Olivia tilts her head. “This is where you’re taking me to be safe?”
“No one knows about this cottage. It’s in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors. Ronan’s owned it for years, and no paparazzi have found him here. Despite its looks, it also has a high-tech alarm system.”
“Clearly,” she says. “That key in the planter must fool all the crooks.”
I put the key in the lock, and the door falls open. “The alarm system isn’t for when the cottage is empty. It’s for when Ronan is here. I’ll alarm it once we’re locked in. And the guards will be watching the house and grounds the entire time we’re here.”
I unlock the door, and she steps into the cozy room. The outside may show its humble origins, but the inside is meticulously renovated, with fresh paint, gleaming appliances, and simple yet expensive-looking furnishings in varying shades of white and beige.
I throw the key onto a sideboard that features more shells.
Olivia turns to me, hugging herself.
“Are you cold?” I ask.
“A little,” she admits shyly. Her dress is soaked through.
I pull off my mostly dry sweater and hand it to her. “Here. Put this on. But take off your wet clothes first.” I look down. “All your wet clothes,” I say meaningfully. “The bathroom is through there.” I point to a door off the living room.
She nods, staring at my chest in the slightly damp T-shirt I’d worn under my sweater.
“While you change, I’ll get you something to drink,” I continue, needing something to occupy my hands before I reach for her.
I find a bottle of chilled white wine in the fridge and wineglasses on a low bar. I try not to think of her stripping off her wet dress, bra, and underwear. When I return to the living room, she’s opened the sliding door and is looking comfortable, curled up on a large, pillow-strewn daybed on the porch facing the jagged cliffs and expansive ocean. The wind is cool, and the only sound is the waves crashing in the dark depths below.
My sweater engulfs her. She’s pulled it down to cover her knees. I can’t help but focus on how the fabric stretches over her generous breasts, her nipples pebbled. I drag my gaze lower. Did she do as I advised and remove all her clothes? I harden, thinking about her naked in just my sweater.
I hand her the wine and sit next to her. Olivia takes a sip, and then she does something completely unexpected. She lays her head on my shoulder and gives a soft sigh.
This peaceful moment comes as a sweet surprise. I’m uncomfortably aware of her. But after the wild kisses in the water, and my wild imaginings just now, we settle into something that feels like contentment. With an intense yearning, I wish that I could hold her and this peace in my heart for always.
Her soft gray eyes meet mine. She squeezes my hand, and I squeeze hers back. She smiles, and my cold heart melts.
She looks out at the water below, and when she speaks, her voice is shy. “I still want you to be my first.”
I don’t answer her, just blow out a slow breath.
“You’re helping me with my risks, right?” She continues, “Well, I have that on my list.”
“You deserve—”
“What I deserve is to have good sex with someone I like. I never meant to be a virgin at this age. I didn’t have a boyfriend in high school because I was shy, and then when Nanna got sick, I got so busy trying to juggle work, classes, and taking care of her that I didn’t have time. It didn’t help that I was stuck on someone who was completely unavailable—”
“You’re talking about your online friend,” I rasp out. “The one you told me about.” More reasons to stay away.
She fiddles with the sleeve of my sweater. “Yes. Remington.”
My heart feels too big for my chest. “And you wanted to do that.” I don’t say fuck. She must be rubbing off on me. “With him.”
She licks her lips, as if they’re suddenly dry. And I imagine her tongue sliding over my dick.
“I always dreamed my first time would be special, or at least with someone I cared about. And he was the only guy I’d ever had those feelings for. Until you,” she says the last part softly, hesitantly.
“Olivia.” I’m in an impossible situation.
She takes a large swig of wine and then sets it back on the coffee table.
“I’m so awkward at this. See, this is why I’m still a freaking virgin. I have no game and no moves, and I don’t know how to do this. I just don’t want to be a fifty-year-old virgin and to look back with regret because I didn’t tell you exactly what I want.”
Her hair is a mess from the wind and water, and I brush the strands behind her ear. She leans toward my hand until I cup her cheek, savoring the soft, silky texture of her skin.
“First, you aren’t going to be a fifty-year-old virgin,” I scoff. But something acidic washes through my blood. I don’t want to imagine her with someone else. Ever. And especially not this first time, when it means so much, when it could be with me.
I move my index finger from stroking her jaw up to her mouth. That plump, succulent pink mouth that begs to be kissed. What I want to do to that mouth. “And second, it’s not that I don’t want to. I’m dying to be inside you so fucking bad, just like I was dying for you in San Francisco and I was dying for you on the beach.” I take her hand and move it to my jeans.
“This is what you do to me, Olivia. Every time you’re near me, I want you. With your lush body and your pretty face. With your contrary mind and your old soul. Don’t ever imagine that I don’t want you because it’s never going to be true.”
With every breath, the need to take her mounts until it’s a tension-filled force.
But I’ve lied to her on so many levels. I can’t be with her with the lies between us.
I tell myself that, even as I can’t stop touching her. One hand strokes her hair. She shivers in response, and I know she’s feeling everything I am.
I should just be honest, to hell with the consequences. I open my mouth but find the words won’t come. There’s too much fear. Fear that if I tell her the truth, I’ll lose her like I’ve lost almost everyone I cared about, over and over. Fear that if I squander this one precious moment, it will never come around again.
“Chase, it doesn’t have to be forever. It’s okay that it’s just one night.”
But that’s the thing she doesn’t understand. The thing I should never tell her. If I could have one wish, it’s that I’d have that one night last forever.
CHAPTER 32
Olivia
He tips his head back and closes his eyes for a moment, his stubble accentuating the pure lines of his face. Something about his beard and the bruised circles under his eyes makes him a little less perfect, but ironically, that just makes him more appealing. He’s rugged and raw and so familiar, like a dream I can’t shake.
I recognize something in him. A loneliness. A yearning. I know it’s in him because I feel it in myself. Everything turns over in me.
I raise my hand and give in to trace his contoured lips with a finger.
His hand falls away and I feel him moving back, and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand for him to leave now, knowing this could be the end of whatever is between us.
I reach up, and it’s my turn to brush his hair back, to whisper my skin against his in a caress, feeling over those famous cheekbones, that chiseled jaw, the one that journalists write odes to and cinematographers worship.
He’s just a guy, not some god, I tell myself. Just a guy. And I’m just a girl. I can do this.
“I want it to be you, Chase.”
His jaw under my hand flexes.
Chase closes his eyes. I can feel his turmoil, but I don’t understand it. I’m offering him no-strings sex, every guy’s dream. My mind starts to spiral in unwelcome and soul-destroying directions until he opens his eyes.
And there it is. I see that I’m not alone in this. It may mean more to me, but I’m not imagining our heat, our connection.