There was no way in hell Dawn would miss an opportunity to be braver than Sara. She squeezed him tightly. “I want to do it. I have complete faith in you.” She hoped he couldn’t feel how hard her heart was thudding and wondered if that big medical school hospital on the island was any good at setting broken bones and applying sidewalk-burn skin grafts.
The owner of the bike shop gave them both a helmet and plenty of tips, and since Dawn didn’t have any bad habits of riding solo to unlearn, they didn’t do too badly on their first few takeoffs.
“You two ride well together and have a natural rhythm,” their instructor said. “I can tell you’ve been together a long time.”
Kellen chuckled. “You can tell that, can you?”
Their short-term instructor nodded. “Totally obvious. Have fun.”
Dawn sat poised with both feet on the pedals, gripping handlebars that did not steer, no matter how much she tried to backseat drive. Kellen had been right to say she had to have complete faith in him. She could help pedal and balance, but basically she was a passenger on his long-ass bike.
He kicked off and got the bike going. They lucked out by hitting a green crossing light and crossed over Seawall Boulevard to the wide sidewalk shared by pedestrians, bikes, and surreys. They could continue along the path for miles in either direction. Once she got used to being out of control, Dawn decided she liked riding in the back. When she got tired of staring at Kellen’s gorgeous back and ass—which honestly took quite a while—she was free to take in the sights as they pedaled along the shore while he was forced to pay attention to their trajectory and speed, as well as avoid any large bumps that might unseat her.
“Ever been to the Pleasure Pier?” she asked Kellen as they slowly made their way through the crowd near the small amusement park built on a pier.
“It hadn’t opened yet when Sara was alive. We can go there if you want.”
“Do you like roller coasters?” She craned her neck to watch the small coaster on the pier zip around its track. At one point it looked as if it hurdled beyond the pier and over the water.
“They’re okay. Owen loves them.”
“What do you love?”
“Being with you.”
She traced a hoof of the rearing stallion tattoo on his back and felt his muscles tense beneath her light touch. She loved being with him too. And she was having a great time, but . . .
“I can’t stay out in the sun much longer,” she said. “Even with all that sunscreen, I’ll still burn to a crisp.”
“Are you ready to head indoors?”
“I’m ready to head for bed. Assuming you’ll be in it.”
He chuckled and looked over his shoulder to meet her eyes. “That’s a fair assumption.”
“I do want to get the most out of this bike ride, though,” she said. “The view is spectacular.” She gave his tanned, muscular back an appreciative twice-over, his perfect ass a four-times-over. He laughed again and swerved around a jogger pushing a three-wheeled baby stroller.
The breeze felt nice against her heated face and throat on their trip back up the sidewalk. The rental shop employee was proud to see them return without any broken bones or scrapes and with the tandem bike in one piece. Dawn’s legs were wobbly from using muscles she didn’t often use, but her aches would be worth it. She just hoped they didn’t make playing on Wednesday too difficult. She held Kellen’s hand on the way back to the car, and they stopped at a huge grocery store to pick up steaks, fresh-caught jumbo shrimp, and other necessities for their evening meal.
Turned out, Kellen grilled a delicious steak and even more delicious shrimp. He had insisted on dragging the grill over to her place, and her spirits were too high to push him into confronting his issues about Sara’s house. They didn’t have to tackle those problems all at once. They had plenty of time to take baby steps if he needed to do that.
Full to the gills, Dawn settled into an Adirondack chair on the deck and watched the birds skitter through the surf as they scrounged up their own meal. Kellen brought her a bowl of vanilla ice cream covered in the remnants of her melted chocolate.
“I couldn’t possibly eat another bite,” she said, but she took the bowl and couldn’t resist a small taste.
He grinned at her when less than ten minutes later she was scraping the bottom of her bowl with her spoon. Her stomach had protested every bite, but her tongue had insisted she continue to stuff her face.
They sat on the deck and talked until the sun sank below the bay behind them. She couldn’t remember ever having a more perfect day. The thought that she had to leave him tomorrow to meet with a bunch of self-important Hollywood executives was too depressing to bear, so she didn’t dwell on that painful truth when he talked her into sitting at her piano bench and playing some of her classics with a twist and even a few compositions of her own that she’d deemed not good enough for human ears.
“Every song you’ve written turns me on,” he murmured as they came together on the lid of her piano. “Why is that?”
Her toes curled as he thrust into her. Deeper. Deeper. Yes, please, deeper. “You’re a horny bastard?”
He shrugged. “Can’t deny either of those labels.”
She bit her lip, wishing she’d chosen gentler words. He never spoke of his parents, and maybe he’d be annoyed that she’d brought up more of his past, but she wanted to know about his family. She wanted to learn everything about him—how to please his body and make him laugh. The way his mind worked. What his soul yearned for. How to claim his heart as her own. Because that was what she truly wanted. All of him. And for the first time in her life she was ready to give someone all of herself in return.
Chapter Thirteen
Kellen watched Dawn exit the realtor’s office with a lump in his throat. So that was it, then. The rental house—where they’d met, where they’d first made love, where he’d developed such strong feelings for her, where she’d composed their song—was now back in the hands of strangers. Maybe he should buy that house and make sure the piano was part of the deal.
She climbed into the car beside him and after she’d buckled herself in, he took her hand and kissed her knuckles.
“Are you sure you have time to take me to the airport?” she asked. “It’s over an hour out of your way.”
“I’m sure.” He wanted to spend every possible second with her, knowing she’d soon be in L.A. and then in Prague. He’d be back on tour, pretending his life hadn’t been completely turned around in the course of days by this perfect, perfect woman.
“Not if we sit here for eons with you staring at me like that.”
She grinned at him, but he feigned ignorance. “Look at you like what?”
“Like we’re never going to see each other again.”
Didn’t she understand that it was a concern? “I was thinking,” he said, still looking at her with his heart in his throat. “Maybe I should sell Sara’s house—”
“I think you’d be much happier if you did.”
“—and buy the one next door. I hear it has a beautiful grand piano that an inspiring and famous song was composed on.”
Her eyes narrowed, and the happy smile he was expecting ended up a harsh frown. “Don’t you dare do that to yourself. To us.”