Barefoot at Moonrise (Barefoot Bay Timeless Book 2) (3 page)

“Mostly. And some stress in life and on the job,” he admitted, putting his hand over hers. “I have to tell you, Beth, you’ve gotten even more beautiful, which is unbelievable, because back then, I thought…” He didn’t even know how to put into words how he’d felt. “Well, I thought you hung that thing right there in the sky.”

“Aww.” She smiled. “That’s sweet. Thanks.”

He inhaled and let it out with a noisy sigh, letting their clasped hands settle between them. “Thanks for letting me apologize now,” he said. “How I acted that day has bothered me for all these years.”

She didn’t say anything right away, her eyes searching his face in a way that made him wonder if she was gauging whether or not he was telling the truth, or merely studying his face. “You were young, in a lot of pain, and I took the brunt of your grief.”

His chest squeezed. “Don’t let me off that easy.”

“Time heals wounds, Ken,” she said. “And something tells me the sting of our breakup didn’t last as long as the deep pain from losing your father.”

He swallowed, agreeing, of course, with that. “The fact remains that you deserved more than that. I know we were just kids—”

“
I
was a kid,” she corrected. “I was fifteen and you were eighteen, a senior about to graduate and go into the Navy, and I was a sophomore who really should have been a freshman.”

“Not your fault you were a kindergarten overachiever and they pushed you ahead.” Somehow, he’d gotten closer, inches away now, their fingers still threaded, their bodies turned to each other like a force of nature had more control than they did.

“Thanks, Beth.”

She gave him a questioning look. “For accepting your apology?” she guessed.

He nodded. “And for being so gracious about it.”

She gave his hand a squeeze. “Let’s close that chapter in our lives.”

He swallowed against a thick throat. “You know what I think about?” he asked. “How much died that day. Not only a father of three, a loving husband, and one of the greatest men who ever lived. My family fractured. My world shifted. And
we
died. You and me.”

She didn’t answer, holding his gaze.

“I know we were from different social universes and just high school kids who were dating, but, Beth…I think we had a shot,” he said.

Before his dad died, he liked to think that it didn’t matter that his family was poor and lived in Twin Palms, the poorest part of Mimosa Key. It didn’t matter that his dad worked for her dad and that the Endicotts were crazy rich, while his mother was a housekeeper at a motel and took in sewing for extra money. They had a chance.

“And if I’d had a molecule of maturity back then,” he continued, “I wouldn’t have taken all my anger and hatred and blame out on you, on us.”

“I don’t want to relive that afternoon,” she said, letting go of his hand to put her fingers on his cheek. “It happened. It was ugly.”

“Ugly? I called you Satan’s daughter.”

“Shhh.” She stroked his jaw lightly. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. We have so many better memories.”

“We sure do.” Even in the dark of the cabana, he could see her eyes were still as blue as the summer skies over Barefoot Bay, fringed by thick lashes and framed with perfectly arched brows. She had a narrow nose over sweet, bowed lips he’d kissed so many times all those years ago. “God, those were a good six months. I remember the first time I saw you.”

“At a job site on a blazing-hot Saturday afternoon in August. I remember how much I wanted to go to the beach that day with my girlfriends, but my dad dragged me on a site run before he’d drop me off.”

“Believe me, I didn’t want to be working construction on my last summer weekend before senior year.” But his family needed money. They always needed money. “I was nailing in a window when someone said, ‘The boss is here.’ I looked up, and there you were with a pink bikini top under a see-through T-shirt and cutoff shorts.” He leaned closer. “And I slammed the shit out of my thumb.”

She laughed. “I didn’t know that. But I remember you. Sweaty and hot and staring at me until I thought I’d melt right into the poured concrete.”

Neither one of them said anything for a moment, both lost in that magical memory.

“One look at you and I knew you were probably too young for me,” he finally said.

“One look at you and I knew you were going to be my first boyfriend.”

He gave her a smirk. “So I really didn’t stand a chance, huh?”

She leaned in, letting her forehead touch his. “Nope.”

“That must be why I ignored my dad, then.” He shook his head, remembering the lecture he got on the way home. “He was like, ‘Son, if you so much as talk to that Endicott girl, you’ll be grounded for your whole senior year.’”

She closed her eyes, probably at the mention of his dad.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I love to talk about him, even to this day. He was a damn good father. I always hoped I’d have a chance to be half the dad he was.”

“Oh, Kenny, I’m sorry.”

“No, no.” He pulled her closer. “Tonight’s about me apologizing, not you. And let’s leave the families out of it. That’s what we did for six long months.”

“Not long enough,” she said on a sigh. “Well. Long enough to get to second base,” she teased.

He laughed softly, knowing exactly what she was referring to. “
That
was a good night.”

Her eyes twinkled with the shared secret of a make-out session out by the goat farm on the east side of Barefoot Bay.

She leaned into him. “You know, that was my first orgasm.”

He sucked in a little breath on a laugh. “It was?”

“And it’s still one for the books.”

“You remember it?” He couldn’t believe that.

“I remember…the essence of it,” she said, her voice sultry enough to send a solid blast of blood from his brain to parts south. “I remember that sort of heady feeling of danger and excitement and…need.”

His mouth went dry. “We were…needy.”

At eighteen, he’d been in a perpetual state of hard and desperate, and talking about it now, while inhaling the floral scent that clung to Beth’s hair, was enough to make him that way again. He trailed his finger down her bare arm, getting a jolt of satisfaction that he could still give her goose bumps.

“You know, it’s a damn shame we never got to have sex,” he said.

“Sure was,” she said. “I would have loved for you to have been my first, but I was way too young.”

