Barefoot by the Sea

Chapter Twenty-two

Tessa’s soft gasp as she looked in the mirror was drowned out by Zoe’s squeal and Lacey’s “Aww” and Jocelyn’s slow clap of approval. Ashley watched from the floor of the dressing area, smiling up when she wasn’t texting.

“That’s so totally it,” Zoe announced, fluttering around the dressing stage like a robin over her nest. “That neckline, that bodice, that little row of pearls. Love!”

Tessa took a minute to look down and smooth the cool silk over her hips. The handkerchief hemline rose and fell flirtatiously around her ankles and calves, making it perfect for a beach wedding. The fabric had a shell-pink cast to it, so it didn’t scream virginal first-time bride. And the tiny rosebuds along the portrait neckline made her hurt with how perfect they were.

Perfect for Tessa, not Zoe.

“You’d never wear this,” she said. “I should have tried on that one with the gold belt and plunging neckline.”

Zoe’s eyes widened. “Yeah, I loved that dress, but this one is…it’s you.”

“Precisely,” Tessa said, glancing at the others for an assist that was clearly not coming. “I thought this was going to be your wedding dress.”

“Well, just in case, you should buy it.”

Three—no, four—heads nodded in agreement with Zoe.

“You guys! I’m not spending…” She reached down to look at the tag, but of course there wasn’t one. She wasn’t in a department store; they’d come to an exclusive Naples boutique that reeked of money. “Whatever it costs.”

“It’s so pretty, Aunt Tess. You could wear it for any fancy thing.”

“But you all want me to buy it for a farce of a wedding?”

“What makes you think it’s a farce?”

“Lacey!” Tessa choked on her name.

“Seriously, Tess,” she continued, getting up from her comfy viewing chaise to approach the stage. “The way he looks at you, the way he talks to you. I mean, did you see the look on his face when you said you’d be trying on dresses? Maybe you can wear it twice—once for the bridal consultants and, again…later.”

Why were they all helping to build up her hope?

The next “You guys are nuts” welled up, but somehow the words didn’t come out. They weren’t completely nuts. He had given her the dreamiest smile. And last night, under the stars, they’d kissed for hours and talked more—not about him, but about all kinds of things.

There was no way that guy didn’t like her a lot. And vice versa.

She turned back to the mirror, the rush of seeing herself in the dress washing away common sense and reality and questions.

“Buy the dress, baby,” Zoe said. “No alterations and it fits like a dream. And you have to have something to wear for the big event.”

“Can’t I just wear a pretty dress I already own?”

“I’m afraid the consultants won’t buy it,” Lacey said.

“Ash?” Tessa asked, but she was texting. Finally, Ashley tore her gaze from the screen to look up and, from the glint in her eyes, Tessa knew exactly whose name was on that phone.

“What?” Ashley asked from her residence in la-la land.

“I was hoping for the voice of reason.”

“I think if he makes you feel good and you really love him, then go for it.”

Tessa narrowed her eyes. “I’m not going to pretend I love him,” Tessa said. “But…” She grazed the smooth fabric again. “If I have to pretend to get married…”

They all waited, hanging for the verdict, but she blew out a breath and looked around, as if he might show up at any minute.

“I’m really falling for him,” she whispered, so softly Zoe had to step closer to hear her. “I mean, like, whoa and damn, girls, I am really falling for him.”

Jocelyn joined Zoe, closing in. “And that’s a problem, why?”

“Because I still sometimes think—no, I actually know—he’s not telling me everything about himself. He even admitted there was more than he was telling, but refused to disclose.”

“Give him time,” Jocelyn said. “Some men take eons to open up.”

“Still,” she said. “It scares me.”

“Relationships are scary,” Lacey said. “You think he’s not telling you everything. And I thought Clay was too young and Joss thought Will was too close to her father and Zoe thought Oliver would tie her down.”

“He does, occasionally.”

