Bungalow Nights(63)

Talk. With a mental groan, she closed her eyes, pretending sleep had already struck. She wasn’t about to agree to a talk. Having a conversation when she felt this vulnerable could be a disaster. What if she let slip the fanciful idea that had invaded her heart? By tomorrow she’d have the roots yanked free, but tonight she didn’t have the strength to do the job.

Pretense turned into reality, she discovered, because she did doze off. For how long, she wasn’t entirely sure, but she was roused from sleep by Vance’s hand on her shoulder. He had her passenger door open and was leaning in. “Layla,” he said, brushing her hair off her face. “Wake up.”

Still groggy, she got to her feet. He wrapped an arm around her waist to lead her into the house. She allowed it; the quicker she got inside, the quicker she could be alone behind her own bedroom door.

But instead of releasing her once they crossed the threshold, he continued holding her tight as he guided her into the dimly lit living room. Then, finally, he dropped his arm. Immediately Layla started edging toward the staircase. She’d take Addy’s room, empty now that she was staying at Baxter’s. A floor away would be a good start at distance.

Would Vance let her go without a word, or would she have to define her reasons for sleeping alone? Snoring, she thought again. There was always the excuse that he snored.

He crossed to the fireplace, going to his haunches to turn on the gas. Blue flames ignited, catching the kindling stacked on the grate. “You were pretty quiet about my decision to leave the army and join the family company,” he said, glancing at her over his shoulder.

She froze. “Uh...I’m so glad for you.” She hadn’t expressed that? His announcement had been met by happy exclamations from his family, followed by even happier tears coursing down his mother’s face. Layla hadn’t considered it her place to comment then. Because...because she’d known it had nothing to do with her.

Though relief couldn’t even begin to describe how she’d felt at the idea that he’d seen his last of combat. Emotion tightened her throat. “I’m so truly, truly glad.”

“That’s good.”

The fire crackled, and he stayed low, staring into it. Unnerved by his stillness, she spoke to his broad back. “So I think I’ll just—”

“I really want to talk.” He rose, but didn’t turn, and there was a new tension emanating from him.

Layla frowned at his stiff shoulders and rigid pose. Talk about what, exactly? Then the answer came to her in a rush. Talk about goodbye, of course. Without his return to the army, he’d feel it necessary to reestablish they still had one of those coming. And soon.

“There’s no need,” she said, trying to sound offhand. Her feet restarted their shuffle toward the staircase. “I’m going to bed upstairs.”

His body turned in an instant. “What? Why?”

“I... Well...” The goodbye, she tried to tell him with her eyes. I get it. We don’t have to discuss it to death.

But then he was in front of her, his big, warm hands cupping her face. “I don’t want you to go, Layla. Stay with me.”

No! Because then she’d want to stay with him forever. Still, her traitorous body swayed toward his. He gathered her close to his wide chest, then leaned down to press a gentle kiss on her lips.

“Yeah,” he said, his breath warm against her face. “Stay with me by the fire and we’ll talk.”

Where had her willpower gone? But it had started the day squishy, and all the emotional events had only pummeled it into further submission. Resigned, she let herself be drawn to the couch and pulled down on the cushions next to Vance. He kept her close, though his gaze focused on the fire.

He’d been tense a moment before, but now she felt his...hesitation? Uncertainty?

Yeah, it wouldn’t be easy to remind someone she shouldn’t harbor false hopes. That they were both moving on, that this monthlong interlude was a mere pause in their real, but separate lives.

As his silence continued, the night seemed to wrap around them. There was the crackling fire, the background shush of the unceasing surf, their breaths, mingling like they would never do again. Layla’s eyes stung and if there was one thing that she’d regret most about her stay at Beach House No. 9, it was how the weeks had peeled away her outer layer of strength. Tears were so close to the surface now.

Yet she didn’t protest when his arms gathered her closer. She found her cheek pressed against his chest, his heavy heartbeat in her ear. Steady. Sure.

