I sag against the seat behind me, and let out a deep breath. How do I explain everything I’m feeling? I’m not sure I can put it into words. I can only remember what everybody said when Wyatt and I started dating. Their whispered disapproval becomes a shout in my head as I sit there, wondering if Oliver and I hold the same fate. Wyatt was just some random to everybody. Oliver is family to us. I have no doubt in my mind that Victor would see our relationship as incestuous, even though we have no ties aside from him. I watch Oliver walk back to the car with a bag in one hand and his phone in the other. He has a worried look on his face that instantly puts me on edge.
“Everything okay?” I ask when he gets in and closes the door.
“Yeah, I had to call the hospital and check on a patient,” he responds, his lips pursed.
“Anyone I know?” I ask, waiting on bated breath when he doesn’t respond right away. I don’t know what I would do if something happens to one of the kids I’ve grown to love so much.
“No. It’s one of my toddlers.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” I whisper.
“Sometimes I don’t either,” he says quietly, letting out a sigh. He claps his hands together loudly, making me jump in my seat and look at him. He chuckles at the look on my face. “You really are easily startled lately.”
I try to hide my smile by looking away as he starts driving.
“You never answered why you want to wait,” he says once we’re back on PCH.
I sigh. “I just want to keep this to myself for a while.”
“You want me to be your dirty little secret,” he says with a wolfish grin.
“I didn’t say that.”
He shrugs. “I’m not against it. I like being a dirty little secret.”
Every time he says dirty little secret, something inside me stirs. Somehow, Oliver manages to make everything sound sexy.
“I’m not saying I don’t want anybody knowing because I’m ashamed or anything,” I say, feeling the need to make that clear.
He pulls into the parking lot of the 1,000 Steps Beach and smiles as he gets out of the car to open the door for me. Once I’m out, he pops the trunk and grabs a couple of beach towels.
“Do you have impromptu picnics often?” I ask, raising an eyebrow as I hold out my hand to take the towels.
Oliver laughs, shakes his head, and pulls me into an embrace. “Only with women named Estelle.”
“I can think of a couple of Estelle’s,” I say, pushing him away from me lightly, as I feign anger.
He cocks his head, still smiling. “So can I, but I can only think of one I would resort to eating Japanese food with and take to the beach without demanding she dress down to a bikini.”
I purse my lips and walk toward the stairs. “Does that mean you don’t like to see me in a bikini?”
We step to the side so that some people leaving the beach can walk by us, and Oliver leans down to whisper in my ear. “You look great in a bikini, but you look better naked, on my bed, with your legs spread open for me.”
I stop suddenly, holding on to the rocks of the wall beside me. Oliver’s arm goes around my waist to keep us from toppling down the nine hundred steps we have left to navigate. I turn around in his arm and crane my head to look at him.
“You need to keep those comments to yourself when we’re in public,” I say.
He bites down on his bottom lip, trying, and failing, to hold back a smile. “Why? Because it gets you all hot and bothered?” he asks, dipping his face to meet mine when I nod. He runs the tip of his nose from my jaw to my ear in a slow caress, breathing me in as he does so. “What if I told you I want you that way?”
“Why would you want to do that to me when we’re about to eat on a public beach?” I ask in a whisper against his neck.
He chuckles. “Maybe I like knowing that I get to you.”
“You know you get to me,” I say, leaning away so that I can take a good look at his face.
His green eyes twinkle. “Maybe I want you begging me to take you back to my place,” he says, his voice low as he runs his hand under the filmy shirt I’m wearing. I suck in a breath, my eyes widening as I look around at the people walking past us, up and down the stairs.
“Oliver,” I say in warning.
“Estelle,” he says, mimicking my voice as his hand moves up to the side of my rib cage and stops there, right below my left breast.
“Do you want to just go back to your place?” I ask breathily.
His lips slightly part as he shakes his head slowly. When he looks at me the way he’s looking at me now, like it’s the first time he’s seeing me—like I’m the most fascinating woman he’s ever laid eyes on—I’ll melt in his arms.
“I want to do what I promised and take my girl on a picnic,” he says quietly, before leaning in closer and letting his lips fall over mine. His mouth molds against mine, moving slowly, as he takes his time to feel me. His tongue dances with mine in a slow seduction—the complete opposite of the rapid fire coursing inside of me. At the sound of a catcall by one of the bystanders, we break away and look into each other’s eyes with a short laugh. He runs the tips of his fingers over my bottom lip and smiles.
“Let’s go eat before this sushi goes bad and we end up in the ER,” he says, turning me around to keep walking.
After we eat, we sit on the beach with our legs outstretched and braided around the other’s. We people-watch, as the beach is full of runners, surfers, sunbathers and tourists.
“I think I’ve only been here a handful of times,” he says after a while.
“Yeah?”
“My parents used to bring us here when we were kids. Every time we came, Sophie would bury me in the sand, until one day she put so much sand on me I almost drowned in it,” he says, chuckling at the memory. “My dad was so mad at her at first because he had to unbury me in a hurry, but then I was fine, and we all laughed until we had tears in our eyes.” He pauses and flashes me a sad smile. “I think that was the only time my parents cried out of happiness. That I saw, anyway.”
I scoot closer to him and lean my head on his shoulder. He puts his head against mine and reaches out to hold my hand.
“It’s a good memory,” I comment.
“This one’s better,” he responds, squeezing my hand.
For the next week, Oliver and I meet up like that. Not at the beach, but in quick segments that turn into long installments. We talk, we laugh, we kiss, we make love, and we joke around. I don’t want to say that I feel complete when I’m with him—because I’m complete without him—but when I’m with him I feel like a better version of myself. And I think that’s what has always drawn me to Oliver. He makes me feel good about who I am, and I don’t feel like I need to change or pretend when I’m around him. I’m just me, and being me has never felt better.