Snowflake Bay Page 17

  He went to shove down his jeans, then at the last second snagged his wallet out of his back pocket . . . which was when he remembered. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

  “What?” she panted, her eyes dark and languorous from her recent ripping orgasm, but the color in her cheeks still heightened and her breath still coming in guttural little gasps as she hurried to get them both to where they really wanted to be.

  “Condoms,” he said between clenched teeth. “I don’t have any here.” He used to keep one in his wallet, but the last time Annalise had tried to seduce him back into her life, she’d torn that one open with her teeth. They’d been in the back of her father’s limo at the time, sitting in the parking lot of an outdoor trade show, where she’d ambushed him at his company’s booth and he’d followed her out to the car only to keep her from making a scene. She hadn’t gotten her wish, so that one had gone to waste, but he’d never replaced it. It was as much for a psychological barrier to her ever being able to get that far again as because he simply hadn’t needed to have one in there.

  He didn’t have any in the farmhouse, either, as he hadn’t lived there since he was in college, and even then he hadn’t exactly been in the habit of bringing women home and up to his childhood bedroom.

  In the interim between then and now, his folks had moved their master bedroom downstairs and his old room had become his mother’s sewing room. Their old master had been renovated into a bedroom suite with sitting room and full spa bath, all done back when his grandmother was alive, under the assumption she’d come to live with them in her golden years. She’d ended up in a full-time care facility instead, and the room had remained unused . . . until he’d come home to move his parents south and take over the place. He was thankful for the new space, one that wasn’t his folks’ old bedroom, or his childhood room, either.

  All that mattered at the moment, however, was that there weren’t any condoms there, either.

  “I—are you safe?” she asked. “I mean, have you ever had—?”

  “Annual checkups,” he said. “I get a company plan discount for being healthy,” he explained. “But, Fi, I don’t want you—or us—to take any—I mean, that’s one of those risks you spoke of earlier that—”

  Now she pressed her fingers over his lips. “It’s not a risk. I have an implant. It helps me with other issues. I—it’s been a while for me. But even with that, I always used protection. There was never anyone who—” She paused and looked down, then stopped unzipping her pants altogether, when she realized what she’d said.

  He cupped her face, urged her to look at him. “Fiona, we don’t have to—I mean, we can wait. I want you. I want this. I . . . want,” he finally said. “God, do I want. Like I want my next breath.” He rubbed his thumb over her lip again, and it made him ache so hard it was a physical pain not to lean down and take, then move between her legs and take again. “It’s not now or never is what I mean.”

  “What if it is?” she said, in a half whisper.

  He frowned then, and pulled his thoughts away from what it would feel like to push inside her for the first time, to feel her coming apart while wrapped around him and not just pressed against him. “Why would it be?”

  “You’re temporary. Your life is in Portsmouth. I just got home, and I know I have a lot of questions about how I want to proceed with my business plans, but one thing I haven’t questioned, not even for a second, is whether coming home was the right thing to do. I’m so glad to be back, surrounded by people who matter to me, people I will take personal joy in helping, as well as just being part of a community that I love. It took leaving to make me realize that I had everything I wanted all along.”

  “Then why let things get this far?” he asked, not upset, but sincerely curious. “What did you want from this? From me?”

  “I honestly wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I already did that and my conclusion was to leave it alone, to not risk ruining a long-standing family relationship. Then you put your hands on me and I don’t know . . .” She smiled, but it wasn’t coquettish or designed to be cute and disarming. It was sincere befuddlement and amusement he saw there. “I like your hands on me, as it turns out.” She lifted her shoulders in a short shrug. “So . . . I didn’t stop you. It wasn’t callousness or indifference, but come on, Ben, this is a physical thing most likely. We’ll jump each other, then wonder what the hell we were doing and go back to our respective lives. We’re adults, as you keep pointing out, so I guess if I thought anything, it was that it was a mutual thing, so no harm, no foul.” She shook her head. “Honestly, I didn’t even think it through that far. I just . . .” She looked at him and her smile was dry. “I took a risk.”

  There wasn’t much he could say to that, he supposed, given that was the exact argument he’d made to get her to this point. “Is that how you still see it?”

  She laughed. “I don’t know. We didn’t get there yet. Well, I mean, I might have gotten there, you know . . .” She drifted off, but though her cheeks went bright pink, she didn’t try to duck from the truth of what she’d just said, either. “How do you see it? I mean, how else is there to see it, really?”

  He wasn’t sure at what moment he’d known Fiona McCrae was never going to be just a passing fling for him. He’d have said it was that kiss in the parking lot. If there was such a thing as rockets going off, figuratively, they had for him right then. But that was probably just a strong second to right that very moment. She was perched on his kitchen counter—on his parents’ kitchen counter—with her wild curls even more disheveled than usual, like a man had had his hands buried in them, a look of distinct feminine satisfaction gleaming from her beautiful amber eyes, her shirt bunched up and wet from his mouth, her jeans half unzipped, and her heels still hooked behind his thighs, smiling with such wry self-deprecation and openness that . . . he knew she was the kind of woman he wanted by his side. And under him. And on top of him, too. She would always give as good as she got, in every way a man and woman could give and get. That was the kind of woman he wanted, had always wanted. He just hadn’t been smart enough to realize he’d already met her.

