Seaside Sunsets (32 page)

“Sorry,” he said against her lips. “I suck at pretending.”

“Then don’t pretend.” She dropped her towel. “Think you can bring me more pleasure than that cookie dough would have?”

The End

“I JUST CAN’T believe that Jamie’s the first one to get married. I mean, Jamie? He never even wanted to get married.” Amy Maples was three sheets to the wind, sitting in a bar at the Ryder Resort in Boston. That was okay, she rationalized, because it was the night before her good friends Jessica Ayers and Jamie Reed’s wedding, and she and her friends were celebrating. Besides, now that Jessica and Jamie were getting married and her other three besties had gotten engaged, Amy was the only single woman of the group. Drunk was the only way she was going to make it through the weekend.

“But that was before he met Jessica and she rocked his world.” Jenna leaned across the table in the dimly lit bar and grabbed Amy’s hand.

Amy saw Jenna’s lips curve into a smile as she shifted her eyes to Tony Black, another friend they’d known forever, sitting with his arm around Amy, as per usual. Jenna raised her brows with a smile, implying something Amy knew wasn’t true. She rolled her eyes in response. Tony always sat with his arm around her, and it didn’t mean a damn thing, no matter how much she wished it did.

Amy and her besties, Jenna Ward, Bella Abbascia, and Leanna Bray, had grown up spending summers together at the Seaside community in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and to this day they continued to spend their summers there, along with Jamie and Tony. The six of them had spent eight weeks together every summer for as long as Amy could remember. Their parents had owned the Seaside cottages, which they’d passed down to them. Summers were Amy’s favorite time of year.
Now that Amy’s company, Maples Logistical & Conference Consulting, was so successful, she was able to take eight weeks off while her small staff handled the workload. Amy had spent seven years building and nurturing the business, and over the last three years she had turned it into a six-figure venture with clients varying from accounting to full-on logistical consulting. She could hardly believe how her life, and her summers, had changed. Just four years ago she was working part-time during the summers at one of the local restaurants to keep a modicum of income coming in. She loved summers even more now that she didn’t have to work.
Of course, her love of summers might also have something to do with being in love with the six-foot-two professional surfer and motivational speaker currently sitting beside her.

If only it were reciprocated
. She tipped back her glass and took another swig of her get-over-Tony drink.

“Petey, can you please get me another drink?” Jenna batted her lashes at her fiancé, Pete Lacroux. She and Pete had gotten engaged last year. Pete was a boat craftsman and he also handled the pool maintenance at Seaside. Pete nuzzled against her neck, and Amy slid her eyes away. Maybe if Sky, Pete’s sister, were there, she’d feel a little better. Sky wasn’t currently dating anyone either, but Sky had to work, so Amy was on her own.

Bella and her fiancé, Caden Grant, were whispering nose to nose, Leanna was sitting on Kurt’s lap with her forehead touching his, and Jamie and Jessica were looking at each other like they couldn’t wait to tear each other’s clothes off. Amy stole a glance at Tony, and her heart did a little dance. Delicious and painful memories from the summer before college tried to edge into her mind. As she’d done for the past fourteen years, she pushed them down deep as Tony leaned in close.

God, she loved how he smelled, like citrus and spice with an undertone of masculinity and sophistication. She knew he wore Dolce & Gabbana’s The One. She kept a bottle of The One beside her bed at home in Boston, and every once in a while, in the dead of winter or on the cusp of spring, when months stretched like eons before she’d see Tony again, she’d spray the cologne on her pillow so she could smell him as she drifted off to sleep. It never smelled quite as good as Tony himself. Then again, Tony could be covered in sweat after a five-mile run, or laden with sea salt after a day of surfing, and he’d still smell like heaven on legs. Since they were just friends, and it looked like there was no chance of them becoming more, she relied on her fantasies to keep her warm. When she was alone in bed at night, she held on to the image of Tony wearing only his board shorts, his broad shoulders and muscular chest glistening wet, muscles primed from the surf, and those delicious abs blazing a path to his—

Tony pressed his hand to her shoulder and pulled her against him, bringing her mind back to the present.

“Time for ice water?” he asked just above a whisper.

So much for her fantasy. She was always the
good girl
who did the right thing, the only exception being occasionally having an extra drink or two when she was with her Seaside friends. At least that’s what she led everyone to believe. Only she and Tony knew that wasn’t the only exception—and she made sure that was a taboo subject between them. He wouldn’t dare bring it up. She might not survive if he did. She sobered a little with the memory and shifted it back into the it-never-happened place she buried deep inside her. Her secret was lonely in that hollow place, being the only one kept under lock and key.

She met Tony’s denim-blue eyes and felt a familiar rush of anticipation in her belly. Maybe tonight she wouldn’t be the good girl.

“Um, actually, I think I want another drink.”

Tony arched a brow in that sexy way that made his eyes look even more intense. He pressed his cheek to hers and whispered, “Ames, you can’t show up for the wedding tomorrow with a hangover.”

No, she certainly couldn’t. But she’d like him to stay right where he was for a while longer, thank you very much. Since she had a life-changing job offer in hand—a dream job worthy of closing down the business she’d spent seven years building and keeping only a handful of clients—she and her girlfriends had decided it was time for Amy to take a chance and lay her feelings on the line with Tony. She picked up her glass and ran her finger around the rim, hoping she looked sexy doing it. Then she sucked that finger into her mouth, feeling a little silly.

I suck at this whole seduction thing
.

“I’m a big girl, Tony. I think I know what I can handle.”
And I don’t want to handle my liquor tonight. I have plans. Big plans
.

Tony rose to his feet with a perturbed look on his face and rubbed his stubbly jaw. “You sure?”

“Mm-hm.” Even as she said it, she considered saying,
Water’s good. Just get me water
. She watched him walk up to the bar. At heart, Amy was a good girl. Her courage faltered and she tried to hang on to a shred of it. She needed to know if there was even the slightest chance that she and Tony might end up together. The problem was, she wasn’t a seductress. She didn’t even know where to begin. That was Jenna’s forte, with her hourglass figure and sassy personality. Even Bella, who was as brash as she was loving, had pulled off being seductive with Caden. The sexy-kitten pictures on Amy’s pajamas were more seductive than she was.

“Oh my God. I thought he’d never leave the table.” Jenna glanced at Caden, Kurt, and Jamie, still enthralled with their fiancées at the other end of the table. She pulled Amy across the table and whispered, “This is your night. I can feel it!” She sat back and swayed to the music in her tight green spaghetti-strap dress with a neckline cut so low Pete could probably get lost in there.

Amy looked down at the slinky black dress the girls had put her in earlier that evening. They were always trying to sex her up.
One look at you in this dress with these fuck-me heels and Tony’s gonna be all over you
, Jenna had said while Jessica and Bella shimmied the dress down Amy’s pin-thin body
. Fits like a glove. A sexy, slither-me-out-of-this glove,
Leanna had added
.
They’d pushed her into a chair, plied her with wine, and sometime later—Amy had no idea how long, because the alcohol had not only made her body go all loose and soft, but it had turned her brain to mush—they were in the bar with the men, and with her friends’ confidence, she’d actually begun to believe that she might be able to pull off being übersexy for a night. Her mind might be foggy, but she’d caught a few words while the girls primped her into a hot, racy woman she didn’t recognize. Her friends had thrown out words like
sexy, hot, take him
as if they were handing out doses of confidence.

Now she tugged at the hemline of the dress that barely covered the thong they’d also bought for her and insisted she wear. She wiggled in her seat, uncomfortable in the lacy butt floss. She should probably give up even trying and just let the new job change her life. Move to Australia, where she’d be too far for any relationship with Tony, and be done with it, but every time she looked at Tony, her stomach got all fluttery. It had done that since she was six years old, so she was pretty sure it wasn’t going to change.

Caden, Pete, Jamie, and Kurt must have taken Jenna’s whispers and hot stares as a cue, because they headed up to the bar, and Jessica, Bella, and Leanna scooted closer to Amy and Jenna.

“How about you put those puppies away before the guys over at that table drool into their drinks,” Leanna said to Jenna while glaring at the three handsome, leering men sitting at the next table. They finally looked away when Bella shot them a threatening stare.

Jenna wrestled her boobs into submission with an annoyed look on her face. She always acted annoyed about her boobs, but Amy knew it was a love-hate annoyance. Jenna wouldn’t be Jenna without her boobs always trying to break free.

“Look at our men up there at the bar.” Bella wiggled her fingers at Caden. “Pete has his eyes on the drooling men. Kurt and Jamie are eyeing Leanna and Jessica like they’re on the menu, and Tony...” 

“
Your
men,” Amy corrected her. “Tony’s not mine, and he looks mad, doesn’t he?”

“Sexually frustrated, maybe. Not mad.” Bella took a sip of her drink. “But you’ll fix that tonight. I mean, be real, Amy. Who tells a girl to
behave and be careful
whenever she goes out if he’s not interested? Why would he care? And not just that—he always adds that you can text him if you need him and he’ll come running. Just. Like. Always.”

Amy couldn’t stop the exasperated sound that left her lips. “You read my texts?” That was the only way she could have known that Tony always offered to be there if she needed him.

“Duh. Of course I did. Consider it a recon mission. I had to know what we were dealing with here from his side.” Bella had been pulling for Amy and Tony to get together as long as Amy had been in love with him, which was just about forever. She stood and dragged Amy toward the dance floor. “Come on, sweetie. Time to have some fun.”

The other girls jumped up and followed them. Amy sensed Tony’s eyes on her before she caught sight of him watching them. It made her nervous and excited at once. The music blared with a fast beat. Amy’s head was spinning from the alcohol, and as Bella and Jenna dirty danced up and down her body, gyrating with their hands in the air, Amy tried to ignore the rush of anticipation mixing with nervous energy inside her. Leanna and Jessica danced beside them in a far less evocative fashion that was more Amy’s speed, but she could no sooner disengage from being the target of Jenna’s and Bella’s sexual dancing then she could ignore Tony as he moved to the edge of the dance floor. His eyes raked slowly down her body, making her insides twist in delight. His jaw muscles bunched as he slid his eyes around the bar and leveled the leering men at the table a few feet away with a dark stare.

The sexy dancing, the alcohol, and the way Tony was guarding her like she was a precious treasure—his precious treasure?—boosted her confidence. Amy rocked her hips to the beat. She closed her eyes, lifted her hands above her head, and let the music carry her into what she hoped was a plethora of tempting moves.

“You go, girlfriend,” Jenna encouraged her. “He’s not going to be able to resist you. You’re drunk, sexy, and ready for action. What man could resist that?” She wiggled her butt against Amy’s hips.

“Oh, please. He’ll probably
never
reciprocate my feelings, which is why I’m seriously considering the job offer from Duke Ryder.”
Never again, anyway
. Her chest tightened with the thought.

“No, you are
not
.” Bella’s eyes widened as she froze and pointed her finger at Amy, right there in the middle of the dance floor. “You are not going to move to Australia for two years. You’ll never come back to Seaside in the summers if you’re in
Australia
. Can’t you tell Duke you’ll consider nine months out of the year instead of twelve?”