Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)

chapter Seventeen

With three dangerous and dizzying words, Oliver lost the fight. Emotion won. Desire won. Risk won. Need won. Zoe won.

Common sense, self-preservation, and any hope of not getting hurt folded like a paper house in gale-force winds. Everything collapsed with one confession, three words that hadn’t stopped being true for nine long years.

He loved her.

The admission rocked him, but Oliver couldn’t deny the truth as he laid Zoe down on the bed and kneeled over her. The T-shirt had ridden up, exposing her torso, her hips and the sweet, sweet slender strip of dark blonde hair between her legs, the scent of flowers and lemon and woman actually making his mouth water.

Good God, he couldn’t stop looking; his fingers aching to touch her everywhere.

“You’ve seen me before, Oliver.”

“So I have.”

“Then why are you staring?”

“Trying to decide where to start. Top or bottom.”

She propped up on her elbows, sandy-colored curls cascading over the still-damp shoulder of his shirt. “Middle.”

His cock throbbed between them, too hard and sensitive for much foreplay. Way, way too anxious to get back to where he loved to be most…inside Zoe. As far as he could go, bearing down with everything he had, not letting her run away.

“Middle it is.” He lowered his head to her navel, curling his tongue into the precious indentation. Instantly, her fingers tunneled into his hair and her hips rose, inviting him lower.

He trailed kisses over her abdomen, flicking his tongue over that tuft of hair, showering kisses on her thighs. He kissed his way back up to her breasts, shoving the T-shirt up to fully expose every inch of her, sucking one, caressing the other.

“You skipped my toes again.”

“I don’t want your toes,” he said gruffly, licking her nipple until it budded under his tongue. “I want you.”

She moaned softly, reaching down to stroke his hard-on, coaxing him between her legs. Her fingers were hot and strong, sure and fast, easily working him the way she always did.

“Condom,” she murmured.

“Nightstand,” he answered, reaching over to pull the drawer open.

“Lacey thinks of everything.”

“I thought of it.” He raised himself off her to get the foil packet.

“When?”

“Move-in day.” He tore with his teeth. “After the pool. Well, after the second cold shower after the pool.”

She took the package from him. “I’ll do that,” she said. “I want to stroke you.”

“Be a nice change from doing it myself.”

She closed her hands over him, looking up. “You take care of business a lot, do you ? Thought you were married for all those years.”

He snorted.

“It’s hot,” she said, pumping him once, hard and fast, making him suck in a breath.

“What is?”

“Thinking about you jacking off.”

“You have your vibrator, I have my fist.”

She stroked again, slowly, staring at his dick, her mouth slack, which might be the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen.

“Shower or bed?” she asked.

“Yes. You?”

She smiled. “I like the bathtub. But once in a while on a long drive alone in the car.”

He almost lost it in her hand. “You make yourself come when you’re driving?”

Her eyes widened. “I know, right? What crime won’t I commit?”

He wanted to laugh, but she punctuated the question with another squeeze, while she cupped his balls with her other hand. Fiery sparks flashed up his body and a few gallons of blood rushed to put out the flames. He grew bigger in her hand, dying to get inside her but unwilling to stop this…this intimacy.

“What do you think about, Zoe?” His voice was barely a whisper, since talking took way too much of the energy he needed not to shoot right into her hand.

“I think…” She leaned up again, easing him closer to her mouth. “About that time…” She flicked her tongue over the wet tip. “We did it on the stairs up to your apartment.”

He grunted when she put her mouth on him, the memory of driving into her on the hardwood steps at three in the morning still one of the sexiest five minutes of crazy in his whole life.

“Me, too,” he admitted.

She lifted her head, looking up at him. “We were good together, Oliver.”

“We are good together,” he said, reaching for the foil packet she’d set on the bed. “Let me show you.”

She didn’t argue, thank God, but pulled out the condom and placed it on his head, then slid it so maddeningly slowly he thought he might cry. Lying back, she spread her legs and gave him a silent look of invitation.

He braced himself, feasting on every move and muscle of her body as she let him in, her soft, soft sigh of contentment as he filled her up. Their eyes met as he started to move faster, and hers shuttered closed as the sensations took over.

Everything was new to him. The angle of her face when she turned her head, the shape of her breasts as they moved with her body, and the intense, tight, squeeze of her body around him. All new, all brand new.

She stopped moving suddenly, reaching up to touch his face. “I just lied to you.”

He slowed a little, causing a small insurrection in his balls. “What?”

“I don’t think about the time on the steps.”

Forcing himself to focus and stop moving, he looked at her. “What do you think about?”

“I don’t. If I think about you too much, I start to cry.” A single tear escaped from the side of her eyes. “So I don’t think. I…escape. I go away in my mind.”

He lowered himself, wrapping her narrow frame in his arms. “Don’t go away now, Zoe. Stay here, right here. With me. Don’t go anywhere.”

She nodded, biting her lip, as he started pumping into her again. He plunged deeper and faster, finally letting go of his last shred of control to hold her as close and tight as he could and spill everything into her.

A second later she shook with her own loss of control, murmuring his name, biting her lip, and then giving into an orgasm that pulsed around him. Immediately, she pulled him closer, wrapped her arms around his neck, and clung to him as if she would never let go.

