by Jillian Neal
Dreams of Sienna had bled in and out of the nightmares of his reality all night long. The ecstasy of having her again, of calling her his own taunted him, even in his sleep. He didn’t deserve her, no matter how badly he wanted to believe that he could explain away everything he’d done.
When he came to the sandy shores in front of the Inn, he paused and let his eyes set a longing gaze through the window of the bedroom where she was sleeping. The lacy curtains her grandmother had hung over all of the windows were just beginning to show their creamy color as the sunrise slowly warmed the shoreline. He envisioned the lacy detail playing on her naked skin.
In his mind’s eye, he could see her there, tucked up in the bed sheets wrapped haphazardly around her beautiful body. The summers they’d spent together as teens she would always wear one of his old jerseys or t-shirts to sleep in. That memory had his pulse racing far more than his early morning run.
Wondering what she was sleeping in now and worry that she might not be warm enough had him swallowing down another vicious round of regret. It just continued to pull him under. Desperation to race up to her bedroom, to strip down and join her in the bed clawed viciously at his resolve.
His precious little girl locked away from him, back in Atlanta, was the only thing that anchored him to the present day. Every other piece of his world wanted desperately to be able to thrust him backwards in time. There were a thousand mistakes he needed to rectify. Another life he was supposed to have lived existed just beyond his reach.
The fear that had plagued her pretty face the evening before when he’d asked her about California haunted him again. What had happened to her when he hadn’t been there to look after her? She always leapt before she looked. He’d always loved that about her, but he was supposed to be the guy that caught her no matter how far she jumped. Whatever had happened was his fault. A volatile cocktail of desperation and rectification swam in his gut.
His feet moved another few steps towards the Inn, towards Sienna. With the slight shake of his head, he ordered them away. Anguish turned his body and his feet back to the other end of the beach.
Not entirely certain how he’d arrived back in his parent’s old beach house, Ryan listened to the squeaks and groans of the plumbing as he turned on the shower. Adding that to his never-ending to-do list, he dropped his running shorts to the floor and stepped into the rapidly falling water. He let it beat against him like heated fists that stripped away a modicum of the tension that knotted his muscles.
Not thinking about Sienna was no longer an option; it never had been. And getting off before the heavenly torture of spending another day with her was a foregone conclusion. If he caught another glimpse of her sexy ass or she gave him another one of those heart-stopping smiles, his cock would sever the zipper of his jeans of its own accord. He needed relief from the persistent, searing ache. The pain he knew only she could ever fully cure.
As that wasn’t an option, he once again resorted to the fantasies that had been his constant companion for the last ten years. Every lonely night, every drunken escapade in his wild college days, his chaperone on his wedding night. They were unable to be forgotten, and he refused to let them go. For so long, they were the only truth he could access. The memories of them together were the only part of his life that had ever made sense. The only thing that could save him.
Her naked body, soft and sweet, swayed against his. Her nipples beaded tightly against his chest as his hands swept up from her hips to feel the swells of her tiny breasts. His tongue seeking and hungry for her mouth.
The shower. Images of her stepping out of that shower supplied him the next stage. His wrapped his fist firmly around his cock and imagined encompassing her small timid hand within the strength of his own. Showing her how to obliterate him with the rhythmic pump and pull.
His hands sluiced through the water cascading over the dip of her back as he grasped her ass, pulled her close, and pressed his strain against her abdomen. She rocked against him. Their slick bodies sliding, skin on skin, sending tremors throughout her that ignited his own. His name fevered on her lips. Beckoning him. Needing him.
He could make her bloom. His fingers grasped her waist and then slowly followed the water’s trail down to those sweet curls covering her mound. Deeper. She continued to pump his cock up over the thick veins filled with the need to make a claim. She squeezed him tight and slipped up over his head, pulling a heady groan from his lungs. It echoed off of the shower walls around him.
