Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(60)

“Then…” He lifted both brows.

“I…love…” The word choked her. “I…love…” She shook her head, her eyes full of pain. “Oh, God, Oliver. I don’t know what love is. I’ve never seen it, I’ve never known it, I’ve never lived it. How do I know for sure if what I feel for you is lust or love? How do I know?”

“You? The girl who gets in a basket, turns a knob, and trusts it to fly? You know it will work, like you know you love me. You’ve always loved me.” He cupped her face, holding her still. “Zoe, you love like you breathe. You don’t need to have seen it or lived it before. You love without trying.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know you. And because, Zoe, I love you.” He gave her a teasing smile before coming in for another kiss. “See how easy?”





It wasn’t easy. It was hard. Everything was hard. Oliver’s arms. His kiss. And, oh God…that was hard.

He intensified the kiss but somehow kept it so tender that it almost hurt for the sweetness. Easing himself over her, he held her close and let that kiss go on and on until the room spun a little and each breath became an effort. Until blood started to thrum fiery through every vein, and every carefully placed brick in the wall around her heart just tumbled and crashed and turned to dust.

“How does that feel?” he asked, whispering the words into her ear, flicking his tongue over her lobe.

Like her whole world was spinning into magic. “Really…” Amazing. “In need of help.”

“Guess what?”

“You can fix that?”

“It’s my specialty.” He rolled over and grabbed a condom he must have had in his wallet, sheathing himself before positioning himself over her.

“You like fixing things,” she said, watching every move. “That’s what turns you on.”

“You turn me on,” he murmured. “And you’re talking too much.”

“You better fix that.”

He did, kissing her mouth as he entered her body, stealing all her breath and doing a damn good job of shutting her up. And of making her forget how to speak, actually, because right then, all she could do was…feel.

And it scared her. Why?

She closed her eyes, tears stinging. All she could feel was pressure…on her head, over her ears. Darkness, heat, the smell of musty cotton and the muffled sound of…

Suffocation. “Oliver!”

He shot up from the kiss, blinking at her. “What?”

“Suffocation.” She barely mouthed the word but it hit her in the gut like a cannonball. “That’s what I’m scared of.”

The trapped feeling of a pillow over her head and the desperate, burning, panic because she needed to escape. The dark nights in that foster home when there was no way out. When that voice started demanding and demanding the same thing. Three different words, so different than the three Oliver wanted and needed to hear.

Run, Zoe, run.

As long as she could run, she could survive. But if she didn’t run this time, if she could stay right here with Oliver, no matter what, then she could beat the memories of that house and that man and even that voice.

“What are you scared of, Zoe?”

“Him. The foster father who Pasha saved me from. I can’t breathe when I think about…him. About how much I needed to escape him.” The sob trapped in her throat nearly strangled her. “I would put that pillow over my head and try to suffocate myself. It was my only escape.” Until Pasha was her real escape.

Oliver held her, kissing her forehead, her eyes, her mouth.

“He’s gone, Zoe. Long, long gone. You’re not going to suffocate if you stay.” He reached up and grabbed the pillow, holding it in the air. “You’re safe. With me, you will always, always be safe. You don’t have to escape. You don’t have to suffocate yourself just to hide.”

He tossed the pillow on the floor, where it landed with a soft thud.

For a long, quiet moment, she searched his face, memorizing every line, every lash, every cell. This man who was completely inside her head, heart, and body. This man who had so much patience and tenderness and ability.

This man she absolutely, positively… “Oliver,” she whispered, touching his face.

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

He smiled. “I know.”

“Then why all the work to make me say it?”

“So you know.” Very slowly, he began to move in and out of her again, deeper with each thrust, farther and closer and longer. They broke the kiss, their cheeks smashed together as the intensity sharpened every time he plunged into her.

All the feelings of suffocation were gone. He’d done that for her! Zoe could breathe. She could hold him and cry out his name and say those three words and breathe.

Was this what it was like to love? To be free?

A shimmer of sparks showered low and deep inside her, forcing her to rise up and meet each thrust and cling to his arms like she might fall off the edge of the world.

“I have to…” She struggled with the words, her throat weirdly closed and tight. “I have to…”

He slowed his movements, then stopped, and her eyes popped open in disbelief. “I have to,” she insisted.

Still, he didn’t move, holding her shoulders and his position inside her.

“Aren’t you going to fix that, doc? I need to come.”

“You need to love.”

She frowned, biting her lip, rocking into his immobile hips. “I…can’t…”

“You can.” He started to move again, taking her with him.

“I do, Oliver. I love you. I do.” Every muscle spasmed at the same time, twisting and turning with exquisite pleasure, fluttering first, then thundering to a complete release.

Oliver lost it, too, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth as he gave in and pounded deeper and harder into her, finally lifting her shoulders off the bed with unexpected might and grinding into her as he came.

They fell on the bed, hearts hammering, neither one really able to get a deep breath.

She finally turned her head to look at him and enjoy the way that made her heart swell. “You think that’s all it takes to fix me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“No?”

“You need this prescription regularly. Maybe every day. Maybe forever.”

“Forever?” She waited for the grip of terror, but none came.

“Don’t leave me, Zoe. No matter what, please stay with me. Promise me, Zoe.” He stroked her cheek. “Promise me.”

“ ’Kay.”

“ ’Kay? ” He let out a dry laugh. “What kind of promise is that?”

“That’s my kind of—”

On the floor the phone beeped, and not a soft ding of a call, but a high-pitched alarm that pierced her brain.

“Fuck.” He shot off the bed and grabbed the phone, stabbing the screen and angling it to read. Even in the darkness she could see the blood drain from his face and she knew exactly what that meant.

“Pasha?” She sat up, gathering sheets frantically.

“She’s had a heart attack.” He was already in motion, getting clothes, making a call, barking orders, but Zoe sat stone still in shock.

She’d just learned to love. Would she have to learn how to lose?





Chapter Twenty-six

For once, Zoe sat very, very still. Not that she could actually bounce off the walls of the waiting room, since Jocelyn held one hand, Tessa had the other, and Lacey stood behind the three of them with her hands on Zoe’s shoulders.

It was like they were, literally and symbolically, holding her in place. Was that what it took to keep Zoe still?

Or had Pasha’s heart attack paralyzed Zoe with fear?

“She’s going to be fine,” Lacey whispered.

“She’s too tough to die,” Jocelyn added.

“She’s in the best possible hands.” Tessa gave Zoe a little nudge. “You know that.”

A nod was the most she could muster. Closing her eyes, she imagined Oliver’s hands—not how they’d just been all over her, but healing with that competence and authority. Please, Oliver, heal her.

He’d been stunned by the news of a heart attack. This wasn’t a side effect of the treatment; there was no connection to her heart, and the pretreatment tests showed her heart to be strong and her arteries healthy.

Yet she’d suffered a massive myocardial infarction, with no warning or reason, and her life hung in the balance down the hall.

Across the room Evan stirred under a blanket a nurse had supplied.

“He can’t be comfortable,” Tessa said, eyeing the child. “Maybe I should see if they’d give us a pillow.”