“See what I mean, though? If we’d stayed together, we could have waited until I came back after the Navy and…” He dragged that finger back up her arm, settling on the sweet skin of her throat. “We could have lost our virginity together.”

“If only we could turn back time.”

If only.
“We could pretend.”

“How?” she barely whispered the word.

“Like this.” He lowered his face and placed his mouth on hers. Instantly, years disappeared. Bad memories faded and old feelings rose to the surface. It was old times, back in Barefoot Bay, kissing under a sweet, silent moon.

Ken honestly couldn’t remember a kiss that felt better.

* * *

There was so much left to say, so many years to cover, but Beth let go and returned the kiss. As soon as he ducked into the cabana, she knew she wouldn’t be satisfied until she tasted him, flicked her tongue against his, and whimpered in her throat when he deepened the contact between their mouths.

They’d talk later.

She didn’t realize how much she’d been aching for him, but her body responded instantly, and so did his, growing harder each second as his hands—large and oddly still familiar—started roaming her body, making her burn to do the same to him.

She tunneled her fingers into his hair, taking control of his head to angle him where she wanted him. One leg curled around his, locking them closer and letting him press against her stomach. She bowed her back, lifted her chin, and invited his kisses down her throat.

A sudden burst of laughter and conversation echoed over the beach as the sound of many footsteps hit the wide wooden deck well behind them.

“The dance thing must be over,” he murmured, still intent on pressing kisses on her throat, one hand slipping around to the side of her breast.

She moaned as he thumbed her nipple. “Think we’ll get caught?”

Someone shouted. A group howled in laughter. The strains of a Journey song started filling up the night.

“It’s kind of like high school all over again,” he said.

She laughed, a memory floating back like the chorus to a song she hadn’t heard in years. “Like the time we made out in the janitor’s closet and that old guy who was always stuffing tobacco in his mouth yelled at us.”

“Yep.” He pushed up to get off the chaise. “Hang on, these cabanas close up.”

Taking one side of the thick yellow drape, he drew it to the middle, then brought the other one to meet it, securing it with hook enclosures.

He turned to her, and her breath slammed into her chest at the look on his face.

Coming back to the chaise, he leaned on one knee, the cushion dipping with his weight, his eyes searing her. “Bethany,” he whispered. “Still one of my all-time-favorite creatures who ever roamed the earth.”

That made her smile, and when he climbed back on their little bed, his hand settled on the thigh exposed when her skirt slid up, making her mouth go bone-dry and her lower half pool with desire.

“I really came out here to talk to you,” he said, hovering over her.

She slipped her bare feet between his legs. “I really came out here to be alone.”

He inched up closer. “So neither one of us is getting what we wanted.”

She reached up and closed her hands over his shoulders, pulling him down. “Right now, this is exactly what I want.”

“Me, too.” He eased himself onto her, making her aware that her heart was pounding so hard it drowned out the music. Her leg wrapped around his again, and she brought him closer.

“I’ve got a room here tonight, you know,” he said, just before kissing her.

“Maybe we’ll go there later,” she murmured into his neck. “But not yet, not now. Now you should…” She wrapped her arms around him and pulled his hard muscles against her body. “Do this.”

“You…want the essence of it again?” he asked as his hands moved to cover her breast.

“I want all of it,” she admitted.

He slowed his touch and lifted his head. “You really are forgiving me,” he said, in a tone of humor mixed with relief.

She answered by kissing his mouth and jaw, bowing her back again so his hands slid down her waist, over her backside, finding his way to her thighs.

“These legs,” he murmured, stroking her skin. “They’ve set the standard for legs on all women everywhere for the rest of my life.”

She laughed, but it turned into a whisper of his name as his fingers slipped deeper between her legs. She caressed his back and dug her fingers into his shoulders, moaning in appreciation as she did her own exploring.

All the while, his hard-on grew against her, and they started a slow, rhythmic rub as their hips rocked against each other.

Some things really never changed.

“We’re acting like teenagers,” he joked, lifting his head to carefully check her expression. “
Again
.”

“I don’t feel like a teenager,” she said. She ran her hands over his arms, giving his hard, sizable biceps a squeeze. “And neither do you. You feel…amazing. This is amazing.”

He kissed her mouth and slipped his hand back under her skirt. “You are amazing, sweet Beth.”

“Ken.” She clutched his shirt, tugging it higher to get her hands on his skin and muscles. It was Ken, but different. Better. Bigger. Older and so much sexier than her teenage memories.

His hand roamed higher, into her panties, making her gasp when he touched her most tender spot, wet and ready for him. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think about anything but how intense and insane that felt.

His erection pulsed against her as she dragged her hand down to his waist, lower. With shaking fingers, she tried to unbuckle his belt.

“Help me,” she pleaded, hearing the desperation in her voice.

He unbuckled the belt and flipped open the button on his dress pants, too, but she pushed his hand away, a whimper in her throat because she couldn’t stand one more second without touching him. Dipping her hand in, she captured him, pulling a low groan from his chest as pleasure swamped them both.

Instantly, he returned his hand to the heat between her legs, each caress and stroke matching the beat of her fingers sliding up and down his shaft. Their breath labored, their moans soft, he slipped a finger inside her, and both of them shuddered as need rocked them.

“Hello, second base,” he teased, his voice as sexy as that finger. “Is it as good as the night on the goat farm?”

“Better,” she whispered, her trembling hands attempting to slide down his zipper. “Because this time…we don’t have to stop.”

He groaned, then dragged her panties over her hips, and she eased one leg out so she could spread herself for him.