With two fingers he coaxed her clit until it swelled all for him. Another hungry groan as he began to ravage that tender bundle of nerve endings, making her whimper and writhe. He brought his fingers to his mouth, sucking the sweetened nectar of her.
His mind spun. He pulled harder and faster.
Her mouth on him. Those beautiful lips nursing away everything that had gone so wrong while she stared up at him with those soulful eyes, so sure that he would give her everything she needed. The pressure of her mouth and strokes of her tongue tending him. Her face flushing. Her breasts gliding against him as she sucked the salty need that leaked so readily from him, all for her.
The reverberations of her moans against his shaft made him throb thick and fierce. The weight of her beautiful body as he lifted her up into his arms and laid her out before him. Her legs spread in invitation, showing him the stunning imagery of her swollen full, ready, and slicked pink all for him. Her body giving him needy writhes. Her begging him to satiate her hunger.
With one, long, penetrating thrust he would take her over and pump that sweet little pussy full.
A ragged, guttural moan accompanied the beads of cum that shot from his cock after an embarrassingly short amount of time by Ryan’s own estimations of himself. He shuddered and tried to wash away the memories with his own vestige of what could never be.
Nine
By Sienna’s third cup of coffee, she’d gone through every available scenario as to what to do now that Ryan McNamara was back in her life, so to speak. She’d called herself every form of the word idiot she could come up with, but she was just no good at grudges. The vibes involved in holding a grudge were exhausting, and that just wasn’t her thing.
He’d completely broken her heart, shattered it into a million pieces. She should definitely not be thinking about any kind of reconciliation. Not that he’d said he wanted one, but he’d wanted to kiss her. She was almost certain of that.
She’d played out forgiving him no matter what had happened and trying it again. That went against her fiery spirit, so she moved onto sleeping with him while he did the work on her house and trying to get him out of her system, but the makings of a good romance novel probably weren’t going to get her a happy ending.
She reminded herself that she’d never really been good enough for him, anyway. His family had tons of money. They ate at restaurants with multiple forks and things like fingerbowls that she would never really understand.
“Sometimes simply living will land you on the right path, Sienna Rose. Occasionally lost, but still on the right path. Do what feels right in your heart.” Nana’s voice rose up from Sienna’s soul once more.
He seemed like he needed a friend. She certainly could use one of those, and a contractor to boot, so being his friend and nothing more had been her firm decision right up until the moment that Ryan had pulled up wearing jeans that showed off his powerful thighs and another one of those white t-shirts that did nothing to hide his enviable physique.
Fifteen minutes of working in the direct sunlight and he’d disposed of the t-shirt. He had an old, thin flannel shirt tied around his waist just under that insanely distracting tool belt. His boots completed the picture of sexy perfection that had always been Ryan McNamara.
Moving away from the front windows, Sienna blew back a few strands of her unruly hair to get them out of her eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest and then slunk to the kitchen to make another pot of coffee.
Today, Sienna was wearing a ragged
pair of blue jeans with the knees ripped out that she’d topped with a vintage Stones concert tank-top and a dozen thin necklaces that made him smile. Maybe not much had changed about her in the last few years. Clearly she still loved eclectic jewelry in every shape and fashion. If he wasn’t mistaken, he was fairly certain he’d caught the flash of a sexy little bellybutton ring when the shirt had swayed.
Another assaulting memory peppered his mind. Their mocked arguments over which band was best, The Stones or The Beatles. She was vehement in her adoration of Mick Jagger and the Exile on Main Street album. A long-time Beatles fan himself, he happily argued that no one would ever touch John Lennon in this millennium or the next. It always ended with him pinning her underneath him and tickling her until she agreed that Lennon would always be king. The heated make-out sessions that followed always took him to paradise.
Shaking his head, Ryan tried to loosen the memory from his skull. He’d been disappointed momentarily when he’d arrived. Jeans meant he wouldn’t be treated to any more glimpses of that sexy ass. But she’d just turned from the front windows, and he’d almost dropped the rip hammer he was using to dismantle the rotting wood on the porch right on his foot.
