Barefoot at Moonrise (Barefoot Bay Timeless Book 2)

  Inside her room, he closed the door. “Let’s not make Sally witness this,” he said, pulling her into him.

  He smelled like sunshine and salt water, so masculine and Ken-like that she had to press her lips on his shoulder and inhale. Still standing, he lowered his head, kissed her mouth, then dropped lower, his lips over her breasts and stomach while she threaded her fingers into his hair.

  “Beth.” He breathed her name onto her skin, slipping his fingers into the waistband of her flannel sleep shorts, and then began to slide them over her hips. She wore nothing underneath, which made him let out a sexy grunt as he revealed her inch by inch.

  Tugging the shorts down her thighs, he knelt in front of her to suckle and lick, making her dig her fingers into his head.

  At the first contact of his tongue, she stiffened in a little shock. “Oh…” He kissed her belly, then looked up with his mouth still on her flesh. “Too much.”

  “I’ll be gentle,” he promised, his voice taut, as if gentle was the last thing he wanted to be.

  “It’s not that. It’s…intense.” She stroked his head, stunned at the sparks of fire on her skin. “It’s…different.”

  A slow smile spread as he lightly tapped the skin right under her navel. “Crazy-ass hormones exaggerate everything,” he teased.

  “Yeah.” She sighed, pushing his head so his mouth would be back on her. “Everything.”

  Stifling a laugh, he kissed her again, then tongued her, flicking the tuft of hair and sucking lightly until her knees actually wobbled with weakness.

  “I’ve got you,” he said, standing up to lead her to the bed.

  When she dropped on her back, he yanked his T-shirt over his head, making her suck in a breath at the sight of his gorgeous chest. Cuts and dips, muscles and skin, hardened nipples, and a happy trail of hair leading right where she wanted to go.

  Reaching for his hips, she brought him to his knees on the bed, unsnapping his shorts and hungrily unzipping to free him.

  His erection pulsed in her fingers while she stroked the length, in awe of how incredible he felt. He pushed off his shorts and stripped down, lying on top of her to give her the sweetest, slowest, warmest kiss she could remember.

  His lips and tongue were so soft but demanding, his large hands holding her face like she was the most precious thing he’d ever touched. His body pressed on hers, and she spread her legs to accommodate him, wrapping them around the rock-hard muscles of his backside.

  Every move made her want more, every second of skin-on-skin contact made her moan, every breath of him nearly brought her to tears.

  “Ken, what is happening?”

  He laughed a little, lifting up. “If I have to explain it to you, then we need to talk.”

  “Everything is so…intense. Can it really be because I’m pregnant?”

  He stroked her cheek with one finger, and even that featherlight contact shot fire between her legs, pushing her toward a release she hadn’t had time to build up to yet.

  “Actually, I think it’s more than the baby.”

  She closed her eyes, sucked in a breath, and rocked against him, eager to have him inside of her.

  “It’s us,” he whispered.

  The gruff, masculine way he said us was as sexy as the body she moved against. Every sense, even her hearing, was heightened.

  Her whole body felt weak and boneless, but sparky and bright at the same time. She heard herself moan and whisper his name, but it was almost like the sensations were so powerful she couldn’t be experiencing them herself.

  His fingers were like brands searing her skin, but soothing her, too. When his lips touched her throat and nipples and stomach, she arched her back and moaned in pleasure.

  Nothing had ever felt like this before. Fiery and fierce. Achingly good, insanely sweet. Desperate but…perfect.

  She squeezed his buttocks and pushed him closer to her, pulsing and ready and dying for him.

  He lifted his head. “Guess the condom ship has sailed, huh? I have an unopened box if it makes you feel better.”

  “You haven’t been with anyone?”

  “Only you that night and every night since then…” His mouth kicked up. “In my imagination.”

  Oh wow. Just the thought of that damn near sent her into an orgasm. “Me, too,” she admitted.

