The Love Series Complete Box Set (151 page)

“This is amazing, Evan.” Lucy steps into our beachfront suite ahead of me as I tip the bellhop. “My God. The ocean is right there.” She opens the sliding glass doors and the tropical sea air billows into the room. It’s the perfect crystal blue backdrop to a romantic escape.

I step behind her, sweep her hair to the side so that it falls over her shoulder and press my lips to her neck. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I pull her to me. “I knew you would love it. I just can’t believe you’ve never been on a real, honest-to-goodness, don’t-have-a-care-in-the-world vacation.”

“Nope. Being a single mom never really left much time for traveling. That’s why I’m a spa-junkie. It’s a lot easier to get away for the day than it is for the week.”

“Oh, you’ll have plenty of spa-time.” I kiss the top of her head and she leans back against me, folding her arms on top of mine. “We actually have a couple’s massage in,” I pull my arm out from under her and check my watch, “about an hour.”

Turning to face me, she looks up at me seductively. “You mean we don’t have to be anywhere for a whole hour?” She steps out of my arms, and pulls the thin strap of her tank top over her shoulder. “Do you know what we could do in an hour?” After pulling down the other one, she grabs the waistband of my cargo shorts.

“Love, the way you’re talking, we’ll be able to do things
twice
in the hour.”

“Now, you’re talking.” She winks and licks her lips. I lift her easily and carry her over to the bed where we spend the next fifty-eight minutes showing each other just how excited we are to be on vacation together before we get our massages.

Twice.

A few hours, a few orgasms and an amazing massage later, we’re getting reading for a romantic beachside dinner. When Lucy steps out of the bathroom, wearing only a towel loosely tied across her chest, I want to rip it off her and devour her all over again. But giving us until at least after dinner to recover seems more than doable.

I walk over to Lucy just as she bends down to get some clothes out of the drawer. God, her ass—I can’t help but pinch it.

“Ow,” she whelps and jumps a little. Rubbing over the spot I just pinched, she looks up and gives me the side-eye. “What was that for?” She smirks.

“Because I can.” I wink and pull her close to me, squeezing her ass in both hands. “And because this,” I squeeze once more, just for added emphasis, “is a fantastic ass and it’s all mine.”

Her eyes soften in the corners as she lifts up on her toes. Bringing her lips to mine, she kisses me softly, but so intensely. As she strokes her fingers through my hair, she presses her soft, luscious body up against mine. “Have I told you how much I love being yours? Because I’m pretty sure it’s my most favorite thing to be in the world.”

“Good, get used to it.” I pop a quick kiss to her forehead. “Why don’t I let you finish getting ready? I’ve got to go check on some things, so I’ll be back in a bit to get you, okay?”

She shoots me a wary look, knowing that something is up my sleeve; however, she concedes. An eye roll of course accompanies her concession. She slaps my ass as I walk past her, claiming it as hers. I just chuckle and walk toward the hotel lobby to make my call.

“Hey, Pete.”

“Hey, Evan. How’s vacation?”

“Great. We just got here. Look, I just wanted to call and check that all of the supplies arrived. You guys are all set to start tomorrow right?” I’m trying to keep my voice hushed as I scan the lobby for Lucy.

“Yeah, man, we’re all set. I got the plans from the builders too. Nothing to worry about.” Pete, a good friend of Joe’s and mine from way back, owns a construction company. He handles mostly the business end of things now and he lets his son, Derek, take care of the actual labor. He’s a good guy and his business has never had a single complaint, but it still makes me nervous to leave something so important up to someone else.

“You’re sure you’re good? Did you see the . . .”

“The additions on the posts for solar lights?” He laughs, filling in the end of my sentence. “Yes, we saw those changes. I got this, Evan. And I promise if we have any problems, we’ll call.”

I ramble on for a few more minutes about specifics that I want to make sure he’s certain about before catching sight of Lucy as she strolls toward me. After ending the call, I stare, unabashedly so, at her. She hasn’t seen me yet, so I hide behind a wall near the phone bank.

