Take Me Forever (Billionaire's Beach Book 2) Page 8

  Her foot tapped the brake as she caught sight of the house. The garage door was closed, but a mean-looking motorcycle was parked in the drive. Huh?

  Instead of zipping in beside it, she made a more cautious and uncharacteristic choice. She parked the Miata against the curb across the street.

  But Blackie, being Blackie, didn’t curb his reckless impulses. The minute she opened her door, he shouldered past her hip and dashed out and up the street at a four-legged lope.

  “Damn.” She didn’t even try calling back the dog. From experience, she knew that would only spur him on. The animal was so focused on his own selfish concerns, he didn’t care a whit about pleasing the human who fed, watered, and walked him.

  Knowing he’d eventually wander back, she popped the trunk and tucked the thick package under her arm. With a last curious once-over of the motorcycle, she headed along Juliet’s curved, lushly landscaped walkway.

  Rounding a corner, she halted at the bottom of the graduated porch steps. On the white wooden bench near the front door, a man was sleeping. He wore battered blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and black motorcycle boots. His long legs were draped over the far arm of the bench and a leather jacket that looked like it had been run over a time or two was bunched under his head as a pillow. In contrast to the rest of his Hells Angel persona, his hair was cropped fairly close to his head and was matched in color by the black stubby lashes that rested against his high-cheekboned, very tanned face.

  A burn started bubbling in her belly. Had Juliet gone from Marlys’s war hero father to men who looked like they sold drugs on East L.A. street corners?

  Perhaps her outrage made a sound, because the stranger suddenly woke. His lashes lifted in a beat, their color a cold, alert silver that immediately focused on her face. She’d seen only one other man come awake with just that same instant awareness.

  The comparison to her father pissed her off. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

  With a lazy movement belied by the sharpness of his gaze, he sat up. With his scarred boots planted firmly on the flagstone porch, he tilted his head and took his time taking her in. “What mushroom did you stroll out from under?”

  Marlys narrowed her eyes. “I’m short, not some stupid troll.”

  He shook his head. “It’s fairies, not trolls, who use mushrooms for umbrellas.” Lifting his face, he squinted up at the sky. “But I don’t see any clouds.”

  “Yeah? Well I’m about to rain on your parade, buddy. What the hell are you doing here? Should I be calling the cops?” For some stupid reason, it now irked her even more to think that this…this darkly handsome guy might be linked to Juliet.

  “I’m here to meet someone. Arrived early.”

  Hah. So he was linked to Juliet. And didn’t that just show how shallow the other woman was? She was a widow, for God’s sake, and she had no business hooking up with a man as gorgeous as this. Sex appeal clung to him as closely as that T-shirt hugged his ripped chest.

  Not that she’d noticed.

  “Are you sure you have the right house?” she asked, freeze-drying the edges of her voice.

  He shrugged, then craned his neck to glance at the address marker posted on the wall behind him. “This is the number my friend gave me when I called him last night. Noah lives here with a lady. Is that lady you?”

  Marlys bristled. She couldn’t help it. Everything about this man, his lazy posture, his cool eyes, his hot body, the whole package rubbed her the wrong way, as if she was a cat being petted from tail to ears. “Noah doesn’t ‘live’ with my…my stepmother.” She never referred to Juliet in that manner, she’d never thought of her as a maternal figure, but she kind of liked the idea of giving the leggy blonde an older, not to mention evil, image.

  Bad Marlys.

  The Hells Angel’s eyebrows rose. “Ah. That explains the brat part.”

  “Brat?” Marlys echoed, offended. She’d been called a lot of things in her time, but nothing so childish as brat. What a jerk. She straightened her spine and threw out her A-and-a half cups. “I might be the size of a kid, but I’ll have you know I’m twenty-five years old.”

  One side of his mouth kicked up. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to imply you needed a babysitter. But if Juliet Weston is your stepmama, then you’ve got to be the general’s daughter. I meant Army brat.”