  “We should have been together all these weeks.” He eased into her. “Like…this.”

  He gritted his teeth and went deeper. And deeper. Until he was all the way in.

  “Like that.” She sighed, then met his next thrust.

  She stopped thinking, stopped fearing, stopped wondering about anything and everything. All she could feel was the power of this man, filling her, taking her, owning her…changing her.

  All of the things she’d sworn she never wanted, but right now, they were all she wanted. Him. Us. Them.

  He held on a long time, dragging out the pleasure and every insane, sticky, sweaty sensation until they reached the edge of control. He bowed his back, lifted his head, and slammed one more time, then lost the fight.

  He groaned and let go, spilling into her. With each pulse, she could feel him surrender to the satisfaction, and that took her right to the brink of an orgasm.

  She came as he finished, every cell tingling and twisting as pleasure whipped through her whole body.

  He held her through her orgasm, kissing her and whispering her name, lazily thrusting as the heat deep inside rose again, twisting and burning and demanding another release.

  “I can’t stop,” she cried, moving against him again, letting the second orgasm rock her. He clung to her, bucking to keep her satisfied and let her ride it out.

  Sweat and exhaustion tingled over her body when she finally finished. He collapsed, heavy on her, and she clung to his heaving shoulders as aftershocks made her quiver.

  “Kenny,” she whispered.

  “One more?” he asked.

  “I could, so easily.”

  He lifted up, a spark in his eye. “You mean it?”

  “Yes. No. Wait.” She squeezed his shoulders. “You’re amazing.”

  “No, we’re amazing,” he corrected, easing down to kiss her jaw and ear. “We are so good together, Beth.” His breathy words tickled and made her shudder.

  “I know,” she admitted. We. How did those two little letters become so much more powerful than me in Beth’s head?

  “It’s worth fighting for,” he said.

  It was also worth…lying for. She closed her eyes, tucking him as close to her as they could possibly get, trying not to picture that damning autopsy report not twenty feet away inside her closet.

  She couldn’t tell him the truth about his father. If she did, he might forgive Dad. But then Ken would blame himself. Because it was likely that John Cavanaugh’s dark mood over the fact that Ken was dating Beth was what made him drink on the job that day.

  “What’s the matter?” He lifted his head to look at her.

  “I didn’t say anything.” And that was the problem.

  “You just…whimpered.”

  “Did I?” But how could she keep this from him? How could her family?

  “Beth, I can tell something’s wrong.”

  Sally’s plaintive doggie moan and some desperate scratching at the door saved her from having to answer him. “Oh, get her, Ken. Don’t let her cry at the door.”

  “And have her see us without our fur on? She’s fine.”

  She nudged his rib. “Is that the kind of dad you’re going to be? Let the kid cry in the hall for attention while we languish in bed?”

  He started to get up, but froze, a flicker of emotion crossing his face. “That’s what it is,” he said.

  “What what is?”

  “That feeling.” He touched her face as he slid out of her, sitting up. “The…I don’t know, anticipation of languishing in bed with you, of having a kid crying, of being a family, of building that…together.” His throat caught with emotion, making her eyes fil
l up. “I want that so bad, Beth. I want it with you and…” He placed his hand on her belly. “Her.”

  A wave that felt very much like what he was describing washed over her. Could they have that? Could they overcome the past hurts and the truth and family and their started-in-reverse romance to get it right?

  “We could have that,” he said, as if he’d read her mind. Without waiting for an answer, he got up and walked to the door, opening it so Sally could waddle in and give Ken a look of pure disgust.

  “Somebody’s jealous,” Ken joked.

  “Aww, of course she is. I would be, too, if you disappeared behind closed doors with another woman.” Beth clapped lightly and patted the bed. “C’mon up, girl.”

  “Don’t shame her. She can’t jump onto the bed.” He bent over and scooped up her wide belly to airlift her onto the foot of the bed.