  “I just see it as the beginning,” he said. “No one can know how anything might end. So why dwell on that?”

  “Because it might save you a lot of grief later?”

  “That’s a risk I’ll take,” he said. “Every time.”

  Her gaze dropped to his mouth, then she got a little more flushed, before looking back into his eyes. Her smile was wry, as if she realized how silly it was to be embarrassed about getting all hung up looking at him, considering she’d been coming not five minutes ago.

  “How is it some man hasn’t already snapped you up and kept you in the lifestyle in which I’d love to keep you? Which is mainly naked except for whatever that green silk thing is you have on under those jeans. That you can keep.”

  “Aw, you’re so generous.”

  He grinned. “You lucky girl, you.”

  Her smile shifted for a brief moment then, but he couldn’t have said what was going through her mind when it did. “I guess all those countless other men didn’t recognize the hotness that is this.” She gestured to her disheveled self. “Because either they were too busy checking out their own hotness, or, you know, more likely it was hard to decipher my many, oh so many, gifts when I keep getting all tangled up and tripping over the wrapping.”

  “They were just too shortsighted to see that was part of your charm. Also? Makes you easier to catch when I’m chasing you around the house.”

  She smiled at that, added in a little eye roll, like he was just being kind, when she had to know, had to have felt, how exceedingly honest he was being about the strength of his attraction to her.

  She was still leaning back on her hands, making no move to tidy herself up, which was fine by him. Even his tongue ached to be back on her somewhere, somehow.

  “So, what about you?” she asked. “Why aren’t you wrangling a few rug rats and juggling PTA and Little Leag
ue baseball games?”

  He’d thought about having a family from time to time. Mostly realizing he couldn’t really imagine it with Annalise. Maybe it was because they’d actually been kids together, but he had no problem seeing Fiona as a mom. The more terrifying part was that for the first time, being a dad didn’t sound like the scariest thing in the world. “Anything I say right now will just sound like a corny line designed to get you naked.”

  That earned him a laugh. “So go with the truth instead. Did the right one get away?” She made a fake coughing sound into her hand as she said, “My sister.” Still smiling, she sat up straighter so her shirt hung loosely away from her torso as she gripped the edge of the counter in her hands. “Or have the women of Portsmouth just all gone collectively dumb and blind?”

  It took him a moment to register the compliment. His attention was temporarily snagged by the wet spots on her shirt . . . spots made by his own mouth and tongue, and the fact that her nipples were still prominently visible pressing through them. Even when she wasn’t trying, she was sexy as hell.

  “I, uh—” He looked up at her. “I’m sorry, what?”

  She lifted a foot and bumped the side of his thigh with it. “Men.”

  “Again, you lucky, lucky girl.”

  She laughed outright then and the tension shifted, somehow becoming even more intimate, even as the more aggressive part of sexual tension eased into something more familiar, as if this weren’t their first time and there was no rush. In their case, familiarity only seemed to breed the desire to become that much more familiar.

  “Have you ever been close?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I dated someone I met in college for a few years after we graduated.”

  “Annalise Manderville,” she said, then smiled at his raised eyebrow. “Don’t go getting a swelled head. I didn’t stalk you. Your parents talked about her. She’s the reason you went to Portsmouth after graduating. Her family is from there.”

  He could have told her that it was way too late for the head swelling, only not the one she meant. “That’s been done for over a year now. And was off and on a long time before that.”

  She gave him a considering look. “Any chance of it being on again?”

  He shook his head. He couldn’t speak to what Annalise was thinking these days, but in this case, his was the only opinion that mattered. “I ended it, and that’s not a decision I’ve ever regretted.”

  “Is it hard still being in Portsmouth with all your mutual friends and her family?”

  “It’s a big town. Small in some ways, I guess, but not in the ways that matter to me. We otherwise really didn’t run in the same circles.”

  She flashed him a quick, conspiratorial grin. “Must feel kind of good having that big magazine spread come out, though.”

  His responding grin was swift and sincere. “I’d be less than honest if I said I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall when her folks see it, but no, I otherwise honestly don’t care.” He didn’t want to waste time talking about Annalise. “So, you don’t think you’ll feel you’re stagnating here? You handled some pretty big-name clients, doing very prominent, noticeable work.”

  Now she raised an eyebrow.

  He laughed and lifted a hand. “My folks like to keep me up to date with local news and you guys are like extended family to them. I think they feel almost as proud of what you and your sisters accomplished away from the Cove, and what Logan has done with his career here in the Cove, as they do of me.”

