Barefoot by the Sea (Barefoot Bay)

  “Do I touch you in your fantasies, Tess?”

  Eyes closed, she nodded, still pumping him, spreading her legs a little more. He twirled the tiny tuft of hair between her legs, then stroked the opening, slipping his finger in and out no more than a centimeter.

  She bit her lip, her head going from side to side with pleasure, never missing a beat as she practically pulled an orgasm from him with her hands. He fought it with everything he had, holding back, watching pleasure rock her, sliding his finger deeper into her hot, hot body. Every cell in him was on fire, burning with the need for release.

  Finally, she opened her eyes and slowed her touch, each breath a battle.

  A mere centimeter and a flimsy piece of satin separated their bodies as he pressed her against the cushions, both of them naked enough to do what both of them desperately wanted. Wet, hot, they connected in every way but the only way they both wanted desperately, their mouths attached with a strangled kiss.

  “In me,” she pleaded, lifting her hips so it was almost impossible not to go inside her. “I want you.”

  He pulled back an inch, a sudden, aching realization floating to the front of his hormone-addled brain.

  He was going to leave her, damn it. High and dry and completely alone, with no explanation except that—no. No explanation. The cruelest, most despicable act he could imagine. And he was going to do it to her.

  So what? Did that mean they couldn’t…

  He slammed his hands against the sofa, the noise startling her. Eyes wide, she stared at him, both of them fighting for each precious breath.

  “John.” She barely whispered the name. “Please don’t make me beg.”

  He closed his eyes.

  She let out an uncomfortable laugh. “It’s so embarrassing when a woman begs.”

  “You don’t have to beg.” He leaned down and kissed her. What the fuck kind of excuse could he make if not the truth? Anything else would crush and insult her. He needed something real, honest, or else they could…

  “I don’t have a condom,” he murmured.

  She made a little “O” with her mouth, then very slowly shook her head.

  “I don’t,” he said. “Do you?”

  She let out a mirthless laugh. “I have a library on the subject of how to get pregnant. Do you think I stock condoms?”

  “Well, for protection against…more than babies.”

  Taking a slow, deep breath, she pushed him up and off her, fighting to right herself. “John, I don’t have casual sex with people I don’t know very well.”

  Of course this didn’t surprise him in the least.

  “In fact, I don’t have sex at all, because you’re the first guy I’ve dated or liked since I got divorced, so, no, I don’t have condoms.”

  He started to answer, but she put her hands over his mouth.

  “The truth is, I’d bet you have a box of them in the back of your bike and at least three in your wallet.”

  That was, mostly, true. Two in his wallet. He didn’t answer, and his hesitation made her close her eyes and puff out a breath.

  “So you lied to me when you said you didn’t have a condom.”

  Even he didn’t have a soul black enough to deny that. He just looked at her.

  “Why?” she demanded with a hitch in her voice. “Why lie?”

  He still couldn’t answer. Anything, any single word he spoke, could only be the truth, and he could not tell her the truth.

  “You want me as much as I want you.”

  “Yes,” he said, grabbing something he could hold with two hands. “Every bit as much. Probably more.”

  “But something is holding you back.”

  Something like a conscience. When the hell had he developed one of those?

  “And I know what it is.”

  He was quite certain she didn’t, but he still didn’t answer.

  “It’s the baby,” she said flatly.

  He flinched for a second, his guilt-ridden brain thinking she’d said babies, his babies. But, of course, she hadn’t.

  “See?” she accused. “That’s what it is. You know I want a baby.”

  “I know you want a baby,” he repeated slowly, like a witness on the stand dancing around the truth but so determined not to lie under oath.

  Even in the candlelight he could see some color fade from her face. “So you think it would be wrong to have sex with me because you think…” She dug around, obviously trying to figure out how his mind worked when, in truth, she was miles and miles and miles off base.

  The simple truth was that right this minute, he could absolutely see himself having a baby with Tessa. He really could. At the thought, a longing deep and powerful squeezed his chest, shocking the breath right out of him.

  He could. Holy hell, he could fall in love with her.

  What did that mean? Where did that leave them? Both living in a government protection program? Gone from here, from her life and her friends, disappearing into obscurity and lies, like he had to live? No. She didn’t have to live that way just because he loved her.

  After a long moment of him staring at her, she pushed him all the way off her, sliding her legs out to stand up. “I’m glad you’re honest about it.”

  Honest? He was choking on lies. “I haven’t said a word.”

  “You don’t have to.” She smoothed her top and straightened the tiny shorts she wore, self-conscious of her sex-inviting outfit. Leaning over to blow out a candle, she held the V-neck to her chest modestly.

  With a puff, the room was completely black.

  “Good night, John.”

  From deep, deep inside him, something welled up. Something hot and mad and so damn frustrated. He wanted to howl, to cry, and punch a hole through the wall.

  This was not how he wanted to live. Tears stung his eyes and every muscle quivered.

  With a shaking hand, he reached up and grabbed her arm, pulling her right back down on the sofa with a gasp.

  “You don’t know anything,” he ground out. Even in the dark he could see her eyes widen in shock. “You don’t know…anything.”

