Lorelie Brown - Riding the Wave

Tanner kept darting glances at her. Eventually he must have had enough. Pulling her through open French doors didn’t prove difficult. She went as if walking through sea spray, slightly lost and foggy.

The cool breeze coming in off the ocean cooled her overheated cheeks and shook the cobwebs out of her head. She couldn’t afford to be ridiculous about this. The family as a whole was her concern.

What she and Tanner had been sharing was like happy bonus land. Not the main game.

By the time she curled her hands around the railing that overlooked the beach, she’d managed to smile. “Who makes a beach club, fences off the beach, and then doesn’t even pay attention to it during a party?”

“Very rich people.”

Tanner nestled up behind her, the full and solid weight of him at her back a reassurance. He grabbed the fence around her, caging her in, but she didn’t feel trapped. She felt relieved. His chin brushed her temple, then his lips. The way he nuzzled her gave her back those tender feelings.

The ones she couldn’t indulge. Because he obviously didn’t mean them, not the way she wanted him to.

“Are you okay?” His voice sent another whisper of temptation through her.

What she wanted was to turn and bury her face in his chest. Rub her cheek over the warm expanse of his shirt. Instead, she blinked down the burn of tears that threatened and stared at the water. Dark and glimmering at the same time.

At least the ocean never changed. Never went anywhere.

Even if she could never quite capture what the water meant to her in her photographs, she could try forever. Over and over again. Because age didn’t matter.

Unlike Tanner.

In the past week, he’d made plans. Big plans. Ones that apparently didn’t include her at all, even though she’d been the one to suggest he take over his mom’s shop. Sure, she’d meant continuing retail, but it’s not like she’d have been totally closed to other possibilities. Not so long as the Wright name stayed stamped over the door.

By the time she twisted inside the gentle trap of his arms, she’d managed to push it all away. If now was all they had, then she’d make sure it was memorable.

He might be able to put her away, but she wasn’t going to let him do it as easily as Matthew had dropped her. She wasn’t going quietly.

She trailed her nails over his shirtfront. “I’m fine. Why would you think otherwise?”

“Back there. About the school idea . . .” He cupped her shoulders, his big hands shoring her up. “It’s still exactly that. An idea.”

“You already went to WavePro.”

“I had the idea while I was there, that’s all. Bullshitted it out with a few of them during contract negotiations.”

She pushed up on her toes. Kissed him, softly. There was one way to make sure a man’s mouth didn’t run anymore. And she didn’t think she could listen to any more of this without her heart breaking.

Which said really, truly scary things about the state of her heart.

So she kissed him harder. She shouldn’t have, considering the doors right behind them, and how they could be spotted at any moment, but she couldn’t resist him. Not when she didn’t have any other choices at the moment. She swept her tongue into his mouth, taking all she could. All he was willing to give.

Because she’d wanted him too hard and too long to give up now.

The way Avalon kissed him made the blood in his veins perk up. As well as his cock. He kept his hands locked over the caps of her shoulders by pure will, and the reminder that there was an entire party behind them. Music and voices and the plenty of oh so sophisticated laughs poured out through the open doors.

But Tanner’s world had become only the soft plushness of Avalon’s bottom lip. The way her breasts brushed against his chest.

The tiny, softly pleading sound she made when he pulled his mouth away.

He kept his hands on her shoulders, more for the chance to keep touching her than anything else. But she was straining toward him still, a tiny bit, with her chin tipping up and her eyes half-lidded. Enough to puff his ego higher than the Rockies.

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” He wanted to make sure she understood that. “It was a timing thing. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

Not to mention that after ten years pretty much on his own, he’d gotten out of the habit of consulting others about every little detail.

“It’s not.” She smiled, her cheeks going round. But the skin at the corners of her eyes wouldn’t quite relax. The touch he soothed over her temple did nothing, either. “It’s your business. I wouldn’t dream of intervening.”

Now he knew something was really wrong. Avalon was a meddler, born and bred. Years of Sage’s stories backed that up.

But before he had a chance to pick that apart, she’d come up on her toes and wound her forearms around the back of his neck. Forceful as she took his mouth again.