  “That’s a very sweet thing to know,” she said, honest affection shining in her eyes now. “Thank you for telling me that. It means a lot. Are they really doing okay down south? Logan alluded to things with your dad being perhaps a bit more complex than you mentioned.” She lifted her hand now. “He didn’t go into particulars. You know you can trust him, and I won’t nudge if it’s truly none of my business. Other than to say I’m very sorry if you’re juggling that emotional juggernaut on top of everything else. It puts a slightly different slant on your decisions regarding the family farm.”

  “It does, yes. And thanks.” He didn’t even pause to debate whether or not to tell her. “My dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Early stages, not really impaired by it yet. They’re hoping by moving south now to a far less demanding and stressful lifestyle, that they can maybe slow down the progress of the disease.”

  She reached out and took his arm. “Ben, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “I know. They really don’t want anyone to know. Folks in the Bay and here in the Cove are like one big extended family to them, and while I know they’d appreciate the kind thoughts—”

  “They don’t want the busybody side of it to nudge in and get in the way,” she finished. “No, I completely understand that. I won’t speak of it, except to you and Logan.” She squeezed his arm. “I haven’t had anything quite like that in my family, but we have suffered our losses and faced our own obstacles. If you need someone to talk to—regardless of this,” she added, motioning between their still half-undressed bodies, “you know I’m here, right?”

  The honest answer to that was that while he might have known the McCraes as a family would always be there for him, it wasn’t until this recent shift between him and Fiona that he’d have thought of her as someone he could turn to one-on-one. Now he thought he couldn’t really imagine wanting to turn to anyone else. She knew him. Knew his folks. It was surprising how important that was, how reassuring.

  He covered her hand. “Thanks, Fi. That means more to me than you might realize.”

  She smiled. “Good. Because I mean it.”

  He moved in closer again, but took her arms in his hands when she went to lean back again, keeping her in close. “How did we get from a talk about birth control, to you discussing my folks?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, smiling easily up into his eyes.

  He realized that the nervous tension between them, more specifically what was coming from her, was gone now. It wasn’t that they’d reverted back to the familiar patterns of old friendship as much as it was a step forward into a new relationship. One that was still comforting and familiar, but didn’t lessen one bit the desire he still had to carry her to bed and keep her there until neither one had enough energy left to talk.

  “Were you ever close?” he asked. “To the white picket fence and 2.4 golden retrievers.”

  She giggled. “I think you mean kids.”

  “I think I’d rather have four-tenths of a dog than four-tenths of a kid.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”

  “Right?” He tugged her closer. “So . . . were you ever close to planning your own wedding?”

  She shook her head. “Not even the long-term gig like you had. Building my business in a place like New York took everything I had. I tried to date occasionally—did date occasionally—but when it came to juggling work and a personal life, the work was always more interesting to me.”

  “Ouch,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, I always thought if someone came along that even made it a contest, then I might have made the time, but . . . I don’t know. City guys, at least in a city the size of New York, were way too intense for me.”

  His eyes widened. “Because you’re such a mellow, laid-back sort yourself.”

  She smiled even as she playfully nudged him again. “I’m . . . assertive, yes. About business. But the men I met were pretty much exhausting, and that was just dinner conversation. I couldn’t imagine being around that kind of driven focus 24/7.”

  “Says the workaholic who moved from Nowhere, Maine, to Manhattan and, by all accounts and measures, took it by storm.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said, laughing. “Guilty as charged. So maybe I needed a little balance. Someone to even me out. All I know is the men I met mostly left me feeling either agitated or exhausted. Or like a complete slacker, when I know I’m anything but.”

  “What are you going to do with all that workaholic energy onc
e you get things up and running?”

  “Easy. Get a life.”

  “So, white picket fence, the whole nine?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, at some point. I don’t feel the clock ticking if that’s what you mean. I can’t let myself go there. Life is hard enough. I just want balance. Then whatever happens, happens. You know?”

  “No,” he said, with a laugh. “I’m still at the no-time-for-a-personal-life stage.”

  “Except for that one relationship you had for years.”

  “I don’t know what I’d call that, but it didn’t feel much like a personal life, not like what you’re describing. Even in the good times.”

  “What did it feel like?”

  “Work.”

  She made a face. “Yeah, that sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”

  “You’d think I’d have figured that out sooner.”

  “We learn how we learn. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

  He chuckled. “Maybe I will call you up when I need a shoulder.”

  She did that half shrug thing again. “Like I said, I’m there for you.” Her smile twisted into something a bit drier. “Just don’t forget that part where you like me for my directness and honesty. You ask me for my opinion, you’ll get it.”

  “Consider me forewarned.”

  “I guess this will be the awkward part—”

  “And just when things were going so smoothly,” he quipped, but he didn’t try to divert her again.

  “Given where we were ten minutes ago, this might seem—don’t take it the wrong way, but . . . I think I should go. I . . . am oddly more confused now than I was before. I do know I’m glad we didn’t do anything rash. Risk and reward, risk and consequence. I still have more sorting out to do than I’d like to admit.” She smiled. “Rain check?”