Love Me

by Quinn Ward

  When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t believe what sat on the table. A green notebook with the edges curled up from use. “Where’d you get this?”

  Dane’s cheeks turned pink, the corner of his mouth lifting upward in a shy smile. “I figured you hadn’t been out to the mailbox since the night we were there. Thought you might miss your reading time.”

  “So you made a four-mile round-trip for me?” Maybe I shouldn’t have been shocked, because that was the type of guy Dane was, but no one had ever gone out of their way like this for me. I didn’t have a lot of dating experience, but I’d never even been able to get any of my boyfriends to walk out there with me. They all thought it was a redneck tourist trap, not worth wasting hours of their time. But Dane, who I’d treated like crap last Saturday morning, had walked out there and brought back a book for me to read without me even asking.

  “Go on, pick a page and read it to me.” Dane slid lower in his chair and closed his eyes.

  I flipped the notebook open to a random page.

  “What’s it say?”

  “This one’s cheesy,” I warned him.

  “Don’t care. Whatever page you open it to is the one you have to read.” He sat up and smiled. “That’s a new rule I made up. The people who write those notes want to be heard, so let’s hear them.”

  Heart. Melting. “Okay, just remember you asked for it. Based on the handwriting and what it says, I’m pretty sure this was a teenage girl, probably out there with her parents, but maybe not.”

  “You’re stalling,” he pointed out, smirking again. If I was bolder, I’d have lunged over this table and kissed that cocky grin off his face.

  I met the most amazing guy yesterday, but I probably won’t get to see him again. He was funny and really cute. And he said I had a nice smile. No one’s said that to me before, probably because I had those stupid braces for so long. But he liked my smile…

  I kept reading until the end of the letter, signed with a heart with two sets of initials.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” he said when I finished. “I wonder if she did get to see him again before they left. Or if they at least kept talking. I hope so.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a closet romantic, Dane Montgomery,” I teased.

  “For other people, sure,” he conceded.

  My heart ached that he thought love and romance was something for everyone but him. Wanted to know what’d happened in his life that gave him such a callous view. It’d make sense if he’d grown up around his grandparents, but he’d been spared of that.

  Without hesitating I shifted to the chair between us, lifting Dane’s feet and dropping them into my lap. His eyes shot open, he tensed, but then he gave me that killer, perfectly straight smile. Maybe it was the part about the girl having braces and getting picked on that resonated with him. It was possible he truly didn’t understand how gorgeous he was, and I wanted to be the one to show him.

  “This okay?” I asked, digging the tips of my fingers into his rock-hard calves. It was possible they were so firm because of muscle tone, but he radiated tension. The beach was relaxing to most people, but if anything, Dane had grown more tense every day since he’d arrived. As I worked, I felt the tissue relaxing, warmed when he sighed praises. He toed out of the sandals he’d bought, wiggling his toes in a not-so-subtle invitation to keep going. I handed over the notebook so he could continue reading while I focused on making him feel good.

  I kept rubbing while Dane leafed through the notebook, occasionally stopping to read some of the shorter notes or turn the book around so I could see a drawing.

  “What happens to the notebooks when the mailbox is full?” he asked.

  I sighed. “Volunteers take them up to UNC Wilmington whenever there’s a full box, and they’re in the library there.”

  “Wouldn’t it make more sense to store them someplace local?”

  “It would,” I confirmed, wanting to hear where his mind was going.

  “Do you keep any notebooks here?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why in the hell not? Is it some sort of territory thing? Is there a group dedicated to all things Kindred?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that.” I chuckled, placing one foot on the ground and taking the other in my hand. “The mailbox belongs to all of us and none of us. But this is the way it’s been, so this is the way it is.”

  “Sometimes things need to change. The way things always were doesn’t necessarily work moving into the future.” The wistful tone in his voice told me he wasn’t only talking about the mailbox or Sunset Beach. “Do you ever stop and wonder what your life would have been like had one thing not happened?”

