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  “You can’t stay here,” he said.

  She hiccupped out a small laugh. “No kidding. I’m going to get a room at the inn until I find a place of my own.”

  “You’ll be lucky to find an empty closet. It’s high season and every cabin and hotel room is booked solid. Seeker’s Island is a lot more popular than it used to be. They featured the springs on one of those Travel Channel shows and we’ve been overrun with people ever since.”

  “Good for business,” she said, pushing out of his arms.

  Luke helped her to her feet and they stood facing each other while she pretended nothing had just happened.

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “Good for business. Lousy for privacy. You can stay with me until you find your own place.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, making her way back to the golf cart.

  “The other option is for you to ferry over from the mainland every day. Seems like a waste of time to me. Especially now that you have a business to help run.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him and he knew he’d won. At least this round. “Do you have an extra bedroom?”

  “One or two. We’ll barely see each other. I pretty much work all the time.”

  “I’m here to stay, Luke.” The seriousness in her voice made him look closer, to see if he could read her moods and feelings like he used to. But it was no use. This Jessie James was a stranger in some ways, while in others she was as familiar as his own hands.

  “I believe you, Jess.”

  Chapter Four

  ‡

  More than two weeks went by without a mention of what had happened her first day back on the island. She and Luke had managed to coexist with only minor bumps along the way. The biggest bumps were that they’d been dancing around each other in the confines of Luke’s home, pretending the tension wasn’t growing hotter and thicker between them with every passing day.

  The kiss had been a mistake, and it’s all she’d thought about since it had happened. And she recognized the signs that he’d been thinking about it too. The way his eyes lowered to her mouth whenever they were talking. The way he shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t touch her.

  Not that she hadn’t been having fun teasing him whenever possible. It wasn’t her that was against rekindling the flame that was obviously still burning bright between them. It was all Luke. He’d been avoiding her whenever possible. Tolerating her whenever the business threw them together. And the way he’d been looking at her made her wonder if he was starting to put together more of her past than she was comfortable with. But he still wanted her. He couldn’t hide that.

  “I’m just saying there’s nothing wrong with a little atmosphere,” she said for the thousandth time. “There’s nothing wrong with candlelight or flowers. No one is going to question your manhood.”

  It was after two in the morning and the last of the customers had already staggered home or back to the hotel. She’d already wiped down each table and stacked the chairs on top, but she still needed to damp mop the floor. Her back ached and the lull of the ocean made her want nothing more than to lay down where she was and fall asleep.

  She wouldn’t admit it to Luke, but she loved what she was doing—serving customers and cleaning up at the end of a long night—learning how to place orders for enough food for the week and how to negotiate orders of the liquor so they didn’t overcharge. She loved it because it was hers. She’d never had anything else she could say that about.

  “We have plenty of atmosphere.” Luke swung out of the kitchen carrying a box of napkins and straws so he could replenish the shelves under the bar. “We’ve got moonlight and the ocean. It doesn’t get any better than that. And the crazy thing is they’re both free.”

  “I mean, the live band is nice,” she said, pretending like he hadn’t spoken. Jessie rubbed the small of her back and looked around the wide open space as visions of what Seeker’s Paradise could be filled her head. “But it would be even better if it was music people could dance to. I’m not sure Stairway to Heaven is the best way to get people on the dance floor.”

  She looked over in time to see his lips twitch.

  “Hmm, is that what that was? I didn’t’ recognize it,” he said, turning back to his task.

  Jessie moved behind the bar and just watched the way he moved. Muscles rippled in his back as he bent to restock. Relaxed and methodical. Luke never got in a hurry for much of anything. The memory of those slow hands made her blood heat and her skin tingle. He could do amazing things with his hands.

  “Why did he do it?” The words came out of her mouth before she could stop herself. But there was no going back now. “Why did old Jesse give you money for this place? We know it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart.”

  Luke stood and turned around so he faced her, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Believe me, I was pretty surprised myself. It’s not like there was ever any love lost between the two of us. He never approved of you and me together.”

  “That’s an understatement,” she said, her laugh brittle.

  Luke stared at her like he’d been doing a lot lately—as if he could see more of her than she wanted. “I’d just turned twenty-one and was in my last semester of college when my grandmother died and left me some money. I’d had enough of school and had already decided I didn’t want the kind of job or life it was steering me toward. So I packed up and came home and told my dad I wanted to open a restaurant and bar on the island so tourists didn’t have to keep ferrying to the mainland. And I asked him to invest the other half of grandmother’s inheritance with mine and go in with me.”

  Her brow raised in surprise. Luke’s parents had always been very supportive of him in anything he’d wanted to do. “I take it he said no?”

  Luke smiled slow and lazy and rubbed a hand behind his neck. “He was pretty pissed I didn’t finish the semester and graduate. He told me he’d do it as soon as I got my diploma and wouldn’t back down. Things got pretty heated for a while there and my mom said I’d gotten my hard head from somewhere when I told them I wasn’t going back and I’d find another investor on my own.