  “Oh.” Army brat. A soft sense of nostalgia bloomed in her chest. That’s what she’d been a long time ago. Until she was twelve years old and her mother had tired of military life and divorced her dad.

  The motorcycle man was looking at her like he could see every thought in her head. Marlys prided herself on her tough exterior, so the idea he found her transparent incensed her all over again. “Did you say you had business here?”

  “I have some time off. Thought I’d find myself a fairy whose wings could use a tug or two.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You tug the tail of a puppy. You strip the wings off a butterfly.”

  His smile was as lazy and slow as every other move he’d made. “Strip? When I get you naked, I promise I’ll leave the wings just as they are.”

  Strip. Naked. Marlys’s insides heated again. But it wasn’t that bitter burn she’d become familiar with. Not that she’d let him see that his flirtation was getting to her, not when, dressed in a long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of old jeans, it had to be a knee-jerk reaction he had to women, any woman, not particularly her. She slammed her hand on her hip. “Give me a break. That kind of line might work in a biker bar, but around here—”

  She yelped as her feet were swept from beneath her. She found herself up in the air—and, no fairy wings, damn it—then down, painfully, on her ass. Blackie—selfish, unrepentant, and wiggling with doggy delight—breezed up the steps, then back down, stepping on her hair as he circled her prone, breathless form.

  “Sit.” The rough order from the man on the porch had Marlys struggling to obey. “Stay.”

  Blackie plopped down. Froze.

  In the same position, she and the dog looked at each other with astonishment. It’s why she didn’t see the biker guy move down the stairs. He was quick for a lazy man.

  “Are you all right?” He lifted her to her feet with big palms beneath her elbows. His hands ran down the cotton knit of her shirt to her wrists, then transferred to her waist to cop a feel along the denim covering her hips.

  “Hey!” she snapped, stepping back.

  “Just checking for injuries,” he said, giving her an unrepentant smile.

  She scowled, because every inch he’d touched was tingling, even through 100 percent cotton fibers. “You should be checking the dog,” she said, glaring at Blackie, who, miracle of miracles, was still down on his haunches. “Because there’s a rolled-up newspaper with his name on it.”

  “Jesus.” The stranger frowned. “Don’t hit the dog.”

  A flush shot over Marlys’s face. She wasn’t perfect by any means, she knew that, but she’d never actually strike Blackie. It mortified her that the man would think it. It mortified her that she cared what the man would think.

  “He’s my dog,” she mumbled, looking down at her feet. Good Lord, she was wearing her Keds from seventh grade. “I’ll do what I want.”

  “He needs some discipline,” the man advised. “Enroll him in obedience school.”

  “We’re kind of free spirits, Blackie and I,” she said, reaching out to stroke the dog’s head. Blackie whined.

  “I get it now.” The Hells Angel crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re both spoiled.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  The silvery eyes of his had warmed up. Apparently she amused him. “The principles are easy. Let him know what to expect. Reward the behavior you want, and when he crosses the line, withdraw your attention. A little time locked outside and he’ll come around.”

  “I’m not sure Blackie gives a flying fig about my attention.”

  “Beautiful fairy like yourself? Any male would be ready to knock himself out f
or you.”

  Marlys cast him a look through her eyelashes. All right, she was human, wasn’t she? And when a man this good looking called her beautiful—even when wearing her junior high Keds—it wasn’t a crime to be flattered. Or tempted.

  Didn’t he imply he was going to be around for a while? With the foul mood she’d been in lately, she could use a distraction, so maybe a flirtation—or more—wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

  Then she remembered. This particular temptation was here at Juliet’s house, a place she’d been looking forward to avoiding.

  “Where is my evil stepmother anyway?”

  Motorcycle man shrugged. “I told you I arrived early. Noah’s out, she’s out, I don’t know where either is.”

  She guessed she should be grateful he hadn’t broken into the place.

  “I’m Dean Long, by the way.” He stretched his hand toward her.

  Without thinking, Marlys put her palm against his.

  Zap.

  Electricity shot to her elbow as her bare flesh met his. Her gaze jumped upward to clash with his surprised silver eyes.