On the floor, Ashley giggled. “Aunt Tessa, I think they’re trying to tell you that every new guy has problems but, if it’s true and lasting and honest, you’ll overcome them.”

Lacey beamed at her. “Right you are, baby girl.”

Ashley smiled back, then gave a knowing and hopeful look to Tessa. “Are you listening?”

“Yes,” Tessa assured them. “But this is different. It seems like every time we get close, he shuts down.”

“He’s a guy,” Jocelyn said. “They don’t see the need to spill their guts. It doesn’t mean he’s not getting ready to. He obviously really cares about you.”

Tessa nodded, then looked in the mirror again as Zoe climbed up on the bride’s stage and slipped an arm around her. “He’s got a lot of promise, is all we’re saying.”

She curled her arm around Zoe and, as she pulled her in for a hug, got a nudge from the baby belly. “There is the little matter of how much I want a child.”

“Is he opposed completely to the idea?” Zoe asked. “My God, surely he’d offer up some of his liquid gold when he sees you in that dress, if not before.” She shot a look at Ashley. “I guess you’re old enough to get those jokes now.”

“I know what liquid gold is, Aunt Zoe,” Ashley said quietly and held up a hand to Lacey. “Don’t, Mom.”

Lacey shot her a surprised look, but then turned to Tessa. “Honey, I don’t care what he says. I saw that man hold Elijah and he wants a baby. It was all over his face. He’s probably terrified to admit it, but he couldn’t hide how taken he was with that child. Give him time, Tess.”

Maybe she was right. Maybe they all were. “I’m cautious,” Tessa said. “And I don’t trust easily. I don’t really know if he’s marriage material or daddy material or donor material or a good time in the garden.”

“In the garden?” Zoe spat. “You did it in the garden?”

Ashley’s head shot up, her text forgotten.

“We did not do it,” Tessa said. “We talked, really. And kissed.”

“That tells you so much about him,” Lacey said.

“That he’s made of titanium?” Zoe asked.

“That it’s real for him,” Lacey insisted. “He respects you.”

Tessa fought the urge to underscore the point with Ashley, who was facedown in a text, anyway.

The boutique attendant knocked on the dressing-room door and peeked in. “Do we have a winner?”

“Not yet,” Ashley said.

“Maybe,” Zoe added.

“Working on her,” Lacey chimed in.

They all looked at Tessa, waiting for the final answer. “Possibly” hung on her lips to finish the chorus, but then she turned and looked in the mirror and went a little crazy. “I’ll take it.”

The last dinner customer left the Casa Blanca restaurant at eleven, so Ian texted Tessa that he’d be at work until well after midnight, too late for a rendezvous dinner like they’d had the past few nights. It was actually well after one by the time he finished the kitchen cleanup.

So he wasn’t surprised to see her bungalow shrouded in darkness when he got home. The only thing that surprised him was how disappointed he felt. All he wanted to do was be with her. Kiss her. Make her laugh. Take their constant touching and foreplay one step farther.

Not good, mate. Not good at all.

Swearing softly, he turned off his bike and sat in the circular drive shared by both little houses, staring at her darkened windows. This was probably better.

The more time they spent together—and the hours were adding up—the more he wanted to tell her the truth. Among other things. God, so many other things. He’d touched her, felt her quiver with an orgasm, kissed her breasts, and walked away with a woody the size of Big Ben.

He could feel one growing right now, thinking about her in bed.

Why the hell wasn’t he in there with her?

Because of some trumped-up, fucked-up plan to fool her into signing a piece of paper. He’d talked to Henry once more, and although they weren’t quite sure how it would unfold yet, he was onboard with the wedding plans. It was possible that Tessa would sign a piece of paper thinking it was part of the act, but, in reality, it would be a legitimate wedding certificate.

Then Henry could get the whole thing annulled when Ian disappeared. Tessa quite possibly wouldn’t even know she’d ever been married. The only other plan was to actually convince her to marry him, then claim cold feet and disappear after the wedding.