  “Dad probably would have given in once he’d had time to let it all cool down, but your dad showed up at my door out of the blue one day and told me he thought it was a good idea and wanted to go in as a silent partner. I was young and stupid enough to do it without asking why. I just wanted what I knew was mine.”

  “I wonder where he got the money. God knows we never seemed to have an extra penny when it was needed. Not unless he needed a bottle of Jim Beam.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me what was happening?” His gaze was so serious she knew she couldn’t pretend to misunderstand his meaning.

  Jessie took a step backwards and moved to make her way around to the other side of the bar to put more distance between them. She needed space and time to think about what she should say. And she was almost positive she didn’t want to have the conversation right now, when her mind was tired and her body yearning for something else.

  He caught her before she’d taken the second step. It looked like he could move fast enough when he wanted to.

  “Stop running,” he said, the frustration coming out a low growl. His hand clamped on her shoulder and he spun her around, moving quickly to trap her against the bar, exactly as he’d done the first day she’d come back to the island. “You should have told me what was happening. What he was doing to you? I would’ve helped you.”

  “He would have killed you,” she yelled, pushing against his chest. But he didn’t budge an inch. “He would have killed you and taunted me with it while he beat me. Is that the truth you think you know?” Tears she’d told herself she wouldn’t shed coursed down her cheeks as her fists pounded against him. “If I’d stayed here you’d be dead. Because eventually you would’ve found out what was happening. And your death would’ve been my fault and I couldn’t live with that.”

  Her head dropped to his chest as the strength seemed to
go out of her all at once. She’d never actually said the words out loud before. Never confessed her darkest secret to anyone. Aunt June had known what had happened but they’d never spoken about it.

  “If you’d told me what you had planned I would’ve left with you.” His hands cupped the side of her cheeks and he tilted her face up.

  “Bullshit. I left you a note.” She managed to slip out from under his arms and put distance between them. “I waited for you to come after me. To call. For something. Did you think about me at all after I left? I know he never did. But did you?”

  “I’ve thought about you every moment of every day for fifteen years.” The look of his face was so tortured she lost her breath. He came toward her slowly but didn’t reach for her. “I never found a note, sweetheart. If I had I would have been after you on the next ferry out of Seeker’s Island.”

  “I was so scared.” Admitting that was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. “And I’m sorry I had to leave. My fear of him, and my fear of what he’d do to you, was greater than what we had between us. Or at least I thought so at the time.”

  “All that matters is the here and now. The past can stay where it is.”

  He leaned down and took her mouth in a scorching kiss she felt all the way to her toes. His mouth was hot and hard on hers—a branding—letting her know in no uncertain terms that she belonged solely to him.

  His hands clamped at her hips and he jerked her against him so she felt the hardness straining behind the zipper of his shorts. And when he lifted her she wrapped her legs around him and whimpered as he tortured her in just the right spot.

  A jolt of need so powerful it made her cry out shot straight to her core, and she answered the demand of his kisses with demands of her own. Need wasn’t the right word. She craved him. Her body hadn’t been whole for years. Not since the last time they’d been together.

  Her hands slipped beneath the thin cotton of his T-shirt, her fingers trailing over the taut ridges of his abdomen as he shuddered beneath her touch. With one motion, she yanked at the shirt and had it over his head and sailing across the bar.

  “God, Jess. I can’t wait to get you in a bed.” Desperation tinged his voice.

  “Don’t wait. Here and now.”

  He sat her on the edge of the bar as his hands pushed her shirt above her breasts and then over her head, and his gaze was molten as he took in the sight of the white lace bra she wore. She leaned back, her torso long and limber, and his lips trailed down the long column of her neck to the swell of her breasts. She saw stars as his hot mouth clamped over her lace-covered nipple.

  “If we keep going at this pace I won’t make it thirty seconds.”

  “It’s okay,” she panted. “I won’t hold it against you. You can make it up to me the second time. Or third.”

  “You always were ambitious,” he said, laughing.

  Her breath caught as his hands moved up, molding her, cupping her breasts and weighing them in his hands before he released the clasp in front and let them free.

  He groaned and the sound sent chills of anticipation over her skin. “I’ve always loved your breasts.”

  “They’re small.”

  “They’re perfect.” He pushed the cups out of the way and the skimmed his thumbs over the dusky pink nipples that spiked beneath his touch. “See how well we fit?”

  Before she could answer his tongue traced the same path as his fingers and her head dropped back on a moan. His mouth was hot against her fevered skin, and his cheeks hollowed as he began to suckle. She felt every stroke and every flick of his tongue at the moist center between her thighs, and she tightened her legs around him, searching for the release she wanted.

  He flipped open the button of her shorts and teased them both as his fingers dipped just inside the elastic band of her panties.

  “Hurry,” she begged.

