by Louise Bay
“You sure have some fancy rides,” a woman called from behind me.
I grinned before I even turned around. “How was your run?” I asked Lana, who was out on the porch, a glass of wine on the table in front of her.
“Good, thanks. You been anywhere nice?” she asked, which surprised me. She hadn’t initiated our conversations before. She’d never been rude, just concise with her answers. Had she figured out who I was?
“Yeah, down the coast. For work,” I said.
There was no glimmer of recognition on her face, no knowing smile. She just nodded as I slowly climbed the steps to her porch.
A slice of cold air ran down my back as I turned toward the ocean. The sky had turned black. Just a few minutes ago it had been a beautiful afternoon.
“It’s going to rain,” she said as I reached the top of the steps, accompanied by a rumble of thunder. She raised her eyebrows and grinned, clearly delighted at the prospect.
“I thought you didn’t like the rain?”
“No, I don’t like dumbass out-of-towners trying to get themselves electrocuted.” She smiled and took a sip from her glass. “There’s nothing like looking out at a Maine thunderstorm from under a blanket on a porch.”
I stared back at the sea that was transforming into molasses as the sky growled again.
“Can I get you some wine?” she asked.
I should say no. Head home, read through tomorrow’s lines and go through the resumes of potential new girlfriends. Should. But didn’t want to.
“Thanks, but let me. You stay there.”
She nodded. “Bottle’s on the counter. Glass is in the cabinet above the coffee maker.”
The screen door snapped shut behind me as I stepped into Lana’s cottage. The layout was the same as my place—airy and open with a breakfast bar forming a barrier between the kitchen and the dining area. There was a built-in window seat by the table and a vase of brightly colored flowers on the counter. Somehow, Lana’s place seemed warmer than mine, even though it looked so similar. Even the barstools were the same. Maybe it was all the photographs. They were everywhere—on the walls, the windowsills, the fireplace mantel.
“You find it?” she called from the porch, interrupting my surreptitious snooping.
“Yep, I got it,” I replied as I collected a glass, scooped up the bottle and headed out. “It’s like my place.” I put the glass on the table next to her drink and topped up her wine before pouring some for myself.
She’d shifted slightly up the bench so she wasn’t behind the table anymore.
“You all set there? You want me to get some popcorn?” She looked so damn cozy, all snuggled up under a blanket as if she were getting ready to watch a movie instead of looking out at the horizon.
“If I had any, I’d say yes. You can’t underestimate the entertainment value of a storm. Far better than anything to come out of Hollywood.”
“Oh really?” Maybe she did know who I was and was just messing with me.
All of a sudden it was as if someone had set off water cannons and the rain started to fall so hard I thought the roof would cave in.
I took a seat next to Lana and we both stared out across the sea as if it held all the answers we were looking for.
“I can’t imagine not seeing the ocean every day,” she said after a few moments. “It reminds me how small I am. How nothing much matters.”
“I’m not sure if that’s really depressing or kinda inspiring.”
“It is what it is.” She shrugged. “Where are you from, by the way? Did you grow up in California?”
“Indiana. No ocean but on the edge of the lake. My family’s house is about a fifteen-minute bike ride to the water. But you had to go further to find the more interesting bits, the places good for fishing.”
“You don’t strike me as a fisherman.”
I turned my head to look at her. “What do I strike you as?” I took a sip of my wine, then set my glass on the bench between us, our arms brushing with the movement.
“A guy with a lot of nice rides.”
I chuckled.
“Cars, I mean.” She laughed.
“That’s what I thought you meant—don’t be such a pervert.”
A deafening crack of thunder interrupted us.
“Christ, it’s like it’s aiming for this deck.”
“It isn’t. You just need to be respectful. And it will mind its business.”
“Respectful?” I asked, intrigued.
“Yeah, like don’t hang out on the shore, or under a tree or in a bandstand.”
I turned to look at her. Her cheeks pinked, letting me know she was aware of my scrutiny. I wanted to shift a little closer so we were thigh to thigh, smooth back the wisps of her hair, feel if she was as warm as she looked.
I took a breath and followed her line of sight. “Oh, we’re back to the bandstand debacle. Will you ever forget that?”
“The next time I see something dumber.”
“Well, that shouldn’t be long from what I’ve seen of this town. Do you know I actually saw a woman with a cat on a leash the other day?”
“Hey, Polly Larch has had six cats in the last three years. And they have all either disappeared, been run over or died for medical reasons. She’s just keeping her cat safe. Nothing stupid about that.”
“I wasn’t trying to say—”
“There are plenty of eccentric people in this town, that’s for sure. And even a few stupid ones. But the stupid factor increases tenfold when the tourists arrive.”
“I stand corrected,” I said gently. I really didn’t mean to be insulting. I liked Worthington. And her. “You know my grandfather brought me to Maine once when I was a kid.”
She turned to look at me. “From Indiana?”
“Yeah. To fish. My parents were working and my brothers were older. I got to vacay with my grandad. It felt like I was here the whole summer, but my mom said it was less than two weeks.”
“And that’s why you wanted to come back?”
“I came back for work. But it’s nice. Brings back memories.”