She’d hate him and be heartbroken, but he’d have Shiloh and Sam and they could start a new life, hopefully while they were so young they wouldn’t even remember the old one.

“John? What are you doing out here?” He hadn’t even heard the front door open.

In the doorway, she was bathed in moonlight that shimmered over a thin tank top, so silky sheer that he could see right through it. Her long legs were exposed all the way up to the top of her thighs, barely covered in black shorts that looked like a very sexy version of men’s boxers.

Holy bloody hell, he wanted her.

“Somehow I imagined you slept in a men’s nightshirt.”

“Nice to know you think about such things.”

“Only constantly.”

She leaned her head against the doorjamb, a sleepy sigh carried on the breeze and giving him chills. “I heard your bike, but not your bungalow door.”

He liked that she listened so carefully. “Can I come in?”

She swallowed and lifted a narrow, toned shoulder, the skin glistening from recently applied lotion. “It’s late.”

He climbed off the bike and walked to her door. “I need…” You. “A shower.”

She lifted a brow in question and pointed one finger toward his bungalow. “You have running water.”

“So do you.”

She crossed her arms as he reached her, the act pure self-defense. “Not sure I can take the torture.”

“Torture?” He got right in front of her, the scent of that body lotion a mix of flowers and fields and female.

“Of having you naked in my shower.”

He lowered his face. “You could join me.”

She lifted her lips and let him brush hers, the contact electric, the need instant. He opened his mouth and she did the same, letting their tongues tangle in an easy familiarity.

She moaned softly in response, taking one step back into the bungalow. Behind her, a few candles flickered on the table next to two glasses of wine, very soft music coming from a sound system.

“You were waiting for me,” he accused, a tease in his voice.

“Maybe.”

He stroked from her shoulder over her breast, palming her, thumbing her, instantly getting rewarded by a puckered nipple. “I like that.” He ground the words into her mouth, his dick already high and mighty and not giving a shit about why and when and what he was doing.

“I thought you might come over.”

He tore his hands from her breasts, placing them on her face to push her hair off and look at how pretty she was. “I might not know too much about these things, but isn’t anything after midnight officially considered a booty call?”

She grinned. “Yeah.”

“So, is this…?”

She shrugged both shoulders playfully. “Could be.”

Before any voice of reason, guilt, or doubt could scream “Stop!” in his head, he kissed her and everything went silent except for the hum in his veins as blood began its journey to the one and only place that didn’t listen to reason, guilt, or doubt.

“Tessa,” he whispered, inching her back into the house, kicking the door closed behind him. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

She responded with an equally hot kiss, pulling him deeper into the bungalow, pressed completely against him.

“Then don’t,” she said. “I was just thinking about you, as a matter of fact. I was…” She grunted softly into the kiss. “Thinking really hard.”

He half laughed, half moaned at the sexy, sexy way she said that, guiding her into the living room. “What were you thinking about?”

“You.”

He caressed the silky top, lingering over her sweet little breast.

“That.”

Taking the nipple between his thumb and index finger, he gently tweaked, kissing her throat and jaw and ears.

“And that,” she said.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Everything else.”

Forget the shower. The sofa was closer. “Everything else,” he repeated, adding pressure to lay her down. “I better hear about this.”

She kissed him as he dropped onto the cushions; all the while he touched her breasts and hips and stomach, the round, feminine curve causing a fire hose of blood and heat and pain to rush to an already stiff cock.

“Oh, I can’t tell you exactly what I was thinking about. Too…personal.” She wrapped her legs around his, letting him take the most natural place on top of her, their hips already rocking, pulses pounding.

“Were you touching yourself?” he asked, devouring the idea of her making herself come while thinking about him.

“Maybe a little.”

Oh, the admission squeezed his balls. He slipped under the satin top to touch air-soft skin, thumbing her budded nipple to make her whole body shudder. “Like this?”

“No,” she whispered. “Nothing like this. This is better.”

