Carolina Girl (13 page)

His eyes, that brilliant bottle green, met hers. His mouth kicked up in a smile. She felt a little flutter like the beat of her pulse low in her belly.

“Who wants to be safe?” Sam said.

Eleven

M
EG STOLE A
glance at Sam’s profile as they left the bobbing lights of the waterfront behind. He looked good in moonlight, strong cheekbones, straight nose, sculpted lips, chiseled chin. And then there were those not-quite-dimples, the promise of humor, the flashes of empathy. Any woman could be forgiven for losing her head a little over Sam.

It wasn’t just his good looks and his money and his charm. Okay, those things didn’t hurt. But the real appeal was his willingness to put himself out, the way he’d driven to the airport to pick her up or built that ramp for her mother, without looking for payback, without figuring the angles or calculating the cost. She liked that about him. She liked him a lot.

He had always been a friend of Matt’s, a friend of the family. There was no reason after all these years that Meg couldn’t count him as her friend, too. Her good, close friend.

But nothing more.

The clouds against the blue velvet sky were the colors of an oyster shell, purple, gray, and milky white. The last time she had been alone in the dark with Sam, he’d kissed her senseless. If he tried anything this time, she was ready. She would just say no.

But despite his words in the restaurant, he was being a perfect gentleman.

She shivered a little from the breeze and disappointment.

He slanted a look at her. “Cold?”

She wasn’t stupid. She recognized a line when she heard one. “Is this where you offer to put your arm around me to keep me warm?”

“No.” He slid out of his jacket. “This is where I give you my jacket to keep you warm.” He put it around her shoulders, smiling down at her, making her feel safe and warm and cared for. His jacket smelled like him, masculine with a hint of expensive soap. “Then I put my arm around you,” he said, suiting the action to the words.

Meg smothered a laugh. “Where did you learn this move, high school?”

He grinned back, not smug, just . . . Sam. “Why not stick with what works?”

Everything he did had worked for her back then. She’d had the worst crush on him for years. She’d be on her way to the library and see Sam with some girl—always a different girl, always a pretty one—backed up against the lockers. Or glimpse him from an upstairs window shooting hoops in the driveway with Matt as she stripped dirty sheets from the guest room beds. Every cutting comment she’d made had been an attempt to get him to notice her. She was desperate for him to see her as someone other than Matt’s annoying little sister, with her nose in a book and a toilet wand in her hand.

And so when she’d found him momentarily alone on New Year’s Eve, his defenses down and Matt nowhere in sight, she’d set out deliberately to seduce him.

It hadn’t been all bad, she remembered. Even though he was drunk, even though she had no idea what she was doing, making out with Sam had been exciting. She had drowned in his kisses, exploring his body in a blur of lust and wonder, touching him in places and ways she’d never touched a boy before, letting him touch her. Her breasts. Her belly. Between her legs, where she was hot and damp.

Meg drew an uneven breath. She could even look back now on the inevitable fumbling, painful outcome with a certain nostalgia. At least when Sam was laboring inside her—
Oh, God, Meggie, you’re so tight
—she’d felt like a necessary part of the process. When he kissed her neck, when he exhaled into her hair, she’d stroked his back and felt part of him. His. Despite her discomfort, she’d felt a bond, a closeness with Sam that wasn’t entirely the result of a girlish crush. She’d had worse sex since. In college, for example. Even recently with Derek . . .

She pressed her lips together, her heart thumping. These were not “friend” thoughts. Not safe thoughts.

The half-moon rode a billow of cloud like a pirate ship in full sail, fleeing before the wind.

Who wants to be safe?
Sam whispered wickedly in her head.

She did.

It should have been awkward, walking together. They weren’t matched physically. He was too tall, his legs much longer than hers, and her high-heeled boots only shortened her stride. But Sam adjusted his steps, his arm easy on her shoulders, his hip bumping hers companionably from time to time.

“We took the wrong turn,” she said suddenly. “The inn is that way.”

“And the beach is right here.” He steered her gently, inexorably, toward the access.

Their feet crunched on gravel and oyster shells before the boardwalk loomed, ghostly in the twilight.

She shivered again. It was one thing to accept his escort home. Something else to walk open-eyed into a situation that blurred the lines of friendship. Yes, Sam was attractive, confident, and sexy. But she would
not
cheat on Derek. She was not a cheater. “Sam . . . where are we going?”

“Why don’t we walk and find out?”

She bit her lip against temptation. “I have to get back.”

“Why?”

Her mind blanked momentarily. “I was planning on getting some work done tonight.” The new client, she remembered. She was going to research the author, Lauren Somebody.

“You ever just take a night off, sugar?” Sam asked in his midnight and bourbon drawl. “No work, no plans, just . . . be?”

“No. It’s important to set objectives. You can’t achieve your goals without planning and hard work.”

“Planning for what?”

Wasn’t it obvious? Everyone she knew on Wall Street, anyone who worked with investments, annuities, life insurance, knew the answer. “The future.” What else?

“If you’re too busy living for the future, sugar, you’re missing what you could have right now. Watch your step.”

“What?”

Somehow they had reached the end of the boardwalk already. The salt breeze rippled over the crests of the dunes. Shadowed drifts of sea grass gave way to a long, flat stretch of gray sand and silver ocean. Long pale ribbons of foam unspooled lazily toward shore. Their rushing filled her ears.

Yearning caught her by the throat. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Sam turned back to look at her. “Why not?”

Because I want you. I want this.

She would never say those words to him again. “Because I’m wearing my good boots.”

His grin flashed like a knife in the dark. “Some pirate you are.”

