“Why do you say that?”

“Angle of his back foot.” He slung his arm across the back of the bench, turning his face up to the sun. “He’s a goofy-footer trying to ride with the wrong foot forward.”

Time and place.

Though his hands practically curled in on themselves with the sudden need to touch her.

Two minutes later, the yellow-shirted surfer took a header off the end of his board.

“You called it.” Avalon’s face lit up with pure enjoyment. “I can’t believe that one. We’re like forever away.”

He shrugged. “I like working with grommets. I figure it’s the least I can do. I’ve been there, you know?”

The way she smiled at him went to his head as if he’d run out of air under the water. “Yeah, but not everyone does. It takes time to teach someone to surf. Dedication.”

“I don’t know that I’ve taught anyone. Just given a few tips here and there.” The wood bench was rough under his palm, still soaking up plenty of the afternoon’s bright sun. “One thing my dad gave me was great surfing advice. Don’t want it to die out, at least not that part of him.”

She lightly touched and patted his thigh. Completely innocent and yet something that went right through him. Until she spoke. “You should meet with him.”

“Goddamn it,” he said, but without any malice behind the words. There was only a weary sense of expectation. He’d known things like this would happen once he finally told everyone. Avalon especially would think she should help. Or think she had more insight on what had to happen. “I’ve been there. Done that. There’s no reason for him to be in town if not to cause trouble.”

“You don’t know that.” A tiny wrinkle scored her forehead. He had the most absurd impulse to smooth it away. “Jack said it was business. If he’s even a little bit in the surfing world—”

“He is.” Tanner had followed Mako’s progress with a sort of begrudging interest. He didn’t want to know, but he didn’t want to be taken by surprise, either. The man had bought his first surf shop only a year out of college, a tiny place in Brisbane. He’d only gone up from there. “He owns Burn.”

“No way,” she said on a breath. It was one of the biggest chains in the industry, pushed by innovative marketing and aggressive tactics. She seemed to catch herself, coughing awkwardly and snapping her mouth shut. “Right. Anyway, see? A store in San Sebastian makes sense. Business. It’s totally legit.”

“It would be if I hadn’t already had a nice little run-in with him when I first got to town. Besides, I wouldn’t even need that. I know him.”

“You know a what, a fifteen-year-old boy?” She leaned a shoulder against the back of the bench, giving him a gentle smile. “I’ve heard stories of you at fifteen.”

He’d been nineteen when she’d become friends with his sister. There had only been a few months’ overlap before he’d left for the tour, but he remembered her. Huge eyes and a tentative way of folding her shoulders in, as if she were expecting to be yelled at any second. “You and Mom always were close. Straight off.”

She nodded. “So you know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”

“I do.”

“So let your mom meet with Mako.” She went after him like a determined shark, all teeth and intent. “She’s a grownup. She can make her own choices.”

“Why should we give in to him? He’s doing shitty things to get himself noticed now that Dad’s dead. Plus, I’ve got a family already.” Sage and his mom had always been good to him. Always been there for him.

“You don’t have room for one more?” Her gaze shifted back out to the lineup of surfers. “I figure everyone can take more family. What’s a little more love?”

His knees bounced. He’d rather be surfing, that was a damned easy call. But he trailed her ponytail through steady fingers. “You’d do anything for someone you considered family, wouldn’t you?”

“I figure the question’s more why wouldn’t I?” She tossed the words out lightly to skip across the waves far below them.

But the stiff line of her blade-sharp shoulders said she felt it more keenly than that. “How’s your mom?”

She jerked her head to look at him. “Exactly what are you implying?”

He traced his touch down her spine. The muscles and ligaments there were practically twitching. She’d break if she twisted any tighter. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

She looked back out at the waves, but he could still see the line of her jaw and the tendon down her neck that stood out in stark relief. “Mom’s fine. She took a cruise.”

Time slowed as Tanner sat there, touching lazy circles over Avalon’s back. Plenty went unsaid, but he didn’t see a problem with that. If Avalon was living in a glass house, far be it from him to toss rocks around. Maybe he wanted her to not throw any, either.

Not unless he was going to stick around to catch the fallout.