They stayed that way until he slipped out of her and the sheen of sweat on their skin cooled under the air-conditioning. For what seemed like the most perfect ten minutes of his life, Zoe didn’t voluntarily move a single muscle. She breathed quietly, and her heart slowed to a steady, normal beat. But everything else was…still.

Until the high-pitched beep from the oven reminded them of dinner.

Only then, when he’d slowly eased himself to the side, did she move, and that was to trap him with her leg.

“Let it burn,” she said. “I can’t get up.”

“This is the longest time you’ve ever been still,” he whispered.

He could feel her cheek smile against his. “A magic orgasm.”

“Better than anything at sixty on the highway?”

“Eighty.”

“Please tell me you’re lying about that.”

She laughed softly and he inched away, dealing with the condom and then pulling up the light blanket from the foot of the bed to cover her. “Stay here. We deliver.”

“No kidding.” She rolled around like a contented cat while he stopped in the bathroom, washed up, and grabbed boxers. In the kitchen, he assembled a tray of pizza and beer. When he came back, he half expected an empty bed, but she hadn’t moved, except to take off the T-shirt and toss it on the floor.

He put the tray on the bed, gave her a fresh bottle of beer, and sat cross-legged as she pulled herself up. The blanket fell away, revealing the sweet slope of her breasts as she lifted her bottle for a toast. “To masturbation.”

He choked softly. “The end of it, you mean.”

“For now.”

With a soft grunt, he lowered his bottle. “Already looking for an exit strategy, Zoe?”

“Just covering my bases.”

“Well, cover your headlights instead so I can stop staring and start eating.”

She grinned and, of course, did exactly the opposite, squaring her shoulders to jut out her breasts, still pink from handling and so round and sweet and soft.

“Think of them as visual aids for when you’re alone again.”

He dragged his gaze to her face. “Why should I be alone again?”

She didn’t answer. Instead she took a slice of pizza and held it poised to her lips. “Do you have to turn our post-sex pizza party into a commitment conversation?”

Hell, yes, he did. “What do you have against commitments?”

She took a bite, chewed, and shrugged. “What do you have against masturbation?”

“It’s lonely, depressing, and leaves you worse off than before.”

“Then you’re doing it wrong.”

“Zoe.” He slammed his beer onto the nightstand. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you?” she asked, far more calmly than he had. When he didn’t answer, she plucked a piece of cheese from the topping, stretched it, then opened her mouth like a bird to feed it to herself.

“Because we just made—”

She held out her hand, a strand of cheese on her lip and fire in her eyes. “No, we didn’t.”

“Then what the f*ck do you call it?”

“I call it…that.” She raised an eyebrow. “F*cking.”

He let both hands fall with a disgusted sigh. “Why do you have to do this?”

“Oliv—”

“Why do you have to get all tough and funny and hard-ass and put that goddamn brick wall around you?” He ground out the words, fighting the fury that rose.

She looked at him, almost imperceptibly nodding.

“What?” he demanded.

“She’s right.”

“Who is?”

“Pasha. She’s right about you and all that anger you carry around. Who are you mad at? Me? I just spread my legs for you and gave you my all, Oliver Bradbury. You took down the wall and got inside me.” She kneeled a little, narrowing her eyes. “That’s all I wanted. Take it or leave it.”

Each word pushed him farther away. Each word reminded him that whenever he trusted a woman, she proved not to be worthy of that trust. Zoe was no exception.

“Just tell me why,” he demanded.

“I don’t know any other way.” Her tone was flippant and pissed him off more than what she’d said.

“What? When we were together we were just ‘f*cking’? Is that right, Zoe? You don’t call that a commitment.”

She angled her head. “Now we’re fighting.”

“Can you see this from my point of view?”

“Can you just be a normal guy who wants sex without being tied down?”

He pushed his paper plate away and practically leaped off the bed. “I can’t do it,” he said roughly. “I can’t just…do it. And I don’t know why or how you can.” He froze and stared at her. “Do you not trust me? Is that it?”

“I trust you,” she said softly, looking down at the food as if she couldn’t handle the intensity of his gaze. “It’s me I don’t trust.”

Air came out of him in a whoosh. Well, that made two of them who didn’t trust her.

“I’m not hungry anymore.” He went into the bathroom, closed the door, and turned on the shower.

Maybe she’d come in and they’d wash away all this…mess. Hey, an idiot could hope, right?

He stayed in the shower until he depleted the supply of hot water in the tank and the spray turned ice cold. And, of course, she didn’t come in.

Still he let the water sting against his back, then his face. He closed his eyes and tried to picture Zoe…Zoe on the stairs of his apartment.

But when he imagined those stairs, they became another set of wooden stairs. Up higher and higher, the house quiet and empty…but for the sounds of a child’s footfall on each step.

All the way to the third-floor attic.

With a push that nearly broke the shower door, he knocked the glass open, stepping out without bothering to turn off the spray. He had to tell her. She had to know.

“Zoe!” He threw open the door and blinked into the light. She’d left the room immaculate. The bed made. The pizza and beer gone.

All that remained were his scrub pants, fallen on the floor with the legs curved in the shape of a heart.

Had she done that on purpose?

He stood and listened for a moment for any sound, but, of course, she was gone.

He’d lost the battle…and her.