  “Wow,” he said.

  She yanked her hand away. “It’s the crisp October air.”

  His smile dawned slowly. “Yeah, must be about seventy-five, seventy-eight degrees out here.”

  Oh, what the hell. She found herself smiling back and enjoying the exhilarating feel of her blood zipping through her body. “Like I said, crisp.”

  “Mmm-hmm. Snap, crackle, pop.” The flirtation in his eyes heated to seduction. “I don’t know your name.”

  “Marlys.” She took a step back, and bumped into Blackie. He whined, and her fingers stroked the fur on the top of his head. “Marlys Weston.”

  Dean watched her retreat a few feet more, Blackie pressed to her thigh. “Are you going to come back and see me again while I’m here, Marlys Weston?”

  “I think I’m going to have to,” she heard herself murmur, then she turned like a coward and hightailed it to her car.

  Once there, though, she realized she’d only been telling the truth. She still had Juliet’s package.

  Noah ran across Juliet at Zuma, the two-mile stretch of sand situated at Malibu’s northern end. It was the kind of beach that symbolized California. The hundred yards from parking lot to waves were strung with dozens of volleyball courts and along the horizontal stretch lifeguard towers squatted like giant toddlers hunkered over plastic pails.

  Whether it was thanks to fate, or instinct, or just dumb luck, his eye had caught on her car in the near-empty lot as he cruised along the Pacific Coast Highway. Though he knew Dean was waiting for him at the house, Noah hadn’t hesitated to turn off PCH and into the parking lot at the next opportunity.

  He braked his truck beside Juliet’s Mercedes and then trudged through the sand in the direction of her solitary figure. She didn’t move or shift her gaze from the horizon across the water, even as two bright yellow lifeguard vehicles trundled past with rescue surfboards strapped to their racks.

  From twenty feet she turned her head and looked at him. The breeze off the ocean had dashed pink color against her cheeks and onto the tip of her elegant nose. It had made her mouth rosy, too.

  The mouth he’d kissed.

  The mouth of the woman who last night had confessed her longing for a man’s touch.

  He stumbled on nothing, tripping over his own feet like a skid row wino. One of the lifeguard trucks slowed beside him. “You okay, pal?” the driver called out, lifting his Ray-Bans to scrutinize Noah’s face.

  “Fine,” he said, waving with the hope the gesture would be enough. Sure, he was publicly intoxicated, but he didn’t feel like explaining that he was drunk on memories of those reddened lips and that beautiful woman in his arms.

  Her hair had smelled sweet and the smooth strands had slid against his cheek like water. She’d looked up when he’d groaned her name and without thinking, without weighing, measuring, worrying, he’d taken her mouth and given back the kiss of a starving man.

  He wanted that again. He wanted to be the one who assuaged her need—“craving”—for skin. Contact. Touch.

  The lifeguard glanced over his shoulder and took in the focus of Noah’s attention. Juliet was facing the men now, her hands stuffed in her pants’ pockets, her jeans stuffed in a pair of knee-length sheepskin boots. A long-sleeved white T-shirt clung to her slender frame.

  “Ah,” the lifeguard said, with a grin, as the truck started moving again. “Break a leg, buddy.”

  But nobody was going to get hurt, Noah assured himself, as he continued toward Juliet. This was about helping, not hurting. With several inches still between them, he halted.

  She spoke first. “What are you doing here?”

  “I…” Well, hell. He hadn’t thought it through that far. He’d spotted her car and formed a plan that only went so far as finding her. Throwing her down in the sand and having sex in the surf like the famous scene in From Here to Eternity wasn’t suitable for someone like the high-class blonde now staring him down.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets to disguise the way his cock had already warmed up to the idea and tried shrugging away his uneasiness. He liked women. Women liked him. Before now, he would have claimed to know all the steps to the dance and how to easily flow from one to the other until two bodies went from the first moves of foreplay to the last throes of a satisfying fuck.

  But this was Juliet. And from that night he’d rushed naked into her kitchen, nothing between them had been easy.

