by Marina Adair
His body curled closer and he buried his face in her hair, and oh yeah, delivered a very wet, very hot openmouthed kiss to the sensitive spot behind her ear. She was just getting into it, tilting her head to give him better access, when he pulled back and delivered a friendly smack right to the ass.
“Since every guy out there will be so busy focusing on what we’re doing in here instead of their job, I’m going to pass.” He stepped back and gave Frankie one last heated look. “Ten minutes. And pack a bathing suit.”
“A bathing suit?” Frankie asked, not liking the sound of it. “Where are we going?”
“On a date to celebrate your win.”
* * *
Nate watched Frankie’s toes glide across the water as they sat on the dock. The ripples moved under the lily pads at the middle of the lake, and he felt frustration and something significantly more noticeable swell. He could make a list of at least a dozen things that were the source of the growing problem but for now, he’d settle on listing the top three.
First of all, Frankie had become downright hostile when he’d offered to drive so he had agreed to ride with her, not wanting this day to end before it even got the chance to get good. Which meant that he’d spent the past hour riding bitch on her motorcycle with her rubbing up against his dick every time she turned, sped up, or slowed down. He hated motorcycles, almost as much as he hated driving through town on one while Frankie honked at Marc, who sent him a wave with his pinky while laughing his ass off through the window of the Sweet and Savory Bistro. But the rubbing part, he didn’t mind that at all. Even though he knew the bike was just another way to avoid conversation.
Secondly, they were sitting on the dock, only a few inches separating them and yet he felt as though they were on opposite sides of the lake. He’d given her an opening to talk about what happened, but every time he even circled serious she clammed up, or took a walk, or inhaled another Pop Tart—her addition to the picnic they’d packed. It wasn’t that he’d minded last night—in fact it had been unbelievably hot and sweet—but he wanted to take this past great sex.
And third, he was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a bra. Or a bathing suit. A curiosity he’d slyly tried to ease on the ride up the mountain, but the thick leather jacket she’d been wearing made it impossible to tell. And the wondering made it impossible to focus. And if he had any chance to make today about more than just chemistry then he’d need to have some kind of conscious thought process available to him. They needed to talk about the fire, last night, and where they were going. Because Nate wanted to get the first two out in the open so they could move on to the last, which he had strong opinions on.
Frankie rested forward on her hands, her feet making cute figure eights in the water. Between the white shorts, which left her legs mostly bare, and her soft lavender toe nails, Nate had a difficult time swallowing. Feminine and adorable and completely unexpected.
“I don’t want to talk about it, so can you please stop thinking about it?” She nudged him with her shoulder and he nudged her back until she smiled. “You’re scaring away the fish.”
Nate tapped the fishing poles. “I didn’t say a thing and nothing ever bites here.”
Frankie shot him a glace, a penetrating flash of blue. “I know that look on your face, golden boy.” And he knew that look. Great. She was positioning him squarely in the friends category. Well, now it would be the friends-with-benefits category. “I know what you’re thinking.”
Nate knew that Frankie liked him. There was no doubt of that in his mind. She was just jumpy when it came to emotions, and he couldn’t blame her. Her parents’ divorce had been one of the nastiest this town had seen, with six-year-old Frankie being the prized commodity in the negotiations. So even though her evasive tactics frustrated him, after a childhood filled with heartache and disappointment, it didn’t surprise him.
Wanting to lighten the mood, he dropped his eyes to her cleavage. “Really? And what is that?”
After he’d had a long and thorough study—his money was on no bra—he finally shifted his gaze to meet hers, which was equally amused and turned on.
“You know, you could always just ask,” she said, then leaned in and kissed him. It was sweet and slow and had a whole lot of tongue. Which definitely made the talking part difficult. It also made the swelling problem a hell of a lot more dire. Too bad he was so set on talking, because her mouth felt incredible and his hand was on her waist. All he had to do was slide it up, just a few more inches and that aching question would be solved. But then they’d be no closer to solving the real problem—how to move forward.
So he pulled back, resting his forehead to hers. “Okay, you don’t want to talk about last night, the fire, or your family. Then let’s talk about mine. Come with me to ChiChi’s Saturday night.”
“Isn’t that Baby Sofie’s thing?”
“Yes, her one month-day and, according to Regan, she is the official harvest baby. It will be casual, fun, and I’d like you to come.”
“I saw the invitation. I promise you there is nothing causal about it. Plus I’m already invited and have to go. I tried to back out,” she admitted. “But the kid started crying and showing her gums and Regan said it was because Baby Sofie knew I didn’t want to go. So now I have to go.”
“I know,” he said casually, trying not to make this a big deal. Even though everything in his gut said that it was. “I was asking you to come with me.”
She pulled her feet in cross-legged and sat back, looking every bit the scared girl she’d been when they were seventeen and he’d brought up prom. It would have been funny, except she was on the verge of bolting over a casual dinner. “Like I told Regan, I don’t do family dinners. Not even my own. Well, not anymore. Just going seems stressful enough.”
“My family is loud, nosy, and annoying as hell. It’s like spending the evening with five of me.” She smiled and he felt his chest relax a little. “At least if you go with me, I can help you navigate the noise.”
“Going to the party together seems less friends and more… couple-y.”
“Couple-y? You do realize that we have a house, share custody of an alpaca, and we eat at least one meal together a day. Oh.” He kissed her again. Quick and hard. “And you’ve seen me naked.”
“Doesn’t mean I want to pick out a picket fence.”
“Which reminds me. We need to add ‘get fence’ to the ‘Mittens’s Habitat List.’”
“Mittens needs a fence about as much as—”
“You need a stress free night of fun and good food with a charming Italian man and his crazy famiglia.”
“Charming, huh?”
“I was going to go with sexy,” he said, playfully tugging at her ponytail. “Now, how about I pick you up at six? ChiChi gets pissy if we are late.”
“We live together, roomie. So there will be no picking up. Plus, I’m going late.”
“Late?”
“Yeah, I have to clean up after the Cork Crawl.” Her hands fidgeted and he knew that they’d reached the heart of the issue. She wouldn’t have a team like everyone else to help with the takedown.
“No problem. I’ll help you clean up then give you a ride.” His eyes dropped to her cleavage. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. “Just say yes.”
He watched her, sitting there, staring out at the lake as though he’d proposed marriage, seven kids, and a budding alpaca farm.
She reached out, reeled in her line, and then recast it. “Why did you bring me here, Nate?”
“Because the water tank was being delivered and—”
She looked at him. “No, I mean, here. Why did you bring me here?”
Nate looked out at the lake. About the size of a football field, it was surrounded by an outcropping of rolling vines that glistened in the afternoon sun, making shadows on the water. The dock moved under them as water lapped gently against the posts.
It was peaceful, they were completely isolated, and she couldn
’t run. Most importantly, this was one of Nate’s favorite vineyards and he wanted to share this with her.
“One day a week during the summer, my dad would kidnap one of us kids. Each of us had our special place to go with him. He took Gabe to museums, Abby to the symphony, Trey was forced to take dance, and Marc, lucky son of a bitch that he was, got to go to a daddy-and-me team building camp.” That always pissed Nate off. “On my days, he’d sneak in my room before anyone was awake. We’d pack up the car and spend the day here fishing. Sometimes we talked, sometimes we caught lunch, but we always fished and we always had a good time.”
Nate smiled at her surprise. “I would think that Trey or Marc would have been the more obvious choice in a fishing companion. I mean, fishing is dirty and unpredictable and based on luck. You’re all structure and starch.”
He had to laugh. “To be honest I hated it. After three weeks of catching jack shit, I went to the library and checked out a book. I still remember the look on my dad’s face when he was baiting his line, and instead of a pole, I pulled out What Fish Don’t Want You to Know: A Guide to Freshwater Fishing.” Nate laughed. “I spent more time with my nose in that book than with my hook in the water.”
“Did you catch anything?”
“Nope. And nothing I did mattered. No matter how perfect I baited the hook, how flawlessly I followed the instructions, I could never figure out the system.” He looked over at her and she smiled. “What?”
“That must have been… frustrating,” was all she said, but he could feel her laughing.
“Beyond.” He’d hated it, especially when Trey started giving him pointers. “So one week I asked him why he didn’t take Marc fishing, and he said that I needed it more. Going to the team building camp and problem solving would have been fun, but coming out here forced me slow down, realize that not everything makes sense.”
“Did you ever catch a fish?”
“Yeah, my dad told me to put the book down and forget what I had read. And wouldn’t you know it, I caught a fish.” He’d only been ten, but that was the first time he remembered feeling like a man. “It was a guppy and we had to throw it back, but I had caught my first fish.”
“I bet your dad was proud.” To his surprise, her hand slid all the way down his arms to lace their fingers and then she dropped her head on his shoulder and her feet back into the water.
They sat like that, holding hands, sharing space and watching the lily pads buoy in the water.
“Last night, after you fell asleep, I got to thinking about your dad, which led to thinking about my dad and I knew I wanted to bring you here.”
He felt Frankie’s chest rise and take in a breath, then slowly let it out. “What were you thinking? About my dad, I mean?”
“That you are a lot like him and he knew that. Maybe he didn’t leave you any of the vineyards because he knew you didn’t need it. Your brothers have never been connected to that land like you have, they needed the ties. But you, you don’t.” He felt her tense, but she didn’t move, so he continued. “What if it was his way of showing you his love? Doing what he thought was best, not for the winery, but for you.”
Head still on his shoulder, Frankie tilted her face toward him, looking up with wide baby blues. “You don’t think he did it because I chose to live with my mom?”
God, is that what she’d thought all these years? That her father hated her because of a single decision she’d been forced to make when she was six?
“No, I don’t.” He bent down and kissed her nose. “Your dad and grandpa went at it for years over how to run the winery. You being tied to that place would have made you miserable.”
“Right, because we’re such a big happy family now.”