  “Sure, I think everyone does. But everything that’s happened in our lives leads us to where we are, guides us to where we’re going.” I’d read in a self-help book once that you couldn’t dwell on the crappy parts of life because without them, you’d never have had the joys either. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it made sense, and from then on, it was how I tried to live my life. “What about you? What do you wish had been different?”

  “Plenty,” he admitted. “I used to spend a lot of time wondering why it was just me and my dad, why my mother didn’t stick around. I mean, I get that maybe she and Dad weren’t meant to be, but how could she just leave like that? If she’d hung around, I’d have at least had someone there when everything went down with my dad. I wouldn’t have lived with the asshole who pretended to be his best friend.”

  This was more than he’d ever offered about his own past. I slowed my hands as I listened to him rant about his childhood, about the time after his dad went to prison. The longer he talked, the clearer the picture became; Dane wasn’t the manwhore he pretended to be. He was a hurt little boy, scared to let anyone get close to him.

  I stood and motioned for him to follow me into the lobby of the hotel, suddenly wanting to be someplace a bit more private. The only problem was his room seemed a little too intimate. Had my foot been healed, I would have suggested a long walk. But there was one place I could show him as a bit of tit for tat.

  I ducked behind the desk and grabbed the master keys before leading him upstairs. I stayed ahead of him so he couldn’t see the pain in my expression. I’d overdone it today and was going to be hurting tomorrow.

  Once we arrived on the third floor, I swung the door wide. This was now a suite, but long ago, there had been bird crap all over the floor, busted-out windows, and floors so rotted you had to be careful where you stepped. It was creepy, but this spot had once been my personal sanctuary.

  I led Dane out to the private balcony, overlooking the entire beach and everything beyond. Dane relaxed back on a striped chaise lounge and stared up at me.

  “Would it be presumptuous to ask you to sit with me?” he asked, vulnerability showing in his words. I took his hand and allowed him to guide me down next to him.

  Dane squirmed to get comfortable. The way his groin rubbed against my backside awakened my long-neglected libido. He wrapped his arms around my waist, holding me tight to his body.

  My head fell back against his shoulder. “What are we doing, Dane?”

  “I could ask you the same question,” he whispered even though we were the only two here. “You’re the one who brought me up here. I’m just going with what feels right.”

  And damn did it ever feel right. If I woke up and realized this had been nothing more than a vivid dream, I was going to be ticked. The tumblers of my life were slowly falling into place. Too bad the one labeled Dane would eventually get jammed and he’d head back to New York.

  “What was that all about?” Dane asked, squeezing me tighter.

  “What?”

  “You tensed up. Why?” He released his hold and a chill raced through me. I braced myself, ready for him to push me away, but his arms rested against his thighs. “I didn’t mean to push you, I just… I thought….”

  “You thought right,” I reassured him, sliding my
hands down his forearms until our fingers laced together. “It’s me being stupid.”

  Dane kissed the side of my head, so tenderly it turned my insides to liquid. I wanted him, all of him.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, I guarantee it’s not stupid.”

  “I’m waiting to wake up and have this be a dream,” I admitted after a long pause. It was stupid. Ridiculous, really.

  “Does it make you feel better to know I feel the same way?” He put his arms back where they belonged, around my middle, and sighed heavily. The crash-and-burn was going to kill me, but getting to spend time with Dane was one hell of a way to go.

  7

  Dane

  If this is what falling in love is like, I’ll pass. I wish I could actually talk to someone about everything I’m feeling, but my buddies would all think I’m being a wuss. Guys like me aren’t supposed to do feelings. They’re all talking about which asses they want to tap, and I’m sitting here mooning over the last person I would have expected… -S

  Brook twisted in my arms to face me, those pink lips pursed, just begging to be kissed. So I did. I was tired of fighting my attraction for him. He gasped, scooting up my body until his arms were draped around my neck. He tugged at the tieback in my hair, yanking until my sloppy bun was freed. His fingers twisted in my waves as I nipped at his lower lip. I grabbed his hips, stopping him from grinding against me. Normally, that would have been exactly what I needed, but the little voice in the back of my mind told me I shouldn’t be doing this. I couldn’t do this, because according to James, I owned half this place and he was an employee. My employee. Fuck. My. Life.