She looks like a goddess. Her hair is swept to the side and tossed casually over her shoulder. The ends fall in curls across the creamy skin of her chest and neck. Her floor-length, teal beach dress makes her pop against the crowd. The confused and slightly lost look that travels across her beautiful face as she searches for me makes her look even more adorably sweet than she already does.

“Hey, there you are.” She pads over to me through the somewhat quiet lobby. “What were you up to?” Her question is light, but I can hear the accusation there. She’s always digging.

“Absolutely nothing. Now, let’s go eat.” I drape an arm around her shoulder as we walk toward the restaurant.

After we’re seated and our drinks have been served, we gaze out to the setting sun. The orange rays of blazing light sink into the crystal blue water. It’s so beautiful and surreal that it almost looks as if the water is swallowing the sun up rather than the other way around. I reach across the small, bistro-style table and cover Lucy’s hand with mine. As she turns to face me, her eyes shimmer just as the sunlight bounces off the ripples of the ocean − unshed tears threaten, but I see her forcing them back.

I pull her hand up to my lips. “You okay?” I ask quietly.

A small, sad smile plays at the corners of her mouth as she covers up my hand with her other one. “The last time I saw the sun set like this, on a beach like this,” she clarifies, letting her gaze fall back to the deep, blue ocean in front of us. “It was with Jimmy on our honeymoon. It feels like a lifetime ago.”

No words are uttered in the next few minutes as the sun disappears, morphing the sky into a purple and red haze. Watching her reflect on whatever it is that she’s reflecting on, has me all sorts of tongue-tied.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to be sad. It’s just that you said you always wanted to go to the beach, somewhere tropical. So I wanted to give that to you. If I would have known . . .”

“Shh, no, Evan. I’m not sad.” Her fingertips tickle the top of my hand, calming my nerves. “Right after Jimmy died, I found myself talking to him as I would watch the sun rise and set every day. It became part of my routine − the only way I could still feel connected to him in some small way.”

I bring her hand up to my lips again, letting her know to keep going, to keep opening up. “Seeing this,” she tips her chin to the darkening sky, “well, it just makes me feel like he’s here, but in a good way. Like he’s giving me a blessing or something like that.”

“I hope for that, too. I hope he approves of us, hope he thinks I’m taking good care of you and Melanie. I know that he would want you to be happy. You have to believe that.” She nods and smiles at me, the brightness in her eyes conveying how truly happy she is.

“Did you talk to him just now?”

She takes a sip of her wine and then puffs out a deep breath. “I did. Is that weird?” Her nose crinkles, awaiting my judgment.

“Not one bit,” I assure her. Not wanting to ask what she’s said, I take a sip of my drink and lean back as the waiter serves our appetizer of fresh oysters on the half-shell.

“You don’t want to know
what
I said?” Her words rattle as do her fingers, tapping out a nervous rhythm on the table.

“I figured you would tell me if you wanted to.” Lacing our fingers together, I give her hand a gentle squeeze. “He doesn’t have to stop being a part of your life just because I am now. You keep talking to him all you need, love.”

“I love you,” she chokes out as her emotions get the best of her. Pulling my chair to her side, I tuck her into my arm and rest my cheek on her head.

“I love you, too. So much, it scares me sometimes.” I can’t voice what’s really scaring me, the prospect that waits for us back at her house. Yet, despite that particular uncertainty, I know that my life will forever be altered just by having Lucy in it.

“We’re the oysters not good, sir?” The waiter chimes in, breaking our emotion-filled silence.

I look down at the plate he placed in front of us a few minutes ago and realize that we haven’t touched a thing. “No, no,” I assure him, “they’re fine. We were just getting started.”

Lucy smiles up at me brightly as I reach forward to grab a shell. She kisses my cheek, before whispering, “We sure as hell
are
just getting started.”

“I can’t believe we have our own private beach.” Lucy’s words float lazily over to me from her beach recliner. “I don’t ever want to leave this place.” We’re four days into our week-long vacation, but I completely agree with her sentiments. I’ve never been so relaxed, so at ease in all my life. And I know it has more to do with being with Lucy than it does with sunbathing.

