It's in His Kiss (8 page)

But the past was a sneaky bitch, and for some reason, tonight he couldn’t escape her. Not even an hour later when he was back where he started, standing on the sand in front of their hut, breathing heavily.

A sliver of a moon cast the beach in a blue glow, allowing him to see the small shadow sitting on the sand a few feet away.

Becca.

Sam stood still for a beat, thinking that if he was smart, he’d turn and get the hell off the beach without saying a word. Not when he was this wild on the inside, this edgy.

But apparently he wasn’t smart at all because his feet didn’t budge.

She wore an oversized sweatshirt and flannel PJ bottoms, her arms wrapped around her legs, a tiny little gold ring encircling one of her bare toes. Under her tough-girl exterior, she was soft and sweet, and had a smile that moved him.

Her body moved him, too, and again he told himself to keep going and not look back.

And again, he didn’t budge. She looked like a quiet, calm, sexy-as-hell oasis, and she was drawing him in without even trying. “Thought Lucky Harbor was just a pit stop,” he said over the sound of the surf hitting the sand. “But you’re still here.”

Becca tilted her head back and leveled him with those melting dark eyes. “Appears that way.”

“In your PJs,” he noted.

She looked down at herself. “It’s my Man-Repellent. Guaranteed to deflect a guy’s interest with a single glance.”

The PJs were baggy, but there was a breeze plastering the material to her body, which was a complete show-stopper. He laughed softly, and she narrowed her eyes. “What?” she asked.

“Let’s just say they’re not as bad as you think.”

She blinked, then lowered her gaze, taking the time to carefully brush some sand from her feet.

It occurred to him that he was making her nervous by looming over her, so he shifted back a foot or so and crouched low to make himself nonthreatening. He added a smile.

She visibly relaxed. “You probably shouldn’t flash that smile at me too often,” she said.

“Why?”

“It’s . . . attractive,” she admitted. “You’re attractive. Which you damn well know.”

“But I’m wearing my woman-repellent gear,” he said, and she laughed. It was a really great laugh.

He’d felt the pull of their chemistry from the very beginning, and had wondered if she did as well. No need to wonder now; it was all over her, however reluctantly she felt it. He needed to walk away now, before this got any more out of hand.

Instead, he spoke. “Is there a reason you want me to be repelled?” he asked.

“You mean am I crazy, or in a relationship?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Either of those.”

“Not in a relationship.” She smiled a little thinly. “Jury’s still out on the crazy thing, though. You?”

He gave a slow shake of his head. “Negative on both.”

She dropped the eