A Little Too Hot (21 page)

“What?” I ask, wishing my thoughts were as easy to straighten out as my clothes.

“The wedding invitation . . . there was a note.”

“Oh.” I take a breath, trying to focus. “Lexie . . . my friend . . . she wants me there . . . at her wedding. She says she’s sorry for how things played out with Trent.”

“Is that what this was about?” he asks, gesturing to the pool table, and it takes me a second to get my head around what he means.

“God, no!” I say when I realize. “I am so over Trent.”

“You’re sure?” he asks, his gaze caught somewhere between fire and ice.

I lean my hands on the edge of the table near my knees. “The thing with Trent is, there’s not really much to get over. It’s not like we were ever all that serious, you know?”

He bites his lower lip, and it makes me want to bite it too. “Whether he was serious or not, you were. You waited a long time for him.”

“But it’s not like we ever slept together or anything,” I say with a shrug, lowering my lashes.

“I thought you said you were together for eight months.”

I hear the surprise in his voice, and I wish I hadn’t said anything. I glare at him to cover my mortification. “I told you. He was in love with someone else.”

He blows out a tense sigh and moves around to the front of the sofa, sinking into it and staring out the window at the pool below. “Are you . . . ? Have you ever . . . been with anyone?” he asks the window.

I slip off the pool table and move to the end of the sofa. “I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re asking.” I’ve had sex exactly four times. Once with the guy I gave my V-card to, twice with a guy I dated for a month or so after that, and once with Jonathan. None of them rocked my world like Blake did in the pool.

He lifts his eyes to mine, and I’m not sure, but I think it’s relief I see in them. “I’ve only ever been with Vanessa . . . my fiancée. We were together for over a year before we even slept together.”

I lower myself onto the other end of the sofa and tuck a leg under me so I’m facing him. “I think it’s nice that you waited. You were in love. It meant something.” Part of me has always wished I’d waited for that—for someone who loved me.

He shakes his head slowly. “It wasn’t that. We just never . . . it wasn’t like this,” he says with a wave of his hand between us. “I’ve never been on fire like this for any other woman.”

My heart skips. “You’re on fire for me?”

He hangs his head, but his smoldering gaze stays locked on mine. “Burning alive.”

I shift deeper into the cushions, bringing my other knee up and drawing it to my chest. “But even if you were never on fire for her, you loved her.”

He bobs a small nod. “I did. She was my first, and I thought she’d be my last.”

“Do you still . . . I mean, if she wanted, would you . . .” I trail off and drop my forehead onto my knee, cringing at myself.

“No.”

I lift my head and see in his eyes that he knows exactly what I was trying to ask. “No?”

“No. She was smart, and we shared a lot of common interests, but—”

“Karate?” I interrupt, because, for some reason, I need to know if he rehearsed that move on someone else, or if it was just mine.

He gives his head a slow shake. “Our commonalities were less . . . physical.”

My heart slams into my rib cage at the flash of hunger in his eyes as he says that.

“I loved her,” he continues, “but what I know now is that there was never any real passion. When she broke it off, it hurt, but looking back, there was also an underlying sense of relief . . . on both of our parts, I think.” He shifts on the sofa so his elbows are on his knees and hangs his head between his shoulders. “I could have married her, and we could have been happy for a while, but I think at some point we both would have figured out something vital was missing. It was like all the parts were there, the heart, the lungs, the flesh and bone, but that intangible thing that makes something
alive
was missing, if that makes any sense.” He lifts his head and fixes me in his most intense gaze. “I don’t feel that way with you.”

My heart simultaneously aches and pounds as I slide closer. Slowly, I lean in and press a kiss to his lips. When I pull back, I hope he can see the inferno burning inside of me too. I stand and walk out the French doors, down to the pool, where I swim until I don’t have any energy left to do anything stupid. And then I swim some more.

B
LAKE AND
I
have been mostly tiptoeing around each other for the last week, since the pool table incident. His mood has been lighter, but he’s keeping his distance. I’m not sure what that means.

Jenkins was here this morning when I got up, and I sort of freaked out a little, thinking I scared Blake off again. But I guess he’s just at the office for a few hours. I can’t help but hope that means we’re getting closer to the end of this.

It’s after five, and I’ve got a leg hooked over the arm of the living room chair, staring mindlessly at some really bad sitcom on the TV that has Jenkins nearly rolling on the floor laughing, when Blake steps out of the elevator. He’s got a black garment bag over one shoulder, a grocery bag dangling from the other hand, and a spark in his eye.

“Your girlfriend here was telling me you’re some kind of gourmet chef,” Jenkins says from where he’s sprawled on the sofa.

“No,” I say, annoyed, standing from the chair. “I said I was hungry and I wished Blake would get home and cook me something.”

I expect Blake to rebut the girlfriend remark, but he doesn’t say anything. He just shoots me a smile, and something stirs in my chest.

“I’m waiting for my invite, Montgomery,” Jenkins jabs.

Blake drapes the garment bag over the back of the chair on his way to the kitchen. “I’ve seen you eat, Jenkins. There’s enough in this bag for the two of us, or the one of you.”

Jenkins flicks off the TV and hauls his ginormous frame off the sofa. “This place is boring me to death anyway. I’ll go find a pizza.”

“Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out,” Blake says as he unpacks the bag.

“It’s an elevator,” Jenkins growls, punching the button.

“Later,” Blake says, flicking him a wave without looking up.

“So . . . ?” I ask, leaning on the counter opposite him once Jenkins is gone.

His eyes flick to me. “So . . . what?”

“You’re in a good mood.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “I’m always in a good mood.”

“You are
never
in a good mood. What’s up? Am I finally getting out of here?”

The playfulness leaves his expression as he turns to unload stuff from his bag into the fridge, and I brace myself for bad news. “Look, Sam. I know how hard this has been for you, so . . .” He turns back and looks at me. “. . . yes.”

I just stare at him for a second, confused. “Yes?”

A slow smile creeps across his face and his eyes spark. “Yes.”

My eyes widen and my heart starts to race. “It’s over?”

He gives his head a slow nod. “For all practical purposes. Arroyo has pled out. His accountant gave us everything we needed. He knew he was going down on something, so he pled to the racketeering charges in exchange for dropping the murder charge.”

“So, what happens now? I mean, if Ben has pled out, what does that mean for me?” My heart thrums in my chest. I want this to be over. I want to go home. And as much as I want those things, I also want to kiss Blake again. If it was over, could I do that?

“The judge accepted the plea bargain. The murder charge is off the table.”

“Which means . . . ?”

“On my advice, the powers that be have agreed to keep you under protective custody for another week, just to be sure Arroyo’s satisfied you’re no longer a threat, but then you’re free to go.”

My heart simultaneously soars and sinks. I’m free. And so is Blake. Will he go back to L.A.?

He steps around the counter, gazing down at me. “So, you said when this was over you wanted to swim in the ocean. Are you ready to face your fears?”

I gape at him. “Oh my God! Seriously?”

“Seriously. It’s all arranged.”

I slide onto a stool, because if I don’t, I’m not going to be able to stop myself from breaking into some manic happy dance. “Diving?”

He nods, giving me a sexy half smile. “Snorkeling.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning,” he says, taking another step closer and resting his hands on the arms of my stool.

I’m simultaneously terrified and excited, and I buzz with the burst of adrenaline. “I guess if a shark eats me, we don’t have to worry about Ben anymore.”

“My job is to protect you from all the things. That includes sharks.” When my eyes find Blake’s face again, his expression is amused. But it’s not amusement that dances in his eyes. It’s something hungrier. More possessive.

I draw a shuddering breath as he leans toward me. Can we?

His cheek brushes mine as he presses closer, his mouth at my ear.

I wait, my heart pounding.

“It’s almost over.” His voice is low and raw, and his breath in my hair pebbles my skin into goose bumps.

He pulls back, his eyes on fire, and I think the answer is yes. We can. But then shrugs off the arms of my stool and moves back to the kitchen.

And it’s a long time before I can breathe.

Chapter Thirty-One

B
LAKE WAKES ME
at eight by waving a travel mug of steaming coffee under my nose. Half an hour later we’re pulling out of the garage.

I wake up slowly as we drive, taking in the scenery. For some reason, today this all feels new to me, even though I grew up only miles from here and traveled these highways hundreds of times. It’s a weekday, but we’re going against rush hour traffic as we make our way over the San Rafael Bridge into the North Bay.

I sip the last of my coffee, wondering if this was really a good idea. “You’ve spent all this time protecting me from Ben, and now you’re seriously just going to throw me to the sharks?”

He flicks me a glance and a smile tugs his lips. “I will admit, you are a tasty morsel, but they know they’ll have to come through me first, and I’m tough and gristly, so I’m pretty sure they’ll leave you alone.”

My eyes slide down his body, and I seriously doubt there’s anything tough and gristly about him. He’s definitely a prime cut. Filet mignon. “Still . . . it would be pretty ironic to get eaten by a shark just when this is all over.”

He laughs and shakes his head.

“I watched
Shark Week.
There’s a reason they’re, like, one of the oldest living things on Earth.”

He bites his lips and stifles his laughter, and I’m instantly sorry. I like the sound of it. “The fact that you know that means you’ve done your research. You’re ready to face this phobia head on.”

“Pho-bi-a,” I say in syllables. “Have you looked that word up? It means irrational fear. It’s not like you can just turn it off, you know? Logic doesn’t work with something that’s
irrational
.”

“I won’t make you do this, Sam, but if you do, I promise, I won’t let anything bad happen to you, shark related or otherwise.” He looks at me as he slows for our exit ramp, and his eyes are suddenly sincere, all the humor gone. “I will never let anything hurt you. Ever.”

I pull a deep, shuddering breath as he turns back to the road. It’s a little while later that we emerge from the lush woods of the Russian River Valley onto Route 1. We wind up the Costal Highway and watch the waves beat themselves against sheer stone cliffs and craggy outcroppings. Seagulls soar overhead, and golden grass waves on the hillsides to the east. It’s breathtaking.

When we pull up to a surf shop in a tiny town an hour up the rocky coast, it’s quiet. The door hinges groan as we step through, and a combination of sea salt, mildew, and chlorine mingles in the air. There are surfboards on racks along one wall, and tanks and neoprene on shelves along the other. Sand grits between my flip-flops and the wooden floor as Blake and I make our way across the room.

The long-haired guy behind the counter looks up from the phone in his hand. “What can I do you for?”

Blake drums his fingers on the scratched glass over a display case of scuba regulators and pressure gauges. “We need snorkeling gear: neoprene and fins.”

“What size boots?” he asks.

Blake glances down at my feet. “One small and one large.”

The guy nods and darts around the back, pulling suits, gloves, boots, fins, and masks and setting them on the counter. “One day rental?”

Blake nods.

“Where you diving?”

“How are the abalone off the point?”

“Guy came back yesterday with three ten-inchers,” he says, twisting new mouthpieces onto a pair of snorkels and laying them on top of everything else.

“Then we’re diving off the point,” Blake says.

“Need a guide?”

“No, thanks,” Blake answers, pulling a credit card from his wallet and tossing it onto the counter. “Just the gear.”

“Um . . . have there been any shark sightings off the point?” I ask as the guy scans Blake’s card.

He shakes his head. “We don’t really get them up here. If you want to see the great whites, you’re better to head down to Monterey. There are a couple of guys I know down there who will take you out and chum to attract them. I can give you their card.”

“No thanks,” I say with a shudder.

Blake and the guy complete the transaction and we scoop up our stuff and head to the Escalade. We drive another twenty minutes up the coast, past lighthouses, scrubby pines, and cragged cliffs that drop off into the ocean, and pull into an empty parking lot.

He pulls off his hoodie and takes the gun from his chest holster, locking it in the glove box. I notice under the sleeve of his T-shirt some kind of clear bandage on his arm, but his sleeve is long enough that I can’t see the damage. He unstraps the holster and tugs it off, then just sits behind the wheel for a few minutes, staring out at the vast ocean.

“Your dad used to bring you here?” I ask, remembering our conversation about abalone.

He looks at me, and there’s something deep in his gaze that’s either guilt or regret. “A long time ago.”

Before I can ask anything else, Blake’s out of the car. He moves around back and lifts the tailgate. “Have you ever worn a dive suit before?” he asks.

I slide out and meet him around back. “No. Why do we need one if we’re not scuba diving?” I ask, plucking a snorkel out of the back.

“The water out there’s always cold, so you won’t last long without it. You’ll probably want to keep a T-shirt over your swimsuit.”

I shuck off my shoes and shorts as he sorts his from mine.

He holds my suit open. “Just step in.”

I do, and once my legs are in, he tugs it up around me. I stick my arms through the sleeves, and his fingers trail up my abs as he zips me in.

“Comfortable?”

“It’s fine.” I tug at the hood. “You know I have no idea what I’m doing, right?”

“We’ll spend some time close to shore until you get the feel of it.” He pulls his neoprene on over his T-shirt and swim trunks, then hands me two towels and grabs the backpack and loops it over his shoulders. The hike to the shore is longer and trickier than I expected. It takes us almost half an hour to negotiate the path down the cliff to the water, and I slip a few times picking my way over moss-covered rocks as we get below the high tide line. The path eventually drops us onto a small patch of sand. Jutting out from it is a rocky outcrop.

“This cove is protected, so the current shouldn’t be an issue, but stay close, just in case. The abalone will be out in the rocks beyond the point,” Blake says, pointing at the outcrop.

My heart is pounding as I tug my dive mask over my forehead. “I don’t like the sound of ‘just in case.’ ”

He gives me half a smile. “You heard the guy. No sharks here. You’ll be fine.”

He gets me all strapped into my mask and snorkel, and we leave the fins on the towels and head for the water. He’s right. It’s freezing, even through my dive suit, and it takes me a while to work my way in.

“The first thing you need to learn is to purge your mask and blow out your snorkel,” he tells me once we’re waist deep. “You’re going to want to dive to get a closer look at stuff on the bottom, and anytime you resurface, you’ll need to purge the water.”

He takes me through all the basics, and I try everything out in the waist-deep water, but I can’t stop my eyes from darting around for anything moving under the surface.

“Got it?” he asks.

“Seems pretty basic.”

He trudges to the sand for our fins and comes back with those, a small flashlight, and two metal things tucked into his dive belt.

“What are those?” I ask, pointing.

“An abalone gauge and iron. They can grab pretty tight to the rocks.” We slip our fins on over the neoprene booties. “If your arm gets sore, or you need to head back to the beach for any reason, just give me the sign. Thumbs-up means you’re good.”

I nod.

“Ready?”

“No.”

He laughs, probably at my terrified expression. “No sharks, Sam. I promise.”

I plant my hands on my hips. “How can you possibly promise that? Jaws could be waiting right out there,” I say, throwing my hand at the ocean, “licking his chops and saying, ‘Welcome to my lair.’ ”

“Sharks don’t have lairs,” Blake says with a smirk.

I splash him. “You know what I mean.”

“Come on,” he says, venturing deeper.

I can’t stop the cringe as I follow. He dives under, then surfaces and blows out his snorkel. “You’re not going to see much from up here,” he says.

I glare at him, though with my face strapped into the mask, I’m sure he can’t tell that’s what I’m doing. Finally, I get brave enough to stick the snorkel in my mouth and float out on the surface of the water. As I anxiously peer around under the waves, even though I’m on the edge of hyperventilating I get the hang of breathing through the snorkel pretty quick . . . mostly because I realize I can see much better through my mask when my face is in the water.

There are stalks of kelp floating lazily in the waves, and the water is clear and blue. Blake dives deeper and I stay on the surface and watch as he points at a big green flower-looking thing. He pokes at it and it closes all its “petals.” Behind it, attached to the rocky wall, is a large orange starfish, which he brushes his fingers over.

He kicks back to the surface, pops his snorkel out of his mouth and grins. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“What was that first thing?” I ask, spitting out my mouthpiece. “The flower thing?”

“An anemone.”

I grin back. “Definitely cool.”

He swims us out toward where I can see waves breaking around some underwater rocks. “This is our best bet for abalone,” he says.

When I realize we’re not going in water much deeper than I could stand in, I feel better. I mean, sure, Jaws could probably swim up here and eat me, but whether it’s illusion or reality, it just feels safer in the shallow water close to shore. I float on the surface and watch as Blake dives to the rocks a few feet below and points to some urchins and a scurrying hermit crab. He looks up at me and points to something that looks like part of the bigger rock, but then I see it’s ovalish with a line of holes. He takes the metal thing from his belt and holds it up to the oval, then gives me the thumbs-up.

When he comes back to the surface, he spits out his snorkel. “You should come get a closer look. There are tons of starfish and abalone, and I think there’s a giant Pacific octopus in the crevice of that rock.”

“Oh my God!” I say, scurrying back.

“It’s not a
giant
giant Pacific octopus,” he says with a sideways grin. He tugs my arm. “Come on.”

I take a few deep breaths to get my heartbeat under control. “Giant octopuses eat people.”

“In the movies,” he says with a shake of his head. “It’s only like a foot long.”

“That’s not so giant,” I say warily, looking at the rocks below me.

“Give it a try,” he says, tugging my arm again.

I fix my snorkel in place and look at him through my mask, eyes wide.

His slips his mouthpiece in and gives me a nod and a thumbs-up.

I thumbs-up him back and then he’s gone, leaving a ripple on the surface as he dives under. I stick my face in the water and see him below, shining his flashlight into a crack in the rock. Taking a deep breath through the snorkel and setting my resolve, I kick and drop below the surface. I beeline for Blake’s side and press against him, where he’s peering into the crevice.

There’s something wiggling in there for sure, but I can’t see what it is, and I don’t dare get within tentacle reach.

Blake looks at me and I shrug. He tucks the flashlight back in his dive belt and reaches for the flat metal thing with a green handle. He slips the blade under the big oval shell attached to the rock and pries it loose.

When we break the surface, he spits out his snorkel and hands the oval to me. Underneath the rough brown shell is soft, white . . . something.

I poke it. “What is this?”

“A nine inch abalone,” he says with an amused smile.

“Fine, but what do you do with it?”

He grins. “It and a few more of its abalone friends will be dinner tonight.” He takes it back and slips it into a small mesh bag hanging off his belt at his hip, where his holster usually is, then positions his snorkel and dives again. I follow, looking toward the open ocean on my way to the rocks below, just to be sure no one from out there is crashing our party. Blake swims us around the rock, and it’s amazing: starfish and urchins, fish and crabs.

We dive again and he hands me the knife and points to an oval shell. I try to slip it between the shell and rock like he did, but I find the abalone is stuck tighter than I would have thought. It takes a bit of wrestling, but I’m finally able to pull it loose. He pries up another one and we slide them into his bag, then surface again.

“Three is our limit,” he says. “But those are all nine or ten-inchers, so we’ll be feasting tonight.”

Something tugs at my ankle and I scream, picturing giant octopus tentacles. When I yank, my leg doesn’t come loose and I scream again, my heart leaping into my throat. “Get it off me!”

Blake dives under and I feel his hand on my calf. I kick hard, trying to free myself, but he holds my leg steady. And when he lets go a second later, I’m free. I’m already kicking back toward shore as fast as I can when he catches me.

“Kelp,” he says when we drag ourselves out of the water.

“Kelp eats people too?” I say, my heart still racing.

“No,” he says, tipping his head at me. “But people can drown in it if they get tangled then panic.”

“I wasn’t panicking!”

He laughs and pulls off his mask and hood.

I rip off my mask and storm back up the sand to our towels. But considering I’m still in my flippers, it doesn’t feel very stormy. I spread a towel and sit, pulling off the rest of my gear. Blake peels out of his dive suit, and I try not to notice how his wet T-shirt hugs every contour of his chest.

But then he pulls it off over his head and I can’t help staring. “So . . . we defied death.”

“That was amazing,” I concede, peeling off my T-shirt.

He pulls two bottles of water, a bag of grapes, and some crackers out of his backpack, and we nibble. When I’ve had enough, I lay back on the towel with my arms overhead, soaking up the warmth from the sand below and the sun above.