I roll to my side and lower my sunglasses to the tip of my nose. “We could relocate.” I waggle my eyebrows at her and she laughs.

“I might be the only person on Earth crazy enough to say this, but I couldn’t do that. I don’t think I could ever leave my home.”

“I know that, love.” And that’s exactly why I have Pete working away while we’re here. Just thinking about how shocked she’ll be when we get back to her house has me all sorts of excited and nervous.

“Join me for a swim?” I stand next to her, holding out my hand. She looks back and forth between my outstretched hand and her Kindle − back and forth, back and forth. Oh, that’s it.

In an instant, she’s scooped up in my arms, Kindle dropped to the sand as she squeals in surprise. “Hey! You’re buying me a new one if that one’s broken.”

I cup her string bikini covered bottom tightly and nuzzle into her neck. “I’ll buy you whatever you want, but you’re going swimming with me first.”

I ease her down the length of my body until her toes touch the wet sand at the water’s edge. The warm ocean water laps gently against our legs as we walk into the calm, barely rippling sheet of blue water before us. It’s a picture perfect scene, really.

I look over at Lucy quietly wading in the water. Her sun-kissed shoulders are dotted with droplets of water that catch the light in glimmering sparkles. The pale yellow fabric of her bikini top is deceptively innocent looking. The upper swell of her breasts float above the water as she wades there. Suddenly, swimming is the last thing on my mind.

“See something you like, sweetheart?” She shoots me a wry look and swims into my arms, pressing her softness into my body.

“I see a lot of what I like.” She wraps her legs around my hips and wiggles against me.

“Yeah, you do.” She nips at my neck, rubbing against the harness straining against my shorts.

Wrapping my hands around her ribcage, my thumbs graze the underside of her breasts. She pushes into my touch as she rubs her hips up against my erection − one that can’t even be calmed by the coolness of the water. Her back arches, exposing miles of creamy skin to my lips. She’s lost to the gentle rhythm and sway of our hips and I can feel her heat through the thin layers of fabric that separate us. I cup her ass with one hand, pulling her hard against me.

“Ahh,” she quietly shrieks as she begins to move just a touch more frantically.

As I hold her in place with one hand, I pull down the cup of her bikini. Her nipples pebble beautifully as a perfectly timed cool breeze mingles in with the sun-warmed air. The scent of her arousal fills my senses as it mixes with the fresh saltiness of the ocean water.

I roll her nipple in my fingers, pulling it, elongating it, getting more and more turned on by her desire. Dipping my head to her breast, I pull the pink tip of it deep into my mouth.

“God, Evan,” she calls as her hips roll. I pay the same attention to her other breast and nipple, laving and nipping at it gently.

Her thighs begin to tremble as she loses the battle with her control. She buries her face in my chest, nuzzling into me with a loving tenderness that turns me on just as much as the heated thrusting that’s going on below the water.

“Evan. Evan . . . I’m . . . oh, God . . . I’m so close.” Her words fall from her lips in rapid, lust-filled pants. I push into her and her legs tremble again. Still holding her tight ass in one hand, I reach in between her legs. Dipping my fingers into her, I drag my fingertip up the seam of her lips and press oh-so softly against her hardened clit, just like she likes it.

That thought − the knowledge that I have a woman who I love and who I know how to please − makes me throb with the need to be driving into her. But right now, the need to feel her come, to feel her lose herself to my touch supersedes all of my desires.

At the same time I pull her nipple back into my mouth, I rub small circles around her clit, pushing her over the edge.

“Evan,” she keens − pushing, thrusting, rolling against me as her pussy clenches and pulses around my fingers.

When all that’s left is the soft sounds of small waves lapping against our bodies and her calming breaths, I carry her out of the water. We walk straight across the beach, past our lounge chairs and right into our room. As I put her down, her ass perched on the edge of the vanity countertop, her limbs fall to her sides, slack and boneless, sated and calm.