Fuck, she was like a drug. One he was rapidly becoming dependent on. He framed her face and pushed her back a bare inch. “Not here, Avalon. We can’t do this here.”

Her gaze flicked over his face. Each glance was like a touch and as evocative. Her lips were glossy. “Where?”

There was an entire party of people behind him. And he couldn’t give a shit for any of them. “Down the rocks, to the water.”

She looked left and right, then laughed when she spotted the gate. “Escape. Blessed escape.”

Escape was ridiculous, since they’d been at the party barely two hours, but there they went. Hand in hand through the metal gate, then down the rock-strewn path. In this portion of San Sebastian to the north, the beaches were ringed with low cliffs and the shoreline scalloped into small coves.

When they hit the sand, Avalon took her heels off, grabbing onto Tanner’s arm for balance as she wiggled and bent. The look she flicked from under her fringe of bangs said she knew exactly what she was doing to him.

Then she wandered off ahead of him, shoes dangling from her fingers. Her ass twitched as her hips swayed.

He pushed his hands in his pockets, the better to not get grabby. If she wanted to tease, who was he to stop her? “You know, that thing deserves a medal.”

She looked back over her shoulder, but didn’t stop. The quirk of her lips carried everything mysterious. He wished the dark didn’t obscure the dark green of her eyes. “What’s that?”

“Your skirt.”

“A medal?” She laughed, a single huff of humor. But it didn’t sound as husky as her normal laugh.

He nodded, then captured her hips from behind. She gave a little shimmy. Something had certainly gotten into her. But at the same time, it was like she rode on the surface.

“Yup.” He rubbed his cheek over hers, the silk of her hair brushing his temple. She felt amazing, anywhere he touched her. Always did. “For valiantly maintaining its position in the face of such extreme fabric shortages.”

Finally, she laughed for real, tossing her head back and offering her gifts like a pagan’s gifts to the gods. “That doesn’t sound much like a complaint to me.”

He skimmed his hands over the back of her leg, up the gentle curve of her ass. “Not at all. I wouldn’t even think of it. In fact, if your skirt would like to retire for the rest of the night, I wouldn’t mind that, either.”

She laughed again, this time a little more quietly. But there was still something dark about her expression.

Around the curve of some rocks, she darted out of his hands. Arms out, she spun with her face toward the darkened sky. The half moon couldn’t do justice to her beauty, though it sure tried. The shadows lengthened and draped.

Tanner had never really been one to look away from the ocean, but this time he couldn’t help himself. The landscape of the tiny cove made the space their own world. Steep-sided cliffs with tiny scraps of green clinging to them hid them and protected them from outsiders. Hard-packed, damp sand indicated that at high tide this entire place would be underwater. But for now it was a couple sticks of driftwood tucked at the base of the rocks.

And Tanner and Avalon. Together.

She tossed her shoes to land at the base of one of the jagged rocks, then turned back to him. The crook of her finger was a siren call that he didn’t mind answering. Breaking open on her rocks didn’t sound so awful.

But when he stepped to her, caught her hips again, she waggled the finger at him. “Uh-uh. I’ve got a plan.”

She’d pinned her hair up for the party, in one of those supercomplicated girl styles that took almost an hour to do but made her look like she’d been freshly fucked. Dark strands framed the angles of her cheeks. He hooked one with a finger and stroked it back. “Do these plans bode well for me?”

“Of course they do.” Her hands skimmed over his torso, quick flashes of promise. They hooked his belt, her eyebrows rising in one of those unmistakable signals.

Her smile became everything wicked, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were skimming over the surface. She hadn’t moved an inch, but it was almost as if some frantic buzzing zinged under her skin. It was as if she’d fly into motion at any moment.

Normally, he liked her energy. Loved it, even. But this felt off. Strange. The manic glint in her eyes could sink them both.

He cupped his hands around her face. The delicacy of her bones was distracting sometimes, an unwelcome reminder that she was surprisingly fragile. He could hurt her if he wasn’t careful.

But that was absurd. If anything, she’d been the one more firm about holding to their expectations. That this was nothing but fun.