs down to the sand. Without speaking, they stopped to take their shoes off. Bare-footed, they set out southward on the beach.
“They grant wishes,” she said. “Or they can.”
As they walked, a new pair of lanterns rose from the far side of the dunes at the southernmost end of the state park parking lot.
“What’s your wish?” Silas asked.
To have my parents back. The thought surfaced quickly, taking her by surprise. Unwanted tears pricked the bridge of her nose. She took a deep breath. It felt wrong, under a sky full of stars and paper wishes, to lie. “I wish I’d had the chance to say goodbye to my dad.”
Yet again, Silas took her hand in his. He squeezed gently, offering silent comfort.
“I’d try to forgive him.” The confession made her lightheaded. “I wish I could have told him that I missed her, too, but that I needed him, and I was so angry, so sad, and so alone. So goddamn jealous of the booze.”
Silas stopped, dropped the panda, and smoothed his warm hands over her shoulders. His face swam in and out of focus through her tears.
“He knew, Sofia.”
She blinked, letting the tears take their course.
“He knew,” Silas said again. “He might not have spoken about it, but I’m sure he knew. He was sober, Sofia, and he worked his tail off. He filled that apartment with photographs. He wore his memories like a hair shirt.”
“Why?” Her voice caught. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because it’s eating you up.” He pulled her close, lips brushing her temple. “Forgive him. Let him go.”
“I wish I could.” She stepped out of the embrace. “I hope I can.”
Silas’s whispered kiss at her temple burned like a brand. There was nowhere to look but his face, nothing to do with her hands, and then he reached for her, brushing her knuckles with his thumb. He dropped his shoes on the sand and traced her jaw with his finger.
His lips were cool, his tongue sweet from the fried dough. His hands slipped under the hem of her top, skimming the small of her back. He slipped his fingers through the straps of her slingbacks, unwinding her grip and dropping them near his sandals. She tipped her head, wrapped her arms around his neck and drew the kiss in deeper. The gentle simmer of desire between them boiled over, seasoned with a little desperation. Tonight, she wanted him. Consequences be damned.
He breathed in the touch of perfume she wore at her clavicle. “Totally worth a panda.”
He reached down, cupping her ass and pulling her up against him. She smiled against his mouth; he wanted her just as badly. Her lashes fluttered when his teeth nipped at her lower lip. Overhead, the lanterns soared. She braced her hands on his forearms.
“Silas.”
His response was low and hoarse. “Yeah.”
She scooped up her shoes and walked down to the water’s edge. When Silas’s expression asked her an unspoken why, she laughed. “I can walk faster on the wet sand.”
Mischief. She saw it in his eyes, and then he rushed her, reaching down for his sandals and the bear as he did. He slung her over one shoulder and ran down the tide line. She shrieked, giddy laughter bubbling up along with the salt spray from his feet in the waves. After a hundred feet, he set her down, panting and grinning.
Sofia pushed a few stray strands of hair off her face. “That’s one way to get home faster.”
Silas regained his breath. “Not fast enough.” He kissed her purposefully.
Behind him, a campfire flickered in its copper fire pit. Sofia knew the spot from her evening walks on the beach. A group was lighting and releasing the Chinese lanterns behind one of the rental cottages on Haverhill. This time, she took his hand. “What’s your wish?”
Silas looked meaningfully at Buck’s Landing’s sign beckoning from down the beach, and ran with her toward them. “We’re almost there.”
They tumbled through her door, blood hot and pulses racing. Her bag and the panda fell forgotten just inside the apartment. Sofia pushed his faded Princeton tee up, baring his chest. She ran her nails through the soft hair there. Their arms tangled in their hasty efforts to get to skin. His teeth scraped her jaw, nipped at her neck and shoulders.
Sofia shivered when he pulled her tank top over her head, heat like mercury pooled between her thighs and she tugged at the button of his khaki shorts. Silas stepped out of them even as he was pushing denim down over her hips. Breathless, they paused; he in his cotton boxers, she in a few scraps of lace.
Slowly, so slowly, he reached up and behind her neck. He tugged the elastic from her braid, twisting it between his fingers briefly before tossing it on the nearby coffee table. When he reached for her again, she stilled his hands. Without a word, she threaded her fingers into the braid and shook it free, her curls tumbling down over her shoulders with a little toss of her head.
He came into her arms and she pressed them both down into the faded leather sofa. Straddl
ing his lap, she reached back to undo her bra. He filled his hands with her breasts, thumbs grazing the soft well of flesh. From beneath lashes grown heavy with lust, she watched him take one aching nipple into his mouth. With the first touch of wet heat and the scrape of his teeth, she was ready for him. She reached between them, caressing him through his boxers.
Silas left her breast to lay a trail of damp kisses along her collarbone, to tease her lips, to torture her with sweetness. Her blood sang; her skin was on fire. His hands, which slipped under what satin remained, found her slick and wanting; everything about his onslaught left her breathless.
He kissed from her lips to her ear, whispering low. “Do you have anything?”
She sat up on her knees. “This way.”
Her feet had barely touched the floor when a shrill yowl split the night. Silas sat up. “What the hell?”
He slipped back into his shorts and out onto her landing; wrapping a blanket around herself, she stepped out behind him. A thrashing bundle of fur and claws was scrapping in the narrow concrete lane between Buck’s Landing and the Atlantis Market.
“Shit.” Silas stuffed his feet into his sandals. “Houdini!”
His feet thumping on the stairs broke up the spat between his tiny ball of fury and a skinny marmalade that streaked away down the block. Sofia watched him coax Houdini out of the shadows. Even from her vantage point, she could see the ridge of raised fur along the kitten’s spine.
Silas looked up at her with a pained expression. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“Not if I make it up to you first,” she said. She tried for flirtatious, but disappointment pressed against her ribcage. She loitered in her own doorway as Silas unlocked his back door and disappeared inside with the angry cat.
Picking up her scattered clothes a few moments later, she realized Silas had left his shirt. With a foolish smile, she inhaled his scent from the fabric. She left the Princeton tee folded on her sofa, but the fragrance of sunshine, sand, and soap stayed with her until she fell asleep.
Buck's Landing (A New England Seacoast Romance) Page 5