  He didn’t care that she could see his eyes wet with tears. Didn’t care that his voice cracked and his body quaked. Let her see how torn up he was inside. Even if she could never know why.

  “Then tell me,” she whispered, searching his face, touching his cheek in wonder when she saw the moisture. “Tell me anything. Tell me…everything.”

  “I…” A sob welled up, a sorrowful, pitiful, aching hole of need. He didn’t want to make love to her. He wanted her to be part of him, the part that knew every ugly thing about his life and loved him anyway. In spite of his past. Because of it.

  “You what?” she urged.

  “I…want…you.” For real. For real. Why couldn’t this be real?

  Because Luther Vane stole more than his wife and his life. He stole every chance that Ian had to be normal, happy, and whole again. But Tessa…Tessa. She could make him whole.

  If she were willing to give up everything.

  She held his face very still, clueless as to what he really needed. “Then take me right now and forget about whatever it is that’s torturing you so much.”

  White-hot agony ripped through him. One kiss, that was all it would take. One touch of her lips, one single kiss, and they would melt into each other and find pleasure and release and the ultimate, perfect bliss. For an hour, or two. A night, maybe.

  And two weeks from now, he’d fuck her again, in a whole different way.

  The need to tell her the truth actually burned in his chest, far hotter and more demanding than anything in the lower half of him. He didn’t want to “take” her. He wanted to tell her.

  He had to. Right now. Right bloody now.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The wild, raw pain in John’s eyes reached right into Tessa’s soul and kind of horrified her. She’d never seen anything so—dark.

  “I lied to you.” The words came out like burlap through hi
s throat.

  “About what?”

  He closed his eyes, clearly buying time. Everything knotted—her chest, her stomach, and the blood in her ears seemed to gush like whitewater.

  “I’ve been married.”

  “Okay.” She merely mouthed the word. “And?”

  “She died.”

  Oh. She might have said the word, or just formed the letter, or barely breathed.

  She died. The many, many implications of that rocked her, so she grabbed the easiest one. “That must have really hurt you.”

  “More than you know.” He inched back, enough that she got cold and hollow inside. Deep down, the first tendril of a realization started to twine through her, but she was too busy taking in the torture on his face to think too hard about her own.

  She backed away, too. Not to mirror his posture, but from the sheer anguish that emanated from him. This was no ordinary tale of loss, she realized with a shudder. Not that there was anything ordinary about death, but this was dark. “What happened?”

  He tried to swallow, his moist eyelashes crinkling as he squeezed his eyes shut. “I found her,” he rasped. “I found her body.”

  She let out a low exhale. “No.”

  He nodded, still struggling for his voice.

  “Did she…” Have a heart attack? An accident? Questions ricocheted as she waited for more.

  “She was murdered.”

  Gasping, she put her hand to her mouth, icy chills dancing over her. “How awful.”

  Another nod, and he slowly moved even farther away, like his body and soul simply had to make distance from her.

  And a wisp of a thought started to take shape: He’s not over her. He may never be.

  “How long ago?” she asked.

  “Three years.” He stabbed his hair, dragging his fingers through it as though counting. “And eight months.”

  Oh, no. Not over her yet. Not even close. “You still…” Love her. “Are healing.”

  He snorted softly. “There’s no healing from something like that, Tess. There’s merely existing.”

  The words kicked her in the gut. “Did they…get the murderer?”

  He nodded. “He’s in prison.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Very slowly, he shook his head, sliding back another few inches. She could practically feel the bricks go into place as he built a wall around himself.

  “Why are you telling me if you don’t want…help?”

  “You can’t help,” he fired back, the shot actually hurting her.

  “You don’t know that.”

  He searched her face again, his eyes red. “I shouldn’t have told you,” he said quickly. “You’ll want to know…” He shook his head as if he were trying to stop himself from talking. “I shouldn’t put you in this position.”

  In what position? “You don’t want to talk about it? To a friend? To cry about it and…” Maybe move on? “Fix yourself?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, standing abruptly.

  She coughed a laugh, despite the weight of the topic. “I beg to differ.”

  “She’s dead,” he said. “And…I’m…”

  “Also dead,” Tessa whispered, standing as well. Dead to love, dead to possibilities, dead to the chance at a new life. The gardener in her ached to tend him and nurture him back, but something in his eyes told her that wasn’t possible. “Until you’re ready to talk about it, you’ll stay that way.”

  “I can’t talk about it, Tessa.” The statement was flat and unequivocal, the complete lack of emotion cutting deeper than when he’d been ragged with feeling. “So don’t ask me to.”

  “Then why did you tell me at all?” And, Good Lord, why had he lied all this time? The question shocked her, both because it hadn’t occurred yet and—well, why?

  “Because I can’t talk about it.”

  “So you pretend it never happened?”

  He swiped at his hair again, the anguish a little different now. He’d gone from jagged pain to regret in the space of a few minutes. “It’s easier that way,” he finally said.

  “Easier for who?” she demanded, hating the rise in her voice but unable to stop it.

  “Just easier.” He rounded the table and put still more space between them. “I shouldn’t have talked about it. I really shouldn’t have.”

