Buck's Landing (A New England Seacoast Romance) (10 page)

His calm diffused some of her fury, and Sofia laughed bitterly. “I did. That was a long time ago.”

“He said you were always riding your bike down to the lobster pounds and the sport-fishing places, hanging around the marinas. While it was okay to drop a line across the bridge, what you really wanted was to go out on a boat and fish.”

“I’ve still never fished from a boat.” Finding a smooth stone, she worried it between her fingers as the old longing for the open ocean swamped her. “There was never enough money when I was little, and after my mom… It just never happened.”

“He said that he wanted to buy a Boston Whaler to take you out, but I sometimes wondered if he was talking about the little girl he lost, or the woman he didn’t know anymore.”

“He stopped caring.” She fought fresh tears. “My mom died when I was eleven. She had a congenital heart defect. She just crumpled one day, while the marinara was cooking. Dad went from a guy who liked a can of High Life after dinner, or maybe a little glass of Mom’s homemade limoncello, to a bottomless whiskey bottle of grief and bitterness. Did he tell you that?” She pulled her hand away. “I’m like her. You’ve seen the photos. Same skin, same dark eyes and hair. He couldn’t bear to look at me because I reminded him that the love of his life was dead.”

“Is that what you thought?”

“It’s what I know!” Sofia pitched the stone into the surf. “What could you possibly know about it? You were my father’s neighbor for half a year. He was a miserable drunk for half my childhood.”

The outburst left her feeling exposed. Solitude no longer appealed. She leaned into Silas, craving his steadiness.

“Did I ever tell you how I met him?”

His voice rumbled under his skin where her cheek pressed against his shoulder. She shook her head slightly.

“The second day I was in town was a crazy warm day for January, maybe forty-five or fifty degrees and sunny. I walked up from the motel I was checked into on Ashworth and headed south along the shore.”

Sofia pulled her knees up close to her chest to ward off the breeze. Silas went on with his story.

“I heard a saw, which seemed somehow out of place, so I walked up to the boardwalk to check it out. There was a guy—your dad—under the awning at Buck’s Landing, with sawhorses and a table saw set up. He looked up and waved, just a casual greeting to a welcome stranger. That was when I saw the For Sale sign on the market building. I bought it that day.” He scooped up a handful of sand. “In a way, your Dad led me to where I am. I didn’t even see inside until I’d already made an offer.”

Bitterness flooded her mouth like venom. Everyone was an expert on Jimmy Buck, but none of them had lived through her mother’s death with the man. “I don’t need your stories about how great he was, Silas. Like I said, I didn’t even know that man. The one I knew wouldn’t have welcomed a stranger. He didn’t even welcome his own child.”

“People change, Sofia.”

The seawall around her emotions cracked, and the words poured through, hot and vicious. “My father drowned his grief in booze and let the business fall apart while he chased my mother’s ghost through the house. I lost them both when she died. I spent six years figuring out how to get out of town, and then after college I left. I left and I never came back. I made a life for myself, goddammit. I left a job I worked my ass off to be the best at, a beautiful little condo in a neighborhood I like, to come here because my father had the unmitigated gall to die.” A sob broke her voice.

A summer’s worth of unshed tears spilled over. She pushed up, away from Silas and memories and unwanted sympathy, but his big, warm hand held her tight.

Desire and instinct warred within her. Her body ached for his touch, for the playful intimacy that had woven itself into the fabric of their days, but the violence of her emotions, the driving, white-hot rage her father’s legacy brought out in her had finally surfaced, and she was terrified there was no turning back. Silas turned to her, eyes glittering in the reflected streetlight from the boardwalk. He had only wanted to comfort; it wasn’t his fault that the heat between them was too much to resist. Desire won out. Her heart won out. She tucked up her trousers and settled uneasily on the sand, still trying to keep some distance between them. He reached for her anyway.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Comforting you,” he said, sliding his hand up her arm.

~~~

He saw it in her eyes, the battle between fight and flight. He told himself he was ready for either one. Then he caught it, the slightest softening.

“I don’t need comforting.” Her words didn’t match the husky delivery.

He stretched up, stroked her cheek, his other hand still resting just above her elbow. Her body was strung tight. “Of course you don’t.”

So easy to slide his fingers into all that silky, dark hair. So easy to draw her face in close. She smelled like the cool sand, like salt and summer air, but underneath was something more complex. Searching out the source, he whispered over her jaw line and inhaled the fragrance of the fine skin behind her ear. Perfume, fresh and floral, but musky, and then underneath that, a spicy note that he knew to be all her own. He inhaled again, this time pressing his lips to taste the smooth column of her throat.

An audible sigh escaped her lips, and she turned into him.

He’d once heard that drowning was a pleasant way to die, that the mind slipped into bliss in the final moments. It had always seemed far-fetched to him, but when her lips sought his out in the darkness, when her hair and her scent closed out the percussion of the coming tide, when the air he breathed thickened like water in his lungs, he understood. This was drowning and it was bliss.

He shifted, tested the depth of contact. She yielded; the kiss turned him over and he lost himself. He’d expected to spar with her; the tenderness that washed over him left him defenseless. Her lips parted against his, her hands drifted up to press against his chest, but not in protest. From his chest, up and around his neck, her fingers searched out his bare skin. The taste of her pulled him in.

Her tongue teased his lips, tangled with his, even as she melted against him, rocking him into the sand. His hands coasted down her back, pulling her close with a growl of pleasure. Her skin, exposed between the tank she wore under the flimsy wrap and her linen pants, was warm under his palms and he wanted more, but she was pushing away, scrambling for purchase in the loose sand.

For the second time that night, Silas followed her. A few months of morning runs on the beach gave him the advantage. Grabbing his sneakers, he loped off after her over the manmade dunes. He caught up with her before she’d gone very far, just where the beach parking lot ended at Haverhill Avenue.

“Please, Sofia. Don’t push me away.”

She whirled on him, fire in her eyes, moonlight on her skin.

There was none of the melting tenderness of before. This kiss scorched, burned. Her mouth was hot and insistent on his. He should have been offended, or at least turned off, by her hot and cold routine, but she was winding her hands up in his shirt and hauling him up against her body. He was helpless to resist.

“Sofia,” he whispered against her lips. “I want you.”

“Yes.” Her reply was almost a whimper.

Not one to waste an opportunity, he angled his lips and plundered. He took her invitation, exploring her with tongue and teeth, wrapping her in his arms, filling his senses with her. Even her flavor was ice and fire. He slid his hands up under her top; the muscles of her back flexed beneath his palms as she stretched up and closer. He circled her ribcage with his fingers, brushing satin and lace, teasing the underside of her breasts.

He forced himself to break the kiss. They were bordering on public indecency. He chuckled, still breathing hard.

“Upstairs?”

They made it as far as her landing, but he was part of the fire now, burning as hot as she did. She moaned and pressed herself against the door, hips jangling the keys in the lock. Silas leaned in, one hand slipping between her bra and the softness of her flesh, the other cupping her ass and pulling her up tight against him. She could have no illusions about how much he wanted her. Pushing the wrap from Sofia’s shoulders, drawing her camisole up, he brushed her nipple with his thumb. She gasped, sighed, shoved at the waistband of his jeans.

He reached for the doorknob, and they stumbled together through the door.