No matter what he’d told Avalon, taking over the store was not a possibility. He’d no sooner do retail than feed his foot to a shark.

“Hey,” he said, tugging on the ends of her hair. “You know what?”

She looked at him over her shoulder again. The apples of her cheeks went round. He’d give anything to know what she was thinking about. “What?”

“I can’t stop thinking about the way you taste.”

Her lips parted on a gasp and her gaze flicked to the white-haired fisherman at the other side of the pier. But he didn’t even look in their direction.

Tanner hadn’t spoken that loudly. He hadn’t needed to. The only person whom he meant to hear him was Avalon, and he’d certainly gotten her attention.

“We said it was one night. Back to friends, remember?”

Maybe. But he’d been having a harder time than he’d expected getting her memory out of his head. Or making his dick focus on anything else.

For example, he ought to be studying the waves, the way they were breaking. The rhythm of the sets. He had a championship to nail down.

Instead, he had his gaze fully focused on the way her long bangs tickled and tangled in her eyelashes. The way she slowly blinked, her pupils blown wide. Most especially the soft bow of her bottom lip and the way he wanted to nibble on it.

There was something about Avalon that went straight past all the rest of the world and fitted into some ragged part of him. He felt more centered when she flitted around him.

He wove his fingers through the ends of her hair and tugged. The move was light, and if she’d tried to get away, he’d have let her go. Somehow. Even though his hands would mourn the lack of her.

But she leaned into him, her chin tilting up into his kiss. The way they worked together was amazing. She kissed him as if chasing off demons.

Before Tanner knew what had happened, he had a lapful of Avalon. He didn’t mind it one bit. An arm low around her hips, he cupped her jaw in one hand.

Too soon, she pulled her mouth away. Her eyes were hazy, her lips parted and wet. He liked her like that. Wanted more of it.

Her mouth tipped up in a smug smile. “Man, I haven’t made out on the pier in years.”

“I’m not your first, then.” Contentment settled into him like an old friend. Sitting on the pier, Avalon in his arms, beautiful waves at his feet. Yeah, that worked for him. He smoothed a hand down the length of her throat. Delicious. “I always knew you were a hussy.”

She pulled a face, but the way she didn’t shrink away from the hard-on poking her hip had to indicate at least some hussylike tendencies. He appreciated that in a girl. “My first kiss was here on the pier.”

“No way.” There was something about that idea that resonated through him: That he’d be the last man to kiss her on the pier too. But that was pretty damn ridiculous. She’d go on after he left, find herself someone new. Someone who’d take care of her and remind her to calm down once in a while.

The very thought sent acid through him. The skin over his shoulders chilled.

But Avalon hadn’t noticed. “The old one, before they rebuilt it. Behind the restaurant because Jared was working as a busboy there.”

“I always knew you were a wild child.” He kept smoothing touches over her. He liked the way she felt, the way she settled under his hands. But he also liked driving her up and wild again. He nuzzled his face in her hair, touched his lips to the delicate skin behind her ear.

She shivered, her ass wiggling in his lap. Dude, that sent pressure straight through his cock. He had to grab hold of her. “Do that again,” he said and his voice sounded raspy.

“What?” She was all fake-innocence, her eyes held purposefully wide. “This?” The slow-hipped grind she gave would make a stripper proud.

“Fuck, yes,” he breathed.

“You’re too easy.” Her smile lit up her whole face. “You make a girl think she’s the queen of the world.”

Not all of them. Not by far. There’d been plenty of times when he’d been accused of not giving a big enough of a shit about the women he was with. Which had never made sense to him, because he’d always genuinely cared about them. Maybe not more than any other close friend, though.

Avalon, though. He had the feeling he could learn everything about her and still have that half-fascinated, all-confused feeling about her. Like she was completely unpredictable.

The only shitty part was that he didn’t have it in him to delve. Couldn’t take the time to figure her out. It was something his dad would do, worm his way deep in some poor innocent girl’s life and then leave her, except for periodic booty calls. Tanner couldn’t do that to Avalon.

Even the back of her knee was silky, delicate. He traced figure eights over the skin, relieved when she wiggled on another shiver. “If we get out of here, I’ll show you exactly how to get crowned.”