Seaside Sunsets (14 page)

“Where are you rushing off to?” Vera asked from behind him.

“Going for a run.” He had never been a very good liar.

“With a paper bag, and dressed like that?”

Jamie closed his eyes, his back to his grandmother. “I have a breakfast date with Jessica.”

“Well, don’t you want to bring something a little nicer? Muffins, maybe?” He heard the smile in her voice. “I could make some for you.”

He heard her shuffling toward the kitchen in her slippers. Jamie turned, knowing she’d see right through him, the same way she’d known the first time he snuck out of the house to meet a girl when he was sixteen.

“Thanks, Gram, but I think she likes bagels.”

She crossed the cozy cottage in her pink housecoat, a smile on her thin lips and love in her eyes. Vera reached up and brushed his hair from above his eyes.

“You worked until very early this morning.”

“I kept you up? I’m sorry. I’ll try to be quieter.” He was trying his best not to sound anxious, but he wanted to see Jessica more than he wanted anything else in the world.

She took his hand and led him to the couch. “Sit with me a second before you rush out. I’ll only take a moment.”

He’d do anything for her, but at that moment, every second felt interminable. He sat beside her and tried not to seem too anxious. The paper bag crinkled in his grip.

Vera patted his hand. “I like her, Jamie. She’s just like your mother was.”

That sucked the wind from his sails. They rarely talked about his parents. There wasn’t a reason, that he could remember, or a time when they suddenly stopped talking about them, but they’d somehow faded into the background of their lives. It was strange how that happened. One day he was consumed with grief, and a year later, he had shaped and molded that grief into something he could shift to the side in order to continue living.

“She is? I don’t remember Mom very well. The images in my mind feel like they’re pieces of pictures you’ve shown me rather than real memories.”

“Your mother was in love with love, Jamie. She was so in love with your father that it seeped from her pores, and you? You were her very heart and soul.”

His throat thickened at her words.

“She used to watch you when you were sleeping, and she’d brush your hair from your forehead in that way that mothers do.”

“You do that to me.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yes.” She nodded. “I do. And I did it to her when she was just a girl, too. It’s love, Jamie. There’s nothing more powerful than the draw of the heart.”

He dropped his eyes to keep her from seeing the emotion in them.

“There’s a glimmer in someone’s eyes when they’re in love. Your grandfather had it the first time he met me. I wanted to savor that look and put it in my pocket. You know that feeling when you want to remember something until the day you die?”

Vera had a way with words that cut to the chase. “I think I do now.”

“He looked at me like that every morning for the rest of his life. Oh, he had his moments. The ice-cream-before-dinner moments.” She laughed. “But when something is as right as rain, no umbrella in the world can keep you from getting drenched. Don’t expect it to be all flowers and prettiness. Real love isn’t like that. Love is painful and beautiful at the same time. Sometimes it grips your lungs so tight you’re sure you’ll die for lack of air, and then it drags you down and beats you until you wish you would die. And just as quickly, it fills your lungs with helium and you think you might float away. And eventually, when you’ve paid your dues and knocked down the walls that kept the sweet, soft middle of your heart safe for all these years, that’s when you settle into togetherness.”

“Why are you telling me this now, Gram?”

“Because you’re a careful man. You see women a few times, and then you bury your feelings in the computer. It’s time to break that cycle and let yourself love and be loved. This is your summer, sweetheart. I can feel it in my bones. I see that glimmer in your eyes, and that little honeybee up there with the beautiful smile and eyes that look at you like you’re a gift of the sweetest nectar she’s ever encountered? I have a feeling it’s her summer, too. Go. Be happy.”

Jamie hadn’t thought he needed his grandmother’s approval to allow himself to let his feelings come forth, but as he ascended the stairs to Jessica’s apartment, he realized that there was a piece of him that hadn’t wanted to spread himself too thin, for fear of not being there for Vera. How could she have known that when he hadn’t had a clue?

It wasn’t yet six thirty when he knocked on Jessica’s door, paper bag in hand, as transparent a ruse as Saran Wrap.

The door opened just a crack, and Jessica peered up at him. A smile spread across her lips and filled her eyes.

“Hi.”