He tweaked her nipple playfully, his erection slamming against his jeans, forcing him to press it against her pelvic bone. He dragged his hand lower, over ribs, toward her hips. “Where else did you touch?”

“Here.” She reached between them, sliding her hands down to rub the ridge of his cock. “You know, in my imagination.”

His hard-on damn near danced. “Like that?”

She sighed, then slipped her hand behind the button of his jeans, reaching in and closing over his hot shaft. “More like this.”

Murmuring and moaning, he closed his eyes and lifted off her enough to let her get the zipper down. He burst out, making them both suck in a shocked breath.

“Oh, it’s better than I imagined,” she admitted, stroking him slowly from top to bottom.

And better than he’d dreamed. Her fingers squeezed, slipping over the already wet tip, then all the way down, burning from top to bottom, making him throb with the need for even more.

He kissed her hard, his hands traveling everywhere, his head screaming conflicting orders to stop or go, touch or talk, think or feel, and, oh, man, just fuck. The need swallowed him whole, wiping out everything else, raw relief engulfing him because he was finally, finally going to have her.

She stroked again, the ache of pleasure and pain eliciting a low growl from his chest as he buried his face in her neck and let her take him to the damn near edge of an orgasm.

He could come in a blink of an eye. “Again,” he murmured. “Do that again.”

She did, slow and easy, and again and again until his body threatened to erupt.

His hands shaking, he repositioned himself, giving her more room to fondle him, and letting him slide her little shorts to the side and touch her soft, wet center.

She cried out softly, squeezing him harder and lifting her hips for more.

“Do I touch you in your fantasies, Tess?”

Eyes closed, she nodded, still pumping him, spreading her legs a little more. He twirled the tiny tuft of hair between her legs, then stroked the opening, slipping his finger in and out no more than a centimeter.

She bit her lip, her head going from side to side with pleasure, never missing a beat as she practically pulled an orgasm from him with her hands. He fought it with everything he had, holding back, watching pleasure rock her, sliding his finger deeper into her hot, hot body. Every cell in him was on fire, burning with the need for release.

Finally, she opened her eyes and slowed her touch, each breath a battle.

A mere centimeter and a flimsy piece of satin separated their bodies as he pressed her against the cushions, both of them naked enough to do what both of them desperately wanted. Wet, hot, they connected in every way but the only way they both wanted desperately, their mouths attached with a strangled kiss.

“In me,” she pleaded, lifting her hips so it was almost impossible not to go inside her. “I want you.”

He pulled back an inch, a sudden, aching realization floating to the front of his hormone-addled brain.

He was going to leave her, damn it. High and dry and completely alone, with no explanation except that—no. No explanation. The cruelest, most despicable act he could imagine. And he was going to do it to her.

So what? Did that mean they couldn’t…

He slammed his hands against the sofa, the noise startling her. Eyes wide, she stared at him, both of them fighting for each precious breath.

“John.” She barely whispered the name. “Please don’t make me beg.”

He closed his eyes.

She let out an uncomfortable laugh. “It’s so embarrassing when a woman begs.”

“You don’t have to beg.” He leaned down and kissed her. What the fuck kind of excuse could he make if not the truth? Anything else would crush and insult her. He needed something real, honest, or else they could…

“I don’t have a condom,” he murmured.

She made a little “O” with her mouth, then very slowly shook her head.

“I don’t,” he said. “Do you?”

She let out a mirthless laugh. “I have a library on the subject of how to get pregnant. Do you think I stock condoms?”

“Well, for protection against…more than babies.”

Taking a slow, deep breath, she pushed him up and off her, fighting to right herself. “John, I don’t have casual sex with people I don’t know very well.”

Of course this didn’t surprise him in the least.

“In fact, I don’t have sex at all, because you’re the first guy I’ve dated or liked since I got divorced, so, no, I don’t have condoms.”

He started to answer, but she put her hands over his mouth.

“The truth is, I’d bet you have a box of them in the back of your bike and at least three in your wallet.”

