Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(42)

With a soft grunt Zoe set the bottle on the counter and felt something old and familiar and hot in her belly, a pressure that felt like it could explode or at least come out in the form of a primal scream.

Holding it back, she walked out of the kitchen, through the living room, and stood at the front door, her hand on the knob.

Couldn’t she stay? Couldn’t she tell him about all this pain that bubbled up and threatened to suffocate her? Or, better yet, couldn’t she just lose herself in sex and sleep and forget everything?

No.

She turned the knob, opened the door, and his hand landed on her shoulder like a vise grip.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“Home.”

“You don’t have one.”

She closed her eyes under the impact of the words. “Ooh, below the belt, brother.”

“Why?”

She shook her head. “You don’t know me at all, do you?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you don’t even know what matters to me, and I don’t mean sex.” She stared ahead at the door as she spoke. “Do you have any idea how much I want a home? A place to put down roots and stay and grow and live and die?”

“Then why don’t you get that?”

She choked softly. “I’m leaving.”

“You’re not running away, Zoe.”

Oh, yes, she was. She had jerked away from his touch and made one step onto the front porch before he snagged the T-shirt and pulled her right back into the house, whirling her around. She was stunned when she looked at him.

His eyes were as red as hers, and, good God… “Are you crying?”

He blinked, and, sure enough, there were tears. “You’re not running away, Zoe,” he repeated, the words more mantra than demand.

“What’s wrong with you?”

He pushed the door closed with one hand, still holding her with the other. “You’re not running—”

She put her hand over his mouth. “I get it. What is wrong with you, Oliver? Why are you crying?”

“I’m not,” he lied, swallowing what had to be a basketball in his throat. “I’m just so f*cking sick of you leaving me.” With both hands on her shoulders he pushed her against the door. The carved mahogany pressed into her bones.

“Well, I’m so f*cking sick of you turning me down.”

He drew in another breath, frustration and fury coming off him in waves so thick she could practically taste his anguish. “Zoe, I…” He put his head on her forehead, his grip growing tighter on the wet fabric of the T-shirt. “Don’t leave me.”

“I feel like I’m throwing myself at a man who doesn’t want me.”

“I want you.” Pressing his whole body against her, he answered that question with a firm and mighty erection. “See?”

Her hips, the little traitors, rocked right into him. “You don’t want me with the right head, Oliver. I can feel you’re a human male and I’m in a wet T-shirt. That doesn’t mean you want me.”

“What do you want me to say?” He pulled her a little higher, making her crotch slide against the length of him, burying his face in her neck.

“I want you to say…” She lost the fight and closed her fingers over his arms, sliding up to his shoulders, riding that hard-on one more time just for the sheer thrill it sent through her body. “Yes.”

He grunted and dragged one hand over her breast, cupping and caressing.

“Say it, Oliver.”

He slid his hand under the T-shirt, palming her flesh, tweaking her nipple.

“Say it.” Just say yes.

He half laughed, half moaned, his other hand over her hips, tugging at the pants, taking them right over her backside.

“Say it, damn it.”

Pulling back, he used both hands to push down the drawstring pants, and they fluttered to her ankles. His eyes were still damp, but they were also dark with arousal, his jaw set, his nostrils flaring as he unsnapped his shorts and pushed them down. His erection sprang forward, pulling her gaze as it pulsed and glistened with a drop of semen.

That said yes, but still he didn’t.

“Oliver.” She mouthed his name, unable to find her voice or possibly stand for one more second. “Please say it.”

He lowered his face to hers, closing his eyes as he put his mouth against her lips, making her dizzy with need and curiosity.

“Say it,” she murmured into his kiss.

“I love you.”





Chapter Seventeen

With three dangerous and dizzying words, Oliver lost the fight. Emotion won. Desire won. Risk won. Need won. Zoe won.

Common sense, self-preservation, and any hope of not getting hurt folded like a paper house in gale-force winds. Everything collapsed with one confession, three words that hadn’t stopped being true for nine long years.

He loved her.

The admission rocked him, but Oliver couldn’t deny the truth as he laid Zoe down on the bed and kneeled over her. The T-shirt had ridden up, exposing her torso, her hips and the sweet, sweet slender strip of dark blonde hair between her legs, the scent of flowers and lemon and woman actually making his mouth water.

Good God, he couldn’t stop looking; his fingers aching to touch her everywhere.

“You’ve seen me before, Oliver.”

“So I have.”

“Then why are you staring?”

“Trying to decide where to start. Top or bottom.”

She propped up on her elbows, sandy-colored curls cascading over the still-damp shoulder of his shirt. “Middle.”

His cock throbbed between them, too hard and sensitive for much foreplay. Way, way too anxious to get back to where he loved to be most…inside Zoe. As far as he could go, bearing down with everything he had, not letting her run away.

“Middle it is.” He lowered his head to her navel, curling his tongue into the precious indentation. Instantly, her fingers tunneled into his hair and her hips rose, inviting him lower.

He trailed kisses over her abdomen, flicking his tongue over that tuft of hair, showering kisses on her thighs. He kissed his way back up to her breasts, shoving the T-shirt up to fully expose every inch of her, sucking one, caressing the other.

“You skipped my toes again.”

“I don’t want your toes,” he said gruffly, licking her nipple until it budded under his tongue. “I want you.”

She moaned softly, reaching down to stroke his hard-on, coaxing him between her legs. Her fingers were hot and strong, sure and fast, easily working him the way she always did.

“Condom,” she murmured.

“Nightstand,” he answered, reaching over to pull the drawer open.

“Lacey thinks of everything.”

“I thought of it.” He raised himself off her to get the foil packet.

“When?”

“Move-in day.” He tore with his teeth. “After the pool. Well, after the second cold shower after the pool.”

She took the package from him. “I’ll do that,” she said. “I want to stroke you.”

“Be a nice change from doing it myself.”

She closed her hands over him, looking up. “You take care of business a lot, do you ? Thought you were married for all those years.”

He snorted.

“It’s hot,” she said, pumping him once, hard and fast, making him suck in a breath.

“What is?”

“Thinking about you jacking off.”

“You have your vibrator, I have my fist.”

She stroked again, slowly, staring at his dick, her mouth slack, which might be the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen.

“Shower or bed?” she asked.

“Yes. You?”

She smiled. “I like the bathtub. But once in a while on a long drive alone in the car.”

He almost lost it in her hand. “You make yourself come when you’re driving?”

Her eyes widened. “I know, right? What crime won’t I commit?”

He wanted to laugh, but she punctuated the question with another squeeze, while she cupped his balls with her other hand. Fiery sparks flashed up his body and a few gallons of blood rushed to put out the flames. He grew bigger in her hand, dying to get inside her but unwilling to stop this…this intimacy.

“What do you think about, Zoe?” His voice was barely a whisper, since talking took way too much of the energy he needed not to shoot right into her hand.

“I think…” She leaned up again, easing him closer to her mouth. “About that time…” She flicked her tongue over the wet tip. “We did it on the stairs up to your apartment.”

He grunted when she put her mouth on him, the memory of driving into her on the hardwood steps at three in the morning still one of the sexiest five minutes of crazy in his whole life.