~~~

Sofia’s anger was gone, burned to ash in the passion that flamed between them. Her body screamed for release.

Silas backed her up against the counter, deftly undid the catch at the waist of her linen trousers. The air on her bare legs as the linen pooled raised gooseflesh; his warm hands chased the chill away. He lifted her up, settling himself between her thighs.

She kissed him, tugging at his bottom lip with her teeth while she worked his tee shirt up over his head. Clothing dropped around them as they devoured one another.

She reached for him, guiding him to her, wrapping her body around him. Sofia held him there, hardly daring to move, lest the breathless moment end. Then they were moving together, streaking towards the edge, hurling themselves over.

Sofia held on to Silas while he caught his breath, loathe to let him go.

He laid his head against her breast. “Hey.”

“Yeah.” She smiled, resting her cheek on the top of his head.

“Are you okay?” He raised his face to look into her eyes.

She laughed lightly, aftershocks still shivering through her muscles. “I’m tougher than I look.”

Silas kissed her. “I know that. Seriously,” he searched her eyes again, “you’re all right?”

She brushed a long lock of fair hair away from his face. “I’m okay.”

“I’d like to stay, but I left some lights on and I need to check on the cat monster.”

“Come back soon,” she said, hopping down from the counter to turn on the light for the landing and help him find his clothes.

The door had barely closed behind him when her phone trilled from the pocket of her discarded pants.

Rubbing her temple, she pulled it out. Blinking in surprise, she connected the call.

“Elliot.” She closed her eyes a moment, trying to place the last time they’d spoken. “I thought you were still…away.”

“Unexpected detour.” His voice was brisk but warm, with the faint hint of Europe that he cultivated despite being from an upscale suburb of Chicago. “I’m in Boston.”

Her heart skipped uneasily. “Really?”

She heard a series of digital beeps. “My GPS tells me you’re only an hour away.”

She heard the suggestion behind his words, and chose to ignore it. There was no point in encouraging him. “How long are you in town?”

“I’m heading down to Washington tomorrow night, then I have a meeting in Beijing.”

“A meeting?” She knew he was speaking in riddles on purpose, but she was used to his cloak and dagger.

“Is there room for me in your twin bed?”

“It’s not a twin bed.” The defensive tone of her own voice caught her off guard. He’d done nothing wrong, but his intrusion irked.

At the beginning of the summer, she would have told him to meet her at one of the inns along the coast between there and Boston. The spontaneity would have made them hungrier for one another. Now, she could only think of Silas, on his way back up any minute. “Trust me, Elliot. You’d hate it up here.”

“Bit primitive?” Even his affected speech grated on her remaining nerves.

“Something like that.” She switched the phone to her other ear and pressed her fingers hard into her temple. “I’ll be in D.C. sometime in September. Maybe we can meet up then?”

His reply was considerably cooler. “Perhaps.”

“Look, Elliot.” Irritation got the better of her. “It’s not a good time. I’m so glad you called, and I’m sorry I can’t drop everything to be with you, but I can’t. Please don’t make this more than it is.”

The brief silence on the other end of the line was telling.

“No, Sofia. I won’t do that.”

“Elliot…” She didn’t really know what to say.

He saved her the trouble. “Call me when you’re home. We’ll catch up then.”

Elliot ended the call. Sofia laid her phone down on the counter.

Silas was true to his word. She watched his lights wink out in his apartment and met him at her door with an affectionate kiss. Falling back on the rhythm of their nights together, they stretched out on her bed with the heavy night air over them like a blanket. Silas’s deep, untroubled breathing came quickly. Sleep evaded her, so she slipped out of bed.

A glance at the clock told her it was far too late to be up. The garbage pick-ups would come too soon, and she no longer had a child’s ability to sleep through the racket. She paused at her parents’ bedroom door. As in her own bedroom, her father had framed half a dozen fading photographs of their little family, clustering them on the dresser. From the doorway she could see her mother smiling over the stove, the three of them by an enormous, scraggly Christmas tree, and her smaller self, walking ahead of the lens, carrying her fishing pole over her tanned and freckled shoulder. Cutoffs, filthy Keds, and a Kermit the Frog tee shirt all just a hint too small. Her mother would have been saving for back-to-school clothes.