  Sally stared at Beth for a second, launching the showdown. But Beth reached out her hand to scratch Sally’s neck, which did the trick. With a doggie sigh of resignation, she took a few slow steps over the bedding and pressed her considerable weight next to Beth’s stomach.

  “Hy, that’s my spot,” Ken said with an unhappy snort.

  “There’s room in my bed for both of you.”

  He joined them, letting Sally lie between them like a sack of flour.

  “This is what it’s going to be like with a baby,” he said.

  “Only less fur.”

  “We hope,” he added, making her laugh.

  It could be good. It could be perfect. Except there was the matter of that paper in her closet.

  And now she had to choose between being with Ken but breaking his heart, or being alone and breaking both of their hearts. Or…she could try to keep a secret from him forever. She sighed audibly.

  “I know what you’re worried about, Beth.”

  Actually, he didn’t.

  “And you don’t have to be.”

  She peered over Sally’s head, wondering where he was going with this.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to the baby.”

  Except this whole relationship, as backward and unusual as it was, had its foundation on a tiny little cluster of cells forming in her not-so-competent uterus right now. If that should end…

  She closed her eyes and tunneled her fingers into Sally’s wiry black and tan fur and refused to think about it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Why are they called Kelly days?” Beth handed a clean scraper to Ken, after taking the half-dozen broken ceramic squares he’d ripped from the master bathroom’s tub wall.

  He paused in the job to work a crick out of his back, plucking at the white T-shirt that clung to sweaty muscles. Automatically, after dumping the tiles in the discard bucket, she grabbed his water bottle and gave it to him, then returned to her comfy cross-legged position against the wall.

  They worked like a well-oiled machine now.

  “Thanks,” he said after taking a swig. “Lots of theories, but most people say they’re named after a Chicago mayor who wanted firefighters to have decent working hours. Not that the shift setup is anywhere normal.”

  “You mean the twenty-four-hour days?” she asked, absently scratching Sally’s coarse hair, already used to having the chunky dog always pressed against her leg.

  “They can be hell on family life,” he said, his tone gruff enough that she knew there was more to that comment. How to interpret his tone and looks was one of the many things she’d learned about him in the past few days, working next to him at her house all day and sleeping next to him at his at night, even the night when he was gone on a shift.

  “But you have Sally,” she said.

  “And she comes with me on every shift.” He gave a grin to the dog. “Don’t you, Chunker?”

  She laughed and patted the fat dog. “Why did you get to keep her when she was left at the station? Did you win a bet or something?”

  He snorted. “Everyone at the station has dogs, but they all want Labs and retrievers and, of course, the cliché Dalmatians. Nobody wanted a fat mix of a Yorkie and a—”

  “Don’t say cow,” she said, pressing Sally’s pointy ears down. “It hurts her feelings.”

  He paused and turned, the scraper poised in the air as he looked at her. “You’ve fallen for her,” he said simply.

  “How can I not?”

  “I’ll have to find out her secret formula and drink some of it.”

  She smiled at him. “No secret. She’s a dear dog who loves to eat.”

  “I love to eat.”

  She reached over the side of the tub and poked him. “Scrape tile.”

  He went back to work, the next tile popping off easily. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he murmured.

  “We’re due for a good section,” she said, taking a drink of water.

  “Like we hit on Tuesday.”

  She glanced at the wall behind the sink and toilet, where the tiles had popped off like candies. “Tuesday was a good day.” And Tuesday night was even better.

  He whacked at the next tile. “Every day this week has been good, Beth.”

  The way he said it made her heart stumble a little, and she couldn’t argue. They had been good. They’d slipped easily into a natural rhythm, finishing the kitchen completely and moving in to tackle the master bath, the two most important parts of the renovation.

  By mutual agreement, they let the past go—for the moment, anyway—talking about everything but his father or hers. The night he’d come over after she’d read the autopsy report, Beth had decided she cared too much about Ken to break his heart with the truth, even if it might have changed how he felt about her father. Once that decision had been made, their time together grew more blissful every hour.