There were frayed tears in the back of the jeans, as well. One of the back pockets hung down just slightly from its corner. Her lack of panties gave him a tiny peek of that silky, olive skin of her backside. Damn, is she trying to kill me?
She was so stunningly sexy, and she had no idea. She never wore makeup. Her clothes were somehow always haphazard perfection. He doubted she owned one single piece of clothing that would fit the dress code for the Piedmont Driving Club, and that fact drove him absolutely wild.
She’d spent her entire life with a mother that was determined to shove her into some kind of box that would make her acceptable in a world that would never and could never deserve her. That Gypsy fire that danced in her eyes always incinerated any fabrication. Sienna was the most authentic person he’d ever experienced, and that same luscious fire always melted him thoroughly.
He’d spent a lifetime trying to live up to someone else’s standards; either his parents, Alexa, or the Atlanta elite. That had left him on the brink of ending it all, a broken man walking through hell with no hope of seeing the other side. The only person that he’d ever wanted to prove himself to was Sienna Cooper. His one chance at heaven, and he’d blown it.
“I just made some frozen lattes. Would you like one?” Her sweet voice ripped Ryan from his vengeful thoughts about all of the old biddies that loved to gossip about his business, both when it was going well and especially when it wasn’t, at the Driving Club. He hated going there. When his parents forced the issue or when Alexa demanded that he attend some event there with her, he endured the degrading quips about him working for a living and tried to laugh away the vicious scowls of his own wife while she joked about his business to all of her friends.
Sienna stood before him with those beautiful eyes and that smile that turned his insides to liquid. She was bringing him coffee. The longing and the perfection of it all set his entire body on hardened edge. “Yeah, thanks.” He lifted the cold beverage from her and drew a long sip. “Sienna, this is fantastic! Where did you learn to make all of this stuff?”
A swirl of luscious heat crept up from under her shirt. It wound through her neck and settled in her cheeks. “Thanks.” She shrugged off his compliment. “I kind of learned as I went, I guess. On-the-job training, so to speak. I figured out that I really like to cook after I got kicked out of college. Well, actually, my Ramen noodle dorm-room dishes are top-notch, so maybe it was a little before that.”
They both laughed. The melody of their laughter mingling together touched places in Ryan’s heart that he thought were long dead and gone.
“You’ve probably never heard of Ramen noodles, right?” Her face fell. Ryan wanted to bring back her laughter and her beautiful smile.
“I’ve had more than my fair share of Ramen. Trust me.” He hated that she used to always feel somehow less than his family. He’d wanted to pretend that she’d forgotten all of that, but apparently that hadn’t changed either. In any case, he’d been living on Maruchan products for the last several months.
That dizzying grin returned, much to his delight. “Anyway, I worked at a bunch of different restaurants and like a dozen coffee shops. Cooking just kind of clicked, I guess, and I think it’ll help me run this place.”
“I’ll say. This is great.” Ryan lifted the half empty glass of frozen frothy coffee in exultation. “Hey, just let me get these beams down, and we can head into town.”
“Right.” Sienna nodded, but concern had dampened the previous color in her cheeks.
Maybe she was having second thoughts about spending the afternoon in town with him. “Uh, if you don’t want to go…” he forced himself to make the offer.
“Oh, no, it isn’t that. I’m excited to go. I just don’t really know anything about what I need, and I can’t spend more than my loan. I have to be able to pay you. It’s kind of overwhelming. I’m not that good with money,” she admitted fretfully.
Sienna watched his neck contract as he swallowed. He gave her a kind smile and an encouraging nod. “I’d be honored to help you figure everything out for this place. I’m pretty good at all of this, and I think I have a good idea what you want it to be when we’re finished. We don’t have to buy anything today. You can just get some ideas. No pressure.”