It was a challenge, she’d never been able to back down from a challenge, and Sam
knew
that. He knew her, damn him.

She jumped down, stumbling as her heels sank into the soft sand, tumbling against him. He steadied her, his arms warm and strong.

She pushed against his chest. “I suppose you’re going to tell me real pirates don’t lose their balance.”

“I’m guessing real pirates don’t buy their boots at Bloomingdale’s. Not that I’m complaining. I have fantasies about you in black leather.” He sank on his haunches in front of her. “Give me your foot.”

“No. This is silly.” She was breathless.
Fantasies?
Surely not.

“We’re not taking off our clothes to go skinny-dipping. Just your shoes. Anybody would think you’d never been barefoot on the beach before.”

“I haven’t. Well, not since I got back.”

Sam looked up, that lock of dark hair falling across his forehead. “You’re kidding.”

“I’ve been busy,” she said defensively.

He shook his head. “All work and no play, sugar. Give me your foot.”

He thought she was
dull
? Wasn’t that the rest of the verse?
All work and no play makes Jack
—okay, in her case, Jill—
a dull girl.

I have fantasies about you in black leather.

She stuck out one booted leg, holding on to his shoulder for support.

* * *

S
AM BRACED HER
sole against his thigh and ran a hand up her calf. She had great legs. Not long—she’d always been a little thing—but curvy where it counted. When his hand reached her knee, she wobbled and clutched him tighter. He grinned, working the zipper down her inseam to her ankle, aware of her breasts inches from his face.

If he leaned forward, he would fall into her cleavage. He thought about nuzzling the ruffle aside, breathing in her warmth, finding skin. He would turn his head into the pale curve of her breast, kissing her, licking her, biting her gently.

Yeah, and then she’d snatch her boot from him and beat him over the head with it.

He tugged on the boot, setting it on the sand beside him.

“Next foot,” he said, his voice hoarse.

Her bare toes touched the cool sand. She hopped a little, finding her balance, making her breasts bounce.

He thought they were fuller, rounder than he remembered. He used to get hard, facing her breasts across the kitchen table. Hell, he was fifteen. Everything made him hard back then. And then Tess would ask him about his day or he’d catch Tom’s do-you-want-to-die look from the head of the table, and he’d stare at his plate and think about something else until his erection subsided.

It was back now, though, pressing against his fly, pointing the way to the good stuff right there in front of his face.

Raising her other boot, she planted it near his crotch. “If I step on a ghost crab, I’m going to kill you,” she said conversationally.

“I’m trembling all over,” he said dryly.

His hands were shaking like a fifteen-year-old’s, a fine tremor of lust. All because he was touching her again. He hadn’t touched her leg, her ankle, in eighteen years. He hoped to God she didn’t notice.

He tugged the boot from her other foot. Peeled off her sock. Her toenails were painted some dark color that looked almost black in the twilight. Her skin felt cool. Her feet looked pale and very naked. He ran his thumb along the delicate arch, and she shivered.

“Can I have my foot back now, please?”

He looked up at Meg, her bright, intelligent eyes, the quirk of smile playing on her mouth, the only woman he’d never been able to snow, and wanted her. Right there in the moonlight, wanted her now and forever.

Sam dropped her foot as if he’d been burned.

He didn’t think in terms of the future. He was a live-in-the-moment kind of guy.

Standing, he brushed his hands on his jeans.

* * *

“W
HAT WERE YOU
and Walt talking about?” Meg asked as they strolled down the beach.

Sam was focused on the angles and shadows of her in the twilight, all short dark curls and smooth pale skin, tormenting himself with fantasies of how she would feel, how she would move, under his hands and tongue.

“Sam?”

He pulled himself together.
Walt. Right.
“I’m trying to talk him around on something.”

She nodded. “Well, you’re good at that.”

“Talking?”

“Getting people to do what you want.”

“It’s a gift,” he said modestly. “Want to go back to the truck and make out?”

She laughed, like she thought he was joking. “I didn’t mean me. People in general. So, what do you want from Walt?”

“Support with the zoning board.”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “You’re going forward with the development.”

“If I can. I’ve had a couple meetings.”

She nodded. “On Monday.”

He looked at her, surprised.

“You were wearing a tie when you came to the house,” she explained. “I figured you’d come from a meeting.”

He caught himself smiling. He had it bad when it made him feel good that she’d noticed the tie and wondered about his day. “Yeah, with Herb Stuart, the architect for the Riverside development outside Wilmington. And after that, I met with the Parker Group. They’re responsible for a lot of low-impact development along the coast.”

“And?”

“Well . . .” His smile spread. “They liked the tie.”

She laughed. “What else?”

“They’re both putting in bids on the project. I gave them the site surveys, the basic direction, and asked them to come up with preliminary plans.”

She nodded. “For mixed-use housing.”

She listened. Maybe because of that, he found himself still talking, confiding hopes that had just begun to shape themselves in his own mind. “I want to see a variety of housing options, you know, for singles, families, retired couples. Mixed with light commercial, so people are working and shopping where they live.”

“Won’t that compete with the businesses in town?”

“Most of the shops in town cater to tourists. We don’t need another gift shop, another ice cream parlor. I want to bring back the fish house.”

Her eyes got big. “Sam.”

“It won’t make that big a difference to the charter fishermen like Matt and your father,” Sam felt compelled to point out. “They can get their ice from the tackle shop, and you have Fletcher’s Quay to unload.”

“During the sport fishing season, yes,” Meg said. “But Matt still puts nets out on the old Sea Lady sometimes. He’d save so much in gas and time if he could sell his catch here, if the fish house were back in operation. But can you make it pay?”