  “I’ve never had an easier demo,” she mused. “I haven’t lifted anything heavier than a hammer.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “I could get used to watching you in sweaty T-shirts while you do my work. It’s a great way to make a living.”

  He laughed. “Plus, you get to interview me.”

  “I’m not interviewing you,” she said. “I’m getting to know you. And when you talk about the guys at the station catching a run and the crazy pranks you pull, you work better, did you know that?”

  “Really,” he deadpanned.

  “Yes, so my questions are actually a time-management system I’ve made up to keep you on track.”

  A tile popped off and dropped into the tub, cracking.

  “So that’s why I spent an hour this morning telling you about life on a Navy sub?”

  “You finished that whole wall.” She admired the stripped-down shower wall, completely cleared of hundreds of ugly white square tiles and ancient grout. “And it was fascinating,” she added.

  “But I’m not getting to know you,” he said, coming down off his crouched legs to sit in the tub for the next section.

  “My life is dull as dirt. Besides, you’re working too hard to ask questions,” she said, while fighting the urge to scoot a little closer, just to, well, get closer. Ken was in her bathtub. Filthy, with grout under his nails and grime on his face and sweat dampening his neck.

  And she never wanted to kiss anyone so much in her whole life.

  “I can ask questions and not ruin my time.”

  But could she answer them and not ruin her mood? “Okay, but I’m telling you, nothing in my life is that interesting.”

  “I’m interested in knowing about your ex-husband.”

  She snorted softly and gave him a look. “Well played and sneaky.”

  “Why’d you marry him?”

  “He was in the right place at the right time. Or wrong, I guess, depending on your perspective.”

  “You must have seen something in him.”

  She closed her eyes and conjured up an image of Justin. Not that tall, but lean and taut from long distance running. His hair was thinning, but he wore it well and he had a nice smile.

  “He wa
sn’t a bad guy,” she said. “He just wasn’t the guy.”

  He slid her a look, a little satisfaction and a little challenge in his eyes. Like she should know the guy because she was looking at him.

  “Was the divorce awful?” he asked.

  “It was…not fun. He’d met someone at work, but didn’t cheat on me.”

  Ken’s brows rose a little, enough to convey a little skepticism.

  “He didn’t,” she said. “He told me as the relationship became real and he didn’t want to have an affair. He wanted to have a…family. He admitted that convincing me to get my tubes tied was a mistake, but he wouldn’t consider adoption. He wanted his baby, his seed.”

  “That had to hurt you.”

  “Tremendously,” she admitted. “But now?” She gave him a wry smile and tapped her stomach. “It hurts a lot less.”

  For a moment, he held her gaze, nothing but hope and satisfaction in his eyes, as if he were pleased to ease her pain.

  “What about your divorce?” she asked.

  “It was sad,” he said simply. So simply that it had far more impact than if he’d thrown down the scraper and called his ex a bitch and a shrew. “It wasn’t what I wanted.”

  She shifted on the ground, settling in to ask a question she’d hadn’t had the nerve to pose yet. “So you loved her?”

  “Of course I loved her.” He dug at a stubborn tile.

  “Then what happened?”

  He abandoned the tile and lowered the scraper. “She had big career ambitions and didn’t want a family. Renee spent an inordinate amount of time being the company superstar.”

  Beth realized she’d never heard him use her first name. If he had to refer to the past, he’d say “my ex” or “former wife.” But now she had a name: Renee.

  “What company did she work for?” Beth asked.

  “That big hotel chain, Southern Hospitality,” he said. “She started in event planning, got promoted to sales, and wham, they had her on the fast track to management. In hotel management, every promotion means another move, which was hell on my career, but really good for hers. It’s not easy to get a job in a decent fire department, let alone move up the chain of command. I’d have been a lieutenant forever, moving to another town every two years.”