Her voice had that sleepy, sexy, just waking up sound, and it made him want to gather her in his arms and become one with her while her body was still warm from the sheets. He couldn’t even begin to pretend otherwise.

“I…”

She opened the door and leaned her shoulder against it, her legs crossed at the ankle, her back slightly arched. Her hair was tousled, cascading over the silky, spaghetti-strap camisole that stopped just short of her belly button, exposing a path of skin that Jamie knew intimately. His mouth watered at the memory of how sweet and hot her skin was against his lips, how responsive her body was to him. His eyes slid lower, to the lace panties she had on, and he was a goner.

“I brought our third date. I mean, breakfast.”

Her dimples came with her smile as she pushed open the screen door and he closed the distance between them. She smelled like a springtime afternoon—only warmer. With the bag in one hand, he leaned down and kissed her. She circled his neck with her arms and he kicked the door shut behind him. Good Lord, he lost all control around her. He should take her out for a three-course champagne breakfast. God knew she deserved it, but as the bag slid from his hand and he caught the edge of it and set it on the floor, it was all he could do to remember to breathe. With one strong arm around her waist, he lifted her to him, and her legs naturally circled his waist as he deepened the kiss and backed her up against the closed door. She tangled her fingers in his hair and held on tight—Jesus, that amped up the heat—and she slicked her tongue along his lower lip, pulling a hungry moan from his lungs.

“Is this our third date?” Her eyes darkened, narrowed seductively.

“Hell, yes. Hungry?”

“Only for you.” She pressed her lips together and smiled that Cupid-like smile that shot straight to his heart and nearly killed him every time.

He settled his mouth over the pulse point on her neck, feeling the quickening beneath his tongue. She fisted her hand in his hair and held him to her. He kissed and sucked a path along her collarbone, up along her jaw, to her mouth once again. The urgent kiss was rough and greedy. He needed her more than he’d needed her five seconds earlier. With her pressed against the door, one hand on her ass, he drew her camisole over her head and tossed it away.

“Jesus, you’re beautiful.” He took her breast in his mouth, loving first one nipple, then the other, bringing them both to taut peaks as she pressed his mouth harder to her breast.

“More, Jamie. Oh God, you feel so good.”

He grazed his teeth over her nipple, licking, tasting, sucking hard as she rocked her hips against him.

“Bedroom,” she said in a heated breath.

He carried her into the bedroom, but before lying her on the bed, he cupped the back of her neck and gazed into her eyes.

“I want more than this with you, Jess. So much more. More than a day, more than a night. More than just sex.”

He sealed his lips over hers and brought her back down to the mattress. The sheets were still warm. He reached behind him and ripped his tee over his head, then reached for the button on his jeans. She came up on her knees and put her fingers on his.

“Let me.” She licked her lips and it did him in.

She kept an eye on him as she unbuttoned his jeans, unzipped them so slowly he nearly tore them off for her. He forced himself to be patient. She hooked her fingers in the hips of his jeans and in one forceful tug they were down to his thighs, his eager arousal an inch from her lips. With her eyes trained on his, she licked him base to tip, sending a bolt of heat right through him. He watched, barely breathing as she wrapped her slender hand around his thick length. The sight, and feel, of her stroking him, licking the tip, then burying him in her mouth, had him on the verge of coming. She clutched his hips and drew them forward and back as she took almost all of him in, and he felt the back of her throat again and again.

It was the most titillating and beautiful sight he’d ever seen, and his carnal desires took over. He pulled out from between her beautiful, sensuous lips. She stuck her lower lip out in a pout and drew her eyebrows together.

“Hey.” She wrapped her hand around him again and swallowed him deep.

He clenched his teeth against the need to come and fisted his hands in her hair, drawing her forward and back once, twice, then pulling out completely and stepping from his jeans.

“I’ve got to have you, Jess.”

He lifted her to her feet beside the bed and took one breast in his mouth, sucking hard, testing the waters. She held his head against her again, moaning for more. He used his teeth, teasing her as he slid his hand beneath her panties, down between her legs, to her hot, wet center.

“Yes, more, Jamie.”