  “Not this time, sweetheart.”

  He tucked his hands under her bottom and pulled at the denim cutoffs she wore until she was force to uncurl her legs from around his waist. They fell to the floor so she was only left in the matching lace thong she wore.

  “Those are very nice, but they’re going to have to go.”

  “I hope so. And the sooner the better.” Jess whimpered as his fingers trailed over the damp lace and teased the hidden bud within. And then his thumbs tucked beneath the elastic and he pulled them of in one fell swoop so she was completely bared to him.

  “Impatient, aren’t you?”

  Her fingers tugged at the button on his shorts and they trembled as she lowered the zipper. She pushed down his shorts and underwear until they caught at his hips and he sprang hot and heavy into her hand.

  “Oh, yes. Very impatient.” She stroked him once before he grabbed her hand and pulled it away.

  “I get to touch first,” he said, kissing her belly as his lips trailed a damp path down her hipbone and farther down to her inner thigh. Her breath caught in anticipation and her hips arched as his mouth covered her sex. She went blind and deaf as his tongue zeroed in on familiar territory and she tried to hold back a scream as he sent her flying.

  When she came to he was lifting her from the bar and setting her on her feet. Her legs felt like jelly and she was past the point of desperate to feel him inside her. Her muscles trembled and she caught herself against the counter to keep her balance.

  *

  Luke almost smiled at the dazed expression on her face. The taste of her was like a drug to his system and he was addicted. He’d thought he could take her here where they stood—a fast and furious coupling to ease the pain and loss they’d both experienced. But after he’d felt her go liquid beneath him he knew it needed to be more.

  He flipped the switch at the wall and the bar went dark, leaving only the soft glow of the nightlights he left on at each entrance. And he took only a few precious seconds to lock the liquor cabinet. Luke grabbed a white cotton tablecloth from beneath the counter.

  “What?—”

  “Think back to when you lived here before. What used to be in this spot?” he asked, interrupting whatever she’d been about to say.

  She bent down to pick up her clothes, but he stopped her by scooping her up in his arms and heading out to the beach at the backside of the restaurant.

  “We’re not done. Don’t even think of putting on clothes for the next thirty or forty years.”

  “Is Seeker’s Island turning into a nudist colony?”

  “Surely you remember Amos? He’s almost as much of a tourist attraction as the springs. The sheriff doesn’t even bother giving him public indecency citations anymore.”

  She giggled against his chest and he tightened his arms around her. “I’d forgotten about Amos. Though he’s got to be close to a hundred now.”

  “He says he’s going out of the world the same way he came in. I guess he’s just getting ready.”

  The breeze was cool as he carried her down the sandy path to the beach. Technically this stretch of land was his. And now Jessie’s as well. Though he knew there was a group of college kids who liked to sneak out and get drunk on occasion.

  He set her on her feet and then stood behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders so they faced the water, the moon a dim sliver of silver in the sky, but just enough that he could see her profile.

  “You never did answer my question,” he said, kissing the back of her neck so she shivered.

  “I didn’t remember until you brought me to this spot. So much of the island has changed, but not this place. The docks are gone.”

  “I had them taken out once I bought the place.” He kissed her neck against and skimmed his hands over her belly and up so they cupped her breasts. “Too many memories of laying with you there. Taking you in the moonlight like I’m about to do now.”

  “Is that what you’re about to do?” He heard the smile in her voice along with the sadness.

  “I built the bar here because this place holds the best of my memories of you. We’ve come
full circle this time.” He left her long enough to spread out the tablecloth on the sand and then he took her in his arms, building the heat back to where it had been before.

  The waves crashing in the background was the only music they needed. Blood pumped and pulsed beneath their skins and every touch drew moans and gasps of pleasure. Luke pulled her down so they were on their knees and when she took him in her hand and pushed him to his back he wanted to shout with the pleasure.

  She came down on top of him, straddling his hips, poised to take him inside when he flipped their positions and she ended up on her back as he leaned over her.

  “Not fair—”

  The words trailed off into a moan as he slipped inside of her. She closed around him like a fist and his lips crashed down on hers to swallow her cry of pleasure. Hands clasped and held as her hips rose to take him farther, deeper inside of her. Her body shimmered in the moonlight as he took her higher and higher, until he felt the ripples of her release and the liquid heat of her clamping around him like a vise.

  He was powerless to keep himself from following her, so he closed his eyes and gave her his heart, soul, and seed with a final thrust.

  *

  Pulses slowed and perspiration cooled on their skin as they lay wrapped in each other’s arms. They’d have to move eventually, but for now he wanted the moment to last as long as it could before reality intruded. And it would soon enough. They had a lot to talk about. A lot to work through—Jessie especially. And it wasn’t something that could be done in a day. Or maybe even a year. But he knew what they felt for each other would only grow stronger over time, so they could take their time reacquainting themselves with one another. Filling each other in on the years they’d missed.