  I pushed him away, no matter how loudly my dick screamed to strip him bare right here on the balcony. There were no other buildings in view, and we were far enough from the edge no one would see us. It’d be so easy to take what I wanted, the way I always did. But employment status notwithstanding, Brook deserved better than that.

  “I’m sorry, Brook….”

  “It’s cool.” He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, removing any traces of what we’d just shared. Dammit, I didn’t want that. I wanted him. Needed him. And until the trust cleared, I didn’t technically own a damn thing.

  “No, it’s not,” I argued, stuffing my hands in the back pockets of his shorts. “Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear.”

  He shook his head, allowing his bangs to shield his view of me.

  I wasn’t having that shit, so I reached up and tucked the hair behind his ear before brushing my fingers over his high cheekbone. “Look at me. I didn’t stop you because I wasn’t into it. I’m the exact opposite of not interested. But I should have made sure you were into it too.”

  “Isn’t that obvious from the way I was practically climbing you like a spider monkey?” Brook countered. His hands were still tangled in my hair as he gently massaged my scalp. “I don’t do this, Dane. Not ever. I’m not the kind of guy to go for what he wants, but as you pointed out, sometimes you have to be willing to change the way things always were.”

  “Not this,” I told him. Brook didn’t need to tell me he wasn’t a bed hopper for me to know that wasn’t his style. He was loyal to a fault, kind, and oozed stability. No way was he the type to drive to a club for random bathroom sex. “You should never compromise what you want just to get dick.”

  Apparently that was the wrong fucking thing to say. Brook punched me in the shoulder and bolted off the chair. “You seriously think that’s all this is?”

  No, I didn’t, but I didn’t know what it was. It’d be presumptuous to think this was the start of a once-in-a-lifetime love affair, but it wasn’t casual either. For one thing, I knew more about Brook and his life than I did the past four guys I’d slept with, combined. As much as Brook’s lithe body turned my crank, it was his laid-back nature and the shy smiles he flashed when he didn’t know I was looking that drew me to him. It was the way his body settled when he talked about his grandpa and growing up in Sunset Beach.

  I reached for Brook, tumbling to the ground when my hand caught air. “Brook, wait.”

  He stopped but didn’t turn around to face me. His shoulders were slumped forward, his head hung low as if ashamed of what had just happened. Brook took one step forward, and I knew I was running out of time.

  “Please, let me explain. I promise it’s not at all what you think. If you hear me out and you still want to get back to what we were doing before I screwed it all up, we will,” I rushed out in a single breath. “Things are complicated for me.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” he sneered. “You’re here trying to get to know your uncle and then you’re leaving. I’m not naive, Dane. I get that whatever we do is only temporary. And yeah, maybe that’s not something I’m into, but it’d be worth it with you. Not as some sort of favor to you, but because I’m not some chaste virgin. I have needs, just like you. And if I’m going to scratch that itch with someone outside of a relationship, I figure I might as well do it with someone I’m at least attracted to.”

  “Would you shut up and listen to me?” I growled. This was why random sex, often in dimly lit bathrooms, worked for me. I didn’t do well with the communicating thing. I cautiously stepped in, closing a bit of the physical distance between us. “Believe it or not, this truly has nothing to do with you, other than the fact I’m starting to get the impression you’re the one who keeps the inn running.”

  “Huh?”

  “My uncle didn’t reconnect with my dad out of some sense of obligation,” I told him, tentatively taking his hand in mine, leading him back to the matching chaise lounges. He relaxed on one, rolling to his side to face me. “I believe he wanted to see if he and my dad would patch the rift created by my grandmother, but it wasn’t just that. As it turns out, my grandfather wanted to make sure the inn was taken care of after he died.”