He slid his fingers inside her velvety heat at the same time he squeezed her nipple between his finger and thumb and took her other breast in his mouth. She cried out and he released her nipple.

“Sorry, babe.”

She pulled him back to her breast. “More. Harder. I’m so close.”

Oh, hell yes. She liked it rough, which suited him just fine. He kissed her hard as he thrust his fingers deep and pinched her nipple. She grabbed his ass and pressed his erection against her belly.

“Look at me, Jess,” he said against her lips. “I want to see you when you come.”

Jessica opened her eyes, their tongues still stroking each other, his fingers moving deep and fast inside her. Her eyes narrowed, fluttered closed, then sprang open again as she cried out into his mouth and dug her nails into his ass. Her body shivered and shook, pulsated around his fingers. When she drew back, panting, still holding a handful of his ass, Jamie took a step back. He had to drink her in. Bare from the waist up, her pert nipples pink from his touch, she was reaching for him, heaving with every needy breath, and his fingers were still buried inside her.

“You’re too fucking beautiful.” He tore her panties off.

She reached for him, and he was ready, aching to be inside her, but he needed more of her. He wanted to make her come again, to let her feel all of the desire that had built over the last few days, so when she finally took him in, she wasn’t rushed or anxious, but ready. So ready he could take his fill. He slid one hand beneath her hair and tugged her neck back; her lips opened to him with a rush of air. His other hand circled her body, and he slid his fingers between her cheeks from behind, then buried his tongue in her mouth, tempting her until she was trembling with need again. Her breathing hitched. He spread her legs with his thighs, feeling her body quake beneath his touch, and then he slid down her body, licking her from sternum to belly button. He dragged his tongue along the sweet skin above her pubic bone, smelling her luscious scent, needing to taste her. With one hand still teasing her from behind, he ran his tongue along her sensitive, wet skin.

“Yes,” she commanded.

He stroked her again with his tongue, and she gripped his shoulders, her body quivering against him.

“You’re so sweet, so deliciously responsive to my touch.”

He used his hand to tease the swollen bundle of nerves he knew would send her over the edge again as he loved her with his mouth. She fisted his hair again and tugged—heightening his arousal even more with the mix of pleasure and pain—and held him firmly against her. There was no place he’d rather be than pleasuring her with his mouth and hands, priming her for his full, heated desire. He felt the orgasm rolling in. Her thighs tensed and her nails dug into his skin. She stopped breathing for a second; then her head fell back and her hips bucked as her inner muscles pulsated time and time again, and his name sailed from her lips in a cry of pleasure so vibrant and wonderful it filled his chest.

“Don’t…stop.”

He licked and sucked. “You’re so beautiful when you come. I’ll never stop.”

He felt the tension ease in her thighs and he carried her to the bed, then set his mouth on her again. In seconds she was coming again, her head tossed from side to side as she gasped time and time again. He reached for his jeans to retrieve a condom and she grabbed his arm.

“Make love to me,” she pleaded.

“Protection,” was all he could manage.

“On the pill. I need you, Jamie. Now, please.”

He settled his hips over hers, feeling her heat and wetness on the tip of his arousal.

“You’re sure?” He always used condoms, but he wanted to feel her so badly he wasn’t about to turn her down.

“More than anything I’ve ever been sure of in my life. Please, Jamie. Don’t make me wait.”

He sealed his lips over hers, slid his hand beneath her thigh and lifted her knee up beside his hip as he slid into her. She was so incredibly tight that it took effort to enter her. Too much effort. He forced his mind to focus, stilled his movements, and searched her eyes.

“Jess. Have you done this before?”

She nodded. “Once.”

Oh, dear Lord
. “Once?” Guilt coiled deep in his belly. She must have seen it in his eyes, because she reached up with both hands and touched his cheeks.

“I’m not a virgin. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She was smiling, and the depth of emotion in her eyes brought his forehead to hers.

“I was aggressive. I shouldn’t have been so rough. Jesus, Jess, you deserve sweet tenderness.” He was panting. She felt so damn good, he was nearly ready to come, but now he worried. She deserved slow loving, and he figured they’d get to that, but if he’d known, he wouldn’t have rushed it, and he definitely would have led with more care.