“You’re happy though,” Nate said gently and they both knew it was true. She might be hurt over Charles’s behavior, but she loved making her own wine. “You are loyal and honest and you lead with your heart, Frankie. But you’re also a dreamer. You’d rather take a huge risk on the off-chance that it produces something unique, than play it safe. And spending your life working Charles’s land, following his rules and making his wine would have made you miserable, just like it did your dad. It would be a life of expectations, constraints, duty, and your dad knew that if you inherited those shares, you would have never broken free.”
“Yeah, well, that vineyard was the only thing we had in common, the only tie I had to the Baudouin side of the family that had nothing to do with my mom or the divorce. So the only thing he broke was my belief in what I thought we had.”
And my heart. It went unsaid but Nate knew that it had happened all the same.
“The funny thing,” she continued, her voice so quiet he barely heard it over the lapping of the water. “I’ve worked that land every day since his death, next to a man who I idolized more than life only to discover that in the end, he didn’t want me there either.”
“Your dad loved you, Frankie. He wanted you to find happiness in just being you, without the weight of Charles. Maybe his plan just didn’t go as he’d hoped.”
“Maybe,” Frankie whispered.
“And I think that Charles, although he is being difficult, is secretly proud that you went after what you wanted.”
“I think,” she said, leaning up and snagging his lower lips between her two plump ones and sucking him into her mouth. “That you secretly brought me here to go skinny dipping.”
She untangled herself and stood, the dock shifting under her motions. Although skinny dipping sounded fan-fucking-tastic, and just the suggestion had him going from zero to fully-loaded, Nate wanted to finish their talk. But then Frankie stripped her shirt over her head and, hello, one problem solved.
No bathing suit or bra.
Then her fingers went to the button on her shorts.
Yeah, she was done talking. That much was obvious. He was starting to realize that whenever he tried to talk to her about something even semi-serious, she dangled sex in front of him. Not that he was complaining. Especially when she dropped trou and Nate finally got a look at the small tattoo on the upper curve of her heart shaped ass as she executed a perfect dive right off the end of the dock. And oh baby, now he was incapable of speaking.
He watched her tan skin glide beneath the surface, swimming farther and farther away from him and all the feelings that he just drudged up. He’d pushed a little, and she’d given a little. It was a start.
CHAPTER 14
Frankie waited until her lungs burned for air before she surfaced. She needed a moment of quiet to collect herself, to absorb what Nate had said and then store it safely away to revisit it—never. She was running, and they both knew it. More importantly, Nate knew when to push and when to let it go. And he had wisely let it go.
Diving back under, she allowed herself to just glide, let the water slide over her body. Everything seemed clearer under the water, the quiet flow made it easy to forget—about her grandfather, about her money problems, and most importantly about Nate and the genuine concern in his eyes, which made her wish for things that scared her.
When she was in the middle of the pond, she came up for air. Involuntary chills ran down her body. But it wasn’t from the shock of the cold water lapping against her heated skin, it was from the strong, masculine hands that gripped her hips and ever so slowly slid up her body.
“Seems you forgot your suit,” Nate said huskily in her ear, pulling her back against his front until every delicious inch was touching. She rested her head on his shoulder and floated while his hands shaped and explored, sliding over her wet body and finally finding a home on her breasts.
“Seems to be a trend today.” Frankie turned, wrapping her arms around his amazing shoulders, her leg around his flat stomach and—hello. Nate was slick, and wet, and hard. Everywhere. “But if it bothers you, I can go to the bike and grab mine.”
“And ruin a perfectly good skinny dip?” He watched her through water spiked lashes, while his hands slid all the way down her bare back befor
e cupping her backside to pull her tight against him. The heat between their bodies doubled on contact, erasing the chills on her body and leaving behind a scorching flush. “Nah, I’m good.”
Then his mouth was on hers. And, yeah, he was good all right. So good that she could actually feel her insides reaching melting point. So good that she was in trouble, serious trouble of falling in complete and total like with him. Especially when his mouth, cool from the water, gently worked hers, his tongue applying the faintest amount of pressure as he swam them backward toward the dock.
Tilting her head to the side, Frankie slid her hands up and into his wet hair, pulling him even closer. Then Nate stood, rising out of the now waist-deep water, which sluiced down their bodies. His hard chest glistened with moisture in the afternoon sun and a thin patch of wet hair trailed down the plains of his flat stomach, disappearing beneath the water.
His lips moved against her ear while his thumb brushed over her tattoo. “A daffodil?”
“It’s a symbol of rebirth, new beginnings.” It also symbolized unrequited love. She got it the day she’d turned eighteen, and since that was only a few months after her father had passed and she’d learned of his will, it had seemed fitting. But now, after what Nate had said, she wondered.
Feeling too serious in an already vulnerable position, she tipped her head back and guided his mouth lower, settling in just above the hollow of her throat. “What were you expecting, barbed wire-covered motorcycle handles?”
“No, I just wasn’t expecting a cute, feminine, sunny flower,” he said, pulling back, his eyes heavy and intense. “Nothing about this… about you is what I expected.”
Nothing about this was what she’d expected either. The way he looked at her, held her, touched and molded her with his hands as though she were precious. Frankie never expected to fall—ever—but she was afraid that the warm ache that had taken up residence in her heart was a whole lot more than just complete and total like.