“And is it how you remembered it?”
“Yeah. Hotter than I recall. Of course, I don’t remember the women being as beautiful.” I enjoyed her blush a little more than I should have. But she was beautiful and deserved to hear it. Every move she made was graceful, her mouth full and generous, even her quasi suspicion of me was a turn-on. She was funny and confident and nothing like any woman I’d ever come across. And to top it all, she had the face and body that would send a thousand women straight into a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon’s office.
I needed to take a step back. But I wanted to know more about her. I had this pull toward her that I’d never known before. “Have you always lived here?”
“I went to college in New York, but found the city wasn’t for me.” A crackle turned into a rumble then continued straight into a boom. It was as if the storm was building to the ultimate crescendo.
“You have a boyfriend?”
She took another sip of wine and set it back on the table before she replied. “You’ve half asked that before.”
I chuckled. True. Not that I was going to act differently if she told me—either way I needed to keep my distance. I just wanted to meet the man who had managed to land this woman. “And I’m still coming up empty.” I glanced at the rise and fall of her creamy breasts, only barely covered by her camisole, and swallowed. Hard. I really should leave.
“See that?” she asked, pointing up over the ocean. “Lightning. And again.”
“Wow, that nearly cut the sky in half.”
Our eyes locked first in excited, shared understanding and then the connection transformed into something that had nothing to do with the lightning. She looked away first. I would have stayed, my eyes fixed on hers the whole night, if she hadn’t. “The air feels charged with something.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she whispered.
It was an invitation, and
not one I wanted to turn down. I wanted to touch her, see if her lips were as soft as they looked.
“I want to kiss you,” I said, shifting so that she, and not the storm, had all my attention.
The thunder rumbled again.
Despite the noise surrounding us, I could only focus on the sound of her breathing. My pulse jumped under my skin, at my neck, in my wrists, in my dick.
I really shouldn’t be doing this.
But it was just a kiss.
And she was so beautiful.
And then it would be over.
I slid my thumb over her bottom lip. “Look at me,” I said.
My gaze flickered down as her breasts rose with her breath. It took every ounce of control not to yank her cami down and put my mouth on that warm, soft, pliant flesh.
As I looked at her, our eyes locked, and this time heat passed back and forth between us, growing more scorching with each passing moment.
She wanted me to kiss her. Maybe even strip her naked on this deck and fuck her hard and long until I knew every part of her.
I groaned, blood rushing to my dick, and leaned in to press my lips softly on the corner of her mouth. Her breath was hot and heavy against my cheek. I dropped my hand to her ass and slid her onto my lap.
Wrapping my hands around her silky hair that smelled of the ocean, I pulled, tilting her head back and exposing her neck.
I’d been kidding myself to think this was just a kiss. I wasn’t sure if it was because it had been so long since I’d fucked someone new or whether it was the storm or just the way Lana looked at me, but my whole body reverberated with lust. I wanted to touch, hold, possess her.
I trailed my teeth along her jaw and she squirmed in my lap. I slid my palms up her thighs and lifted her so she was straddling me.
Just a kiss. Right.
I wanted her closer, so I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck and brought her mouth to mine in a fractured, desperate connection. With my other hand, I pushed her ass against me. The heat of her covered pussy against my erection made me groan. Sliding my tongue against the seam of her lips, I delved deeper. Fuck, I’d forgotten how hot making out could be. The stuff before the fucking. Before my reform, it had been all about release. All about seeing how fast I could have a woman’s mouth wrapped around my cock after making eye contact with her.
But not now. Not out here on the porch with Lana. All I could think about was how I couldn’t fuck her, how I’d never make it that far.
She smelled so damn good. Tasted even better.
She circled her hips and I gasped, breaking our kiss. I was so close it was embarrassing. “You’re so fucking sexy,” I choked out. I wanted to suggest we take this inside, hell, who cared about inside? I wanted to take this up a level or ten. I wanted to see her tits bounce as she rode me, hear that sweet, sexy mouth swear as she came so hard that she forgot what year we were in.
She braced her hand against my chest as I leaned in to kiss her, then climbed off me, sitting back where she’d been when I arrived. “Let’s watch the storm,” she said without further explanation.
I couldn’t argue. Another second of feeling her writhe against me and I’d have been lost, unable to hold back.
She handed me my wine, then took a sip of her own as if nothing had happened. My hard-on and the fact that my pulse was beating out of my neck told a different story.
We sat in silence for a few minutes until the storm ebbed away. “I have to be up early,” she said, standing slowly.
“I wouldn’t want to be the cause of a sleepless night,” I said, even though I wanted to keep her awake for the next week. I stood and brushed her jaw with my thumb. “Good night, Lana.”
When I got to the top of the stairs on my deck, I looked back. She was still on her porch, staring at me, her hair a little rumpled, her silhouette lit up by the moonlight.
She looked like a goddamn movie star.
Eight
Lana
“I made out with someone on Monday night,” I said the moment Ruby answered my call. The shop had been quiet all afternoon, which had left me time to remember Matt’s breath on my neck, the grip of his hand on my ass. Not that it would have been easy to forget even if I was surrounded by a thousand people.