She could have lost him today. That moment when he’d been lying in the puddle of gasoline and looking at her with such anxious urgency was burned forever in her memory. Go, Layla, he’d said. Go on.

Those could have been his last words to her.

Those could have been his very last words ever.

Her heart seized, her veins filling with a cold horror. She’d been almost numb before, and the wine and champagne had helped, but now the fear overtook her and her body began to shake.

She reminded herself he was fine. His heartbeat was unchanged. But she splayed her hand on his chest, trying to convince herself he was as warm and solid as always. Another person she cared for hadn’t been lost.

Panic continued to rattle her bones.

“Layla?” Vance turned her in his arms so he could study her face. “You’re shivering. What’s the matter? Cold again?”

“Not this time,” she said, certain only one thing would quell her sudden anxiety. “Take me to bed.”

“Layla...”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” she added hastily.

He winced. “Layla—”

“Other than you’re alive. I want to feel that you’re alive. I need to feel you’re alive.”

His thumb ran over her mouth. “Let’s talk first.”

“No.” Words weren’t her friend tonight. She didn’t need a discussion of their nonfuture and she didn’t want him teasing her with his raunchy routine in bed. She loved that, he knew she did, but if Vance took her down, took her too deep into desire, she might say the very wrong thing.

This time, she wanted to drift atop the emotion and only use their bodies to reassure herself that he was whole and here and hers this one last time.

“Please, Vance.”

Instead of answering, he used his thumb on her lips again, and she nipped at it, then took it fully in her mouth. She sucked, swirling her tongue over the pad, and felt his body tighten everywhere.

He tasted good, and she felt dizzy with the flavor of the man. Her shivering stopped as her skin heated under her clothes, the cotton feeling too rough against the tender skin of her belly and at the hollow that was the small of her back. She’d zipped a hoodie over her sundress and she unfastened it now, still using her lips and mouth to suckle Vance’s thumb.

His nostrils were flared, his cheekbones pressing hard against his skin, its color a soft rose-gold in the firelight. His gaze followed her as she released him to stand, then he watched in a clearly stunned silence as she shed the sweatshirt, kicked off her shoes, whipped the stretchy cotton sundress over her head.

Even the panties were too much, so she shoved those off her hips and felt the fire’s warmth on her bare bottom.

“Jesus, Layla,” Vance said. “Sweetheart...”

But the word drifted to nothing as she knelt between his knees and went to work on opening his jeans. He looked astounded, but then she was, too. In their sex she’d never been the aggressor, and maybe it would balance the scales. She wanted to have him at her mercy now, as she’d been at his since the very first time they’d touched.

Her hands fumbled with the denim and soft boxers beneath, but she caught her lower lip between her teeth and persevered. He was hard and hot beneath the material, she could feel him. She wanted that! And she made a little sound of frustration as she couldn’t find a way to bare him.

He laughed a little, the sound male and indulgent, and then, shifting his hips, he reached down and made the proper adjustments until there it was, his erection lying against his flat belly. Her heart pounding, she stared at it, then kneed closer to take the shaft between her palms. Ah. His power at her fingertips now. Then at her mouth.

When her tongue touched the soft skin at its head, he groaned, and his long fingers sifted into her hair. She laved him, circling the thick knob, sliding down the shaft, breathing in the scent of his skin and breathing out against his flesh so that their essences merged this one last time. Her hands curled around his denim-clad calves, and she rose higher in order to take him deeper into her mouth. He groaned again, arching against the cushions, and the sound made her nipples tighten to aching, greedy points.

She started a rhythm, a sexual, purposeful retreat and advance, and her heart took it up, like a military drummer’s beat driving the pace of the march. Vance’s palm caressed her cheek, and she glanced up at him, struck by the keen glitter in his half-mast eyes. It stalled her a moment, and she just held him in her mouth, sucking lightly as she took in the aroused flush on his face, the stark beauty of his features.