  “Noah?”

  Since he didn’t have an answer, he asked his own questions. “Are you all right? What are you doing out here?”

  She swung back to gaze at the ocean. Her profile was so damn classically pure it made his still-stiff cock ache. The banner the breeze made of her caramel hair had his palm itching to fist his hand in the stuff and draw her close enough to once again heat those reddened lips.

  “I need to take care of Wayne’s ashes,” Juliet said. “And here might be the right place for them.”

  Cold dashed over Noah’s libido like a winter wave. Oh, Christ, he thought, wanting to kick his own ass to hell and back. Here he’d been certain she was considering her next move to satisfy her skin craving when instead she was contemplating what to do with her dead husband’s remains.

  “Insensitive jerk,” he muttered, cursing that sexual thug inside himself.

  Juliet frowned at him. “Noah? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Fine.” Just moving my brain back from my little head to the big one. “So, about the general’s ashes…?”

  “Maybe this is their right resting place.”

  As usual, she’d been pale but composed on the day he’d accompanied her to meet with the funeral director. Juliet had made all the arrangements according to her husband’s wishes. Marlys had been there, too, her gaze never lingering long on anything or anyone. The only time the general’s daughter had spoken was to request she be given some of her father’s ashes in a tear-shaped silver pendant—though Noah had never seen her with it since.

  Maybe his thoughts of the younger woman transferred to Juliet. “I thought Marlys might have an opinion, but she says she doesn’t want anything to do with it.”

  “You should decide for yourself.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” Juliet turned to watch another wave wash in. “Here is pretty.”

  “Here is pretty,” he agreed. “It’s quiet now, on a weekday autumn morning, but in the summer it will be crowded with people. Volleyball players, surfers, bodyboarders.”

  “Kids,” Juliet said, her voice so quiet it was nearly drowned by the crescendo of the latest wave. “Children playing in the sand and dipping their toes in the water.”

  Children. God, that was something that had died for her, too, hadn’t it? Noah had never considered that she and her husband might have wanted a family, but from that wounded expression on her face, it looked as if she believed there were no green-eyed, blue-eyed babies
in her future.

  For himself, he’d never given the next generation much thought, but it seemed like a damn shame to him now, no silky-haired towheads trailing like baby ducks after their lovely mama. Clearing his throat, he pressed the heel of his hand into his chest.

  “In Iraq,” he started, driven to redirect the conversation with the first thing that came into his head, “there are soccer fields in the middle of the cemeteries. Families picnic there, too. It sounds weird, but I liked it. Those that had gone before were part of what was going on now.”

  “Wayne would like that, too.” Juliet sank into the soft sand and drew up her knees to wrap her arms around them. “He’d want to be part of where people are living and laughing and enjoying nature. That works, I think.”

  Noah joined her and they sat in a silence almost as companionable as they had once been. Before he’d kissed her.

  A better man would regret that too-brief embrace. But a childhood when hunger gnawed at his belly more often than not had trained him to snatch the goodies whenever he could. A breeze kicked up and caught Juliet’s hair, its ends flying against his face.

  He let them tickle his skin. He let them tickle his libido to life, too, as he imagined himself twisting his fingers in her hair and bringing that soft mouth toward his so he might kiss the sadness from her face. He’d kiss her, hold her, run his hands over all that smooth skin and those slender curves until she didn’t remember anything, anyone but him.

  Everything but the two of them would be taken out to sea on the waves of what he wanted from her—what he had wanted for years but had made do instead with other kisses, other curves, other faces and skin. He’d wallowed in other perfumes to cover his desire for the only one that called to him.

  She wanted touch and he wanted to touch. Couldn’t it be as simple as that? For as short as it lasted?

  “Tell me about Iraq.”

  The sound of her voice jerked him from his thoughts. “What?”

  She held her hair back with her hand and gazed at him with that unbalancing combination of blue and green. “Death letters. Cemeteries. I feel bad. I’ve never asked you about your experiences as a soldier.”