“What?” she yelled. “Who? Were you drunk? And why the hell has it taken you five days to tell me?”
“Four.” Slightly less, actually. Three days, nineteen hours and thirty-six minutes if I wanted to be exact. I ran my finger along the glass cabinet that I had just reorganized, trying not to blush.
“Why did you wait at all? You could have just dialed me up and put me on speaker. I’m your best friend.”
“And a pervert, apparently.”
“Stop stalling and tell me what’s happening. We’ve spoken every day and you’ve not mentioned anything.”
I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t told her. Maybe I’d been waiting to run into him again, to be sure he was real. But I hadn’t seen him at all since. His car had stayed in the drive all week, but the only time I’d spotted a light on had been early this morning when I’d gotten up for a glass of water.
“It was just a kiss.”
When he’d left on Monday night, I’d been five seconds away from inviting him inside and into my bed. He hadn’t pushed when I’d put a stop to things. Thank goodness. I would have given in.
The kiss had been … more than just a kiss. I’d felt it in my bones and it had stayed with me for hours afterward. Perhaps it was just because I hadn’t kissed someone for so long. But maybe it was the way he’d held me so firmly, possessed my mouth so entirely, that seemed to elevate it to something more.
“Who with?” she exclaimed, jolting me back to our conversation.
“Oh, the guy next door.”
“The corporate rental?” She sounded confused. “How did that happen?”
“We watched a thunderstorm together, and then things just sort of … evolved.” I hadn’t noticed the storm once he’d touched me, hadn’t heard anything but his breath on my skin, his moans against my ear.
“I didn’t even know you’d met him.”
I grinned as I remembered Matt’s complete confusion as I’d yelled at him by the bandstand. I must have looked like a total crazy person.
“Yeah, just a couple of times.”
“Did you have sex? Are you seeing each other again? Or was it a one-time deal?”
I sighed. I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about any of her questions. I liked the memory of that night—the thunder and lightning, the wine, the kissing. But for me, it had started and ended on my porch along with the storm. And I was happy to let things stay that way. Why ruin a perfect evening?
“No sex, and yes, it was a one-time deal.”
Silence, which was never good where Ruby was concerned. She was either plotting or thinking up impossible-to-answer questions.
“Okay,” she said.
“What do you mean, ‘okay’?” It couldn’t be that simple.
“I mean, okay.”
“You’re not going to interrogate me further, overanalyze every detail and completely wear the whole thing out?” Maybe she was still too wrapped up in her breakup.
“Nope.”
“Nope?” There was no way I was getting away so lightly.
“I’ve made a vow to be more patient and anyway, it’s obvious.”
“What is?”
“He’s the man Mrs. Wells said was going to come into your life this summer.”
I laughed. “Sorry to disappoint you.” He was just passing through town. And it had only been a kiss. “It was hardly a storm he caused.”
“But is he tall? And handsome?”
So tall and so, so handsome. The way I’d spread my fingers as I tried to grasp his upper arms, his hard, bronzed chest, his dark, dirty-blond hair. My heart was beating faster just thinking about him. “We’re not having this conversation—we’re not fourteen anymore.”
“So? You never grow out of app
reciating a hot guy.”
Hot? He was five miles ahead of hot. “I’m not going to discuss his ranking on the hot-o-meter with you.”
“Which means he’s hot. I knew it,” she said, and I could almost see the fist pump on the other side of the phone. “You’re living next door to each other—something else is bound to happen.”
“I don’t think so.” Matt had seemed content to walk away—he wasn’t chasing a fleeting hookup. And I wasn’t chasing anything.
“Well, aren’t you full of news today? I bet you find that kiss sets a fire in your loins. It will happen again soon, trust me.”
“Don’t say ‘loins’.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s the sort of thing your grandmother would say.”
“My grandmother is dead, so she’s not saying much to anyone. This might be the start of something, Lana.”
It was nice to feel attractive, to have a man’s arms around me. But it wasn’t like it changed anything.
“You know not every guy is the asshole your ex was. And probably still is.”
“I know,” I said. “What happened in New York with Bobby was a long time ago.”
“Exactly. So be open to new possibilities.”
I hated the way Ruby made it sound like I’d not done anything since New York. I’d had my hands full to overflowing. I surveyed my boutique. Sunlight slid through the floor-to-ceiling windows and lit the whole shop, giving the light-pink carpet a glow, and creating an Alice in Wonderland feel. This place had taken dedication and focus and although I wasn’t selling the high-end, handmade pieces I’d thought I’d end up making in college, I was still designing beautiful jewelry. And people were buying it. I’d accomplished so much. I’d taken advantage of a thousand possibilities.
Nine
Matt
I finished off the last of the grilled cheese, picked up my plate and glass and took it to the sink. More washing up. I was pretty sure Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t wash his own dirty dishes, but for now I was still enjoying the novelty of it. It was certainly real and that’s what I’d been after when I came to Maine.
Tonight was the first time since the first evening that I’d made it back to my rental before midnight, and considering I was up at five, it made for a long, exhausting week. I needed a break, and thankfully, tomorrow was my first day off.