Her stomach performed several quick backflips and then missed the landing as it spiraled downward somewhere towards the vicinity of her feet. He always made her feel like she could do anything, and that if she needed help he would be there. He was never overbearing and never made her feel ashamed about what she didn’t know. The sincerity in his eyes made her entire body long to rush into his arms and just let him hold her and make everything that had gone so wrong disappear.
“Thank you,” she tore her eyes from his, afraid of what she might do if she kept staring up at him.
Ryan had washed up in one of the guest bathrooms again, and a half hour later, Sienna found herself seated in his Ford Ranger. “I’m sorry about the truck. It needs a little work.” He pressed the gas pedal several times to coax the engine to start and tried to hide his embarrassment.
Sienna giggled. “I own a 1974 VW van, and it runs about as well as you’d think a 1974 VW van would run, but I love it. I could never sell it.”
The grin of abject relief that he gave her made her entire body come alive. That heat that he always ignited inside of her turned liquid between her legs. She shifted in her seat and realized that if she was going to be hanging out with Ryan for the foreseeable future, she might have to resort to panties. The crotch of her jeans was likely to show off what he did to her body, and that was going to be super embarrassing.
“I like your van. It’s very you.”
“You think?” She did genuinely want to know just what he thought of her, but he just gave her another smile.
She shrugged. “I guess it is. It was all I could afford after working at a coffee shop in Norfolk for about six months. My mom let me move back in after the whole college thing, but Carol and I should really never live in the same state, much less the same house. I bought it when I decided to travel around the country, so we’ve been through it all together. The bed area in the back is handy if you don’t have anywhere to stay for a night.”
Ten
Ryan tried not to show her his shock or his panic. Where had she gone that she’d had nowhere to stay? Had she seriously lived in her car? What if something had happened to her? He willed his heart to remain inside his rib cage and gripped the steering wheel to keep from wrapping his arms around her and trying desperately to build her a sanctuary and a stronghold out of his body.
An hour later, they were pulling onto the main drag into Wilmington. He had a few friends that ran several contractor supply houses and appliance shops up there that would still give him credit. The fact that his client was w
ith him and had money wouldn’t hurt either.
“Ryan! Oh, my gosh! Look!”
He barely managed to halt the truck before Sienna was flinging open the door.
“Whoa, baby. Careful!” He tried to catch her so she wouldn’t fall, and it slipped out without him intending to say it.
“Come on!” She didn’t seem to care. She leapt out onto the sidewalk and raced towards a sprawling sidewalk art and antique show. Chuckling and shaking his head, he found a parking place and located her quickly in the crowd.
He was astonished as he watched her work the booths.
“Do you think you could make these into stair spindly things?” She pointed to a pile of long iron pieces, some old fireplace tools, and a few scrolling pieces just made for design alone. “Wouldn’t it be cool if they were all different?” The hope that played in the fire in her eyes set fierce determination in his heart.
“Sure, I can do that. No problem. That would look really cool.” Making her custom balusters for the long, winding staircase wouldn’t be a problem. He was overwhelmed with her creativity.
“Yay,” she threw her arms around his neck, and he drank in her body. He couldn’t let her go. He wrapped her up in his arms and let the warm tide wash through him. Her exuberant hug brought life back to his weary veins. He inhaled deeply of that heady summer scent of her. It cleansed the choking reality from his lungs. Unable to stop himself, he squeezed her tighter, cradling her head as she buried her face against his chest. Her body melted into his embrace. A slight sigh of contentment made its way to his ears through the crowd. For a brief moment, everything in his entire world felt bearable, but she seemed to force herself to pull away.
His eyes sought hers in frightened desperation. He wasn’t certain which one of them had gone too far. He braced for impact, but she gave him one of those broad, beaming grins of complete acceptance instead. Finally allowing himself to simply slip into a younger version of himself, if only for a few hours, he took her hand. “Come on. I’ll help them to load the pieces into the back of my truck.”