  Definitely regret. But why? She stood speechless, the truth descending like a mid-summer storm cloud.

  “You know now,” he said, waving his hand like he was absolved, somehow. “You understand.”

  Was he kidding? She didn’t understand anything. Only that he was still in love with someone else. Dead or alive, it didn’t matter. He was in love with another woman, and that was the little something he’d been hiding all this time.

  He was at the door in a few steps, his hand on the knob, the unspoken good-bye echoing through every dark corner of the room.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, letting himself out.

  Stunned, she didn’t breathe until he was gone. “Yeah,” she whispered to the emptiness. “So am I.”

  She heard the growl of his motorcycle starting up and the whine as it took off into the night.

  She was sorry, all right. Sorry and vindicated. Because, deep inside, she’d known this from the very beginning. Sure, the girls could say it was her silly fear of secrets, and she could rationalize and rationalize along with them, but she’d known deep in her gut that he was holding back something important, something truthful.

  From her bedroom she heard the soft digital ding of her phone.

  That didn’t take long. Of course he had to finish this conversation. Resentful of the hope that bubbled up, she ignored the call, dropping her head into her hands until the sound stopped.

  A few minutes later she washed up in the bathroom, and she heard the ringtone again. Turning the water on harder, she tried to drown it out. What was left to say at this hour of the night?

  As she climbed into bed the phone rang again, and this time she could see the screen light up on the nightstand.

  Catherine Galloway.

  Her mother was calling now? At two in the morning? That couldn’t be good. She picked up the phone and answered, “Mom?”

  A sniff was all she got, making Tessa sit straight up in bed. “Mom, is that you? Are you all right?”

  “I…I need to talk to you, Tess.”

  “Now?”

  “I know it’s late out there. Did I wake you?”

  “Actually, no. What’s the matter?”

  “She’s dead.”

  For a moment, Tessa thought of John’s wife. But of course that wasn’t who her mother meant. “Who’s dead?”

  “Finally, after all these years, she’s dead.”

  Oh. The answer landed on Tessa with a thud. Uncle Ken’s wife. She couldn’t even remember the woman’s name since “Uncle Ken” never brought his wife with him when he visited their home. Because it was business, her mother would say.

  Yeah. Monkey business.

  Her mother shuddered another sob. “I wanted her dead for a long time, and now she is.”

  Tessa cringed, so ashamed that her mother would even have that thought, and, coming on the heels of her conversation with John, the sentiment sounded more than crass. It was downright sinful.

  “Well…” Tessa wasn’t about to start an argument with her mother now, not with her nerves and emotions laid bare by John. “There you go.”

  Catherine choked. “You don’t understand, Tessa.”

  “No, I can’t say that I do.” She curled under the sheet and comforter, wishing like hell she hadn’t picked up the phone. “What happened to her?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Some cancer of something.”

  How could she be so cavalier about another woman’s life? “How old was she?” Tessa asked, a wave of sympathy for Mrs. Donnelly rolling over her. Far more sympathy for the deceased than for the woman who’d slept with Mr. Donnelly for almost twenty years.

  “Sixty-
something,” she said. “Oh, God, it hurts, Tessa.”

  And not, she knew, because of guilt. Catherine had never felt guilt about the affair; she’d only felt remorse that it had ended with her lover’s death.

  “It hurts?” Tessa couldn’t possibly keep the astonishment out of her voice. “How do you think she felt when her husband dropped dead at forty-eight of a heart attack?” Her husband who kept a mistress and an illegitimate child for sixteen years?

  “She felt well taken care of,” Catherine said bitterly. “She was never a wife to him. Never the way I…” She had the dignity to let her voice trail off. “She got a couple of million dollars in life insurance and I got nothing.”

  Possibly because you weren’t his wife? “You got the business,” Tessa said.

  She snorted bitterly.

  “And you got me.”

  Silence, then a sigh. “I’m sorry to put this on you, Tess. I know how you feel, but I have no one…” Her voice cracked with a sob. “I have no one. There’s never been another man for me.”

  But he wasn’t the man for you, either. He wasn’t your husband.

  But Tessa and her mother had had this fight far too many times for her to start it again now. Catherine Galloway had made her choices: She’d loved another woman’s husband and she chose work—and time with that man—over being with her daughter.

  And now she was all alone.

  “When did she die?” Tessa asked.

  “A couple of days ago.”

  “Why didn’t you call then?”

  She sniffed again. “I guess I didn’t care that much. I hate her, have always hated her. She was his wife, always demanding and whining for more of his time.”

  She was his wife.

  “But the funeral was today, and of course I had to go.”

  “Of course.” Because who doesn’t love a hypocrite at a funeral?

  “And I’ve been miserable ever since. I thought I was over him, and everything, but I guess not.”

  Maybe she did feel guilt but didn’t recognize it. “Are you sorry, Mom?”

  “Sorry?” she spat the word out. “For the best thing that ever happened to me?”

  Tessa’s heart twisted for multiple reasons, but mainly because she knew she wasn’t the best thing that had ever happened to Catherine—Ken was.