That was, mostly, true. Two in his wallet. He didn’t answer, and his hesitation made her close her eyes and puff out a breath.

“So you lied to me when you said you didn’t have a condom.”

Even he didn’t have a soul black enough to deny that. He just looked at her.

“Why?” she demanded with a hitch in her voice. “Why lie?”

He still couldn’t answer. Anything, any single word he spoke, could only be the truth, and he could not tell her the truth.

“You want me as much as I want you.”

“Yes,” he said, grabbing something he could hold with two hands. “Every bit as much. Probably more.”

“But something is holding you back.”

Something like a conscience. When the hell had he developed one of those?

“And I know what it is.”

He was quite certain she didn’t, but he still didn’t answer.

“It’s the baby,” she said flatly.

He flinched for a second, his guilt-ridden brain thinking she’d said babies, his babies. But, of course, she hadn’t.

“See?” she accused. “That’s what it is. You know I want a baby.”

“I know you want a baby,” he repeated slowly, like a witness on the stand dancing around the truth but so determined not to lie under oath.

Even in the candlelight he could see some color fade from her face. “So you think it would be wrong to have sex with me because you think…” She dug around, obviously trying to figure out how his mind worked when, in truth, she was miles and miles and miles off base.

The simple truth was that right this minute, he could absolutely see himself having a baby with Tessa. He really could. At the thought, a longing deep and powerful squeezed his chest, shocking the breath right out of him.

He could. Holy hell, he could fall in love with her.

What did that mean? Where did that leave them? Both living in a government protection program? Gone from here, from her life and her friends, disappearing into obscurity and lies, like he had to live? No. She didn’t have to live that way just because he loved her.

After a long moment of him staring at her, she pushed him all the way off her, sliding her legs out to stand up. “I’m glad you’re honest about it.”

Honest? He was choking on lies. “I haven’t said a word.”

“You don’t have to.” She smoothed her top and straightened the tiny shorts she wore, self-conscious of her sex-inviting outfit. Leaning over to blow out a candle, she held the V-neck to her chest modestly.

With a puff, the room was completely black.

“Good night, John.”

From deep, deep inside him, something welled up. Something hot and mad and so damn frustrated. He wanted to howl, to cry, and punch a hole through the wall.

This was not how he wanted to live. Tears stung his eyes and every muscle quivered.

With a shaking hand, he reached up and grabbed her arm, pulling her right back down on the sofa with a gasp.

“You don’t know anything,” he ground out. Even in the dark he could see her eyes widen in shock. “You don’t know…anything.”

He didn’t care that she could see his eyes wet with tears. Didn’t care that his voice cracked and his body quaked. Let her see how torn up he was inside. Even if she could never know why.

“Then tell me,” she whispered, searching his face, touching his cheek in wonder when she saw the moisture. “Tell me anything. Tell me…everything.”

“I…” A sob welled up, a sorrowful, pitiful, aching hole of need. He didn’t want to make love to her. He wanted her to be part of him, the part that knew every ugly thing about his life and loved him anyway. In spite of his past. Because of it.

“You what?” she urged.

“I…want…you.” For real. For real. Why couldn’t this be real?

Because Luther Vane stole more than his wife and his life. He stole every chance that Ian had to be normal, happy, and whole again. But Tessa…Tessa. She could make him whole.

If she were willing to give up everything.

She held his face very still, clueless as to what he really needed. “Then take me right now and forget about whatever it is that’s torturing you so much.”

White-hot agony ripped through him. One kiss, that was all it would take. One touch of her lips, one single kiss, and they would melt into each other and find pleasure and release and the ultimate, perfect bliss. For an hour, or two. A night, maybe.

And two weeks from now, he’d fuck her again, in a whole different way.

The need to tell her the truth actually burned in his chest, far hotter and more demanding than anything in the lower half of him. He didn’t want to “take” her. He wanted to tell her.

He had to. Right now. Right bloody now.