Like a Memory (Sea Breeze Meets Rosemary Beach #1)(39)

Eli’s eyes were on me. They were burning a hole in my back. I could feel him. I bet he spun around the moment the first couple of words tumbled out of my mouth.

“I don’t do things I don’t want to do. And after seeing you in that dress, with your pretty hair in curls, there is no way I am walking away. You wanted this and now, so do I.”

I hadn’t expected that response. My mind had been prepared to see him walk away with a “so long”. This surprised me. He wanted to go out.

“Really?” was the brilliant word that came out of my mouth then. Not “thank you” or something more . . . I don’t know intelligent maybe. I just said “really?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, most definitely.”

Okay. Well then that changed everything. He was here looking like sex on a stick and he wanted me to go out with him. Our one last memory to satisfy me for the rest of my life. I was still pathetic but I was going. I was over feeling sorry for myself. Besides, he thought my curls were pretty.

“Well, okay, um, well, yeah, I guess I’m ready then,” I was rambling like a lunatic. God help me this was just getting worse.

He tilted his head toward the parking lot with a sexy jerk. Very Nate Finlay. He always made the simplest things appear cool. “Come on.”

I stepped outside and I didn’t look back at Eli. I wasn’t ready for that look of his. The one where he wasn’t falling for Nate’s charm. He wasn’t a female. He didn’t understand.

“I’m glad you wanted this,” Nate said as the door closed.

“You are?”

“Yeah. I am.”

That was enough talk. It eased my tension and once again I was with Nate. The guy I knew. The guy I had loved. The guy whose memory got me through the darkest days of my life. This was right. It always felt right with him.

“Are you and Octavia actually broken up?” I asked needing to know I wasn’t doing something wrong.

“Oh, yeah. That’s done.”

I was grinning. The guy had just broken up with his fiancé the night before and I wasn’t able to hide my pleasure. God help me, I needed classes on how to date. I sucked at it.



Nate Finlay

IF THIS NIGHT could be frozen in time. Nothing before, nothing after. Just this one night be all there was, I could die happy. Because it was as close to perfect as I would ever get. Problem was the reality would come. And with it a truth neither of us was ready for.

I’d wanted Bliss alone. None of her friends showing up and taking my limited time with her away. Yes, it sounded controlling and jealous but all I had was tonight and I wasn’t willing to share. I knew before it even started that this was it. All I would get.

During our private dinner on the rooftop of hotel owned by my Uncle Grant, I did everything I could to make her laugh. Bliss’s laughter was infectious. Hearing her made me smile. The need to laugh and feel free of any darkness threatening to step in and end this was strong but not strong enough. Because I knew the truth I knew the reality. I was just glad she didn’t. At least for now. Tomorrow or the day after she’d know. And with that I’d never see her again.

She was drying the tears brought on by laughter from her eyes and I just watched in awe. I’d never known a girl like Bliss. Everything you saw was exactly what she was. There was nothing there she was hiding or insecure about. She was just herself and she was comfortable in her own skin. What would my life be like if I could spend every day with her? Would it be different? Would I be different?

“Tell me about your first date then. You’ve had enough fun laughing at mine,” she said leaning forward with her smile illuminated in the moonlight. The kind of moment that could last you a lifetime.

“No way. Yours was funny but mine was just embarrassing,” I said standing up then holding my hand out to take hers. She slipped her hand into mine so trusting and stood up.

“That’s not fair! Mine was embarrassing!”

Hers was cute and innocent. Mine ended with me ejaculating before I could get my dick into Haley Martin’s older experienced vagina. That had been embarrassing. But when you’re a sixteen-year-old boy and an eighteen-year-old with big tits and porn quality features gets naked in your car and asks you to fuck her it’s a little too exciting to keep from exploding early. Bliss however wouldn’t get the humor in all that. And I wasn’t about to tell her.

“I’d rather look at the stars with you,” I replied and pulled her over to the lounger sofa that I had made sure faced the water and the moonlight. This was what Bliss needed. Romance. She wasn’t like the other females I’d had in my life. I couldn’t bend her over that sofa and bury myself inside her while we looked at those stars. Although to me that sounded pretty damn romantic. Bliss deserved more. She needed the romance to go with the sex.

We sat down and I put my arm around her shoulders pulling her against my side. There were a million things I could have asked her. Several topics available to me so why the fuck I asked “When was the first time you had sex?” I do not know. But I did.

She jerked her head around to look at me wide eyed then she laughed. Thank God she thought this was funny and not getting all stiff and uncomfortable with me. That would suck. I wanted her warm and relaxed in my arms. She smelled wonderful and this would just be another of those things I stocked back for days when I needed to feel happy. This memory would give me that.