  “That makes sense. He loved this place.”

  “Yeah, well as it turns out, he left the inn to me. Half of it, anyway,” I told him. It was still surreal to look around and realize that this place was mine. That I’d had this gorgeous business dropped into my lap by someone I’d never met.

  “I’m glad you told me,” Brook said, his scowl softening. “But I don’t see what that has to do with you and me getting back to what we’d started.”

  He was trying to wear me down, and it was working. Yes, there might be some moral gray area when it came to us hooking up, but as long as he knew the full deal, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

  “And it’s not like you’re going to be here every day, directly supervising my work,” he continued. “You have a stake in the place, but do you mean to tell me you’re going to give up your entire life back home?”

  Would he think I was nuts if I admitted the thought had crossed my mind? The little voice in the back of my head grew louder every day, reminding me that I hadn’t been happy with my life for a long time. I’d worked so hard keeping everyone at a distance that I was a miserable, lonely man when I wasn’t on the road. Going out to the clubs, getting laid, drinking, that was all a mask for how I truly felt about my life. It felt like I’d come here for a reason even if I hadn’t known why at the time. Like the universe was handing me a solution to my problems. I had to at least consider every possible solution before doing anything.

  And that included being honest with Brook. If he saw screwing around with me as a quick and dirty way to release some pressure, I didn’t want him regretting whatever we might do if I did decide to stay. Wasn’t sure I could handle him pushing me away because I wasn’t someone he’d even consider as relationship material. Not that that’s necessarily what I wanted, but I was leaving my options open because if I was going to settle down with someone, I wanted it to be someone like Brook.

  No, that was yet another fucking lie. I’d slept for crap every night since our first dinner because I couldn’t stop envisioning what it would be like to spend time with him. The sex would be steaming, but I got the impression the rest of our time would be a sl
ow-burning fire. Walks along the beach in the evening, maybe more time spent on the island with him reading pages out of those silly notebooks to me. And since James dropped the bomb about the inn, those dreams included visions of the two of us working side by side, the way I thought my grandfather might’ve wished he and his wife could if she hadn’t been a frigid bitch. I didn’t want someone like Brook; I wanted Brook.

  “What would you say if I told you I’m not sure what I’ll do at this point?” I asked, staring up at the cloudless sky. It was safer this way. “I’ve been doing the same thing for a long time, always expecting different results. For a while everything worked. Until it didn’t.”

  “Do you mind me asking what changed?” The legs of his chair scraped across the wood deck. I glanced over as he scooted his lounger closer to mine. He moved the table out of the way, pushing our seats together. Probably a good idea, because these things weren’t made for a guy my size, much less for me and someone to cuddle with. “I mean, I know the stuff about your dad, or at least what your grandpa talked about sometimes. But you were pretty young then. When did your life stop working?”

  The day Grady told me he was moving in with Jen. Until then, I’d allowed myself to believe things between us would never change. We understood one another. Hell, it was because of him that I’d believed it was possible to feel a connection to someone without a commitment. I hadn’t been ready for him to walk away and shut me out. While he got used to his life with Jen, I hid in my apartment and licked my wounds. But eventually I’d resigned myself to the fact we were through, and that’s when I started hitting the clubs. That was more than I was ready to admit to Brook, lest he think I’d been trying to hide the needy, clingy side of my personality.

  “It’s been a gradual shift.” The lie left a sour taste in my mouth, so I decided to give him bits of the truth. In time, if we remained friends, maybe I’d tell him the rest. “You see your friends settling down, getting married, having kids, and suddenly you realize you’re the Peter Pan of your social circle. I never had many friends, especially after my dad was arrested. Funny, parents didn’t want their babies hanging out with the con’s son. But there was one guy… I didn’t meet him until after…. He didn’t judge me for what they claimed my dad did, which proves the type of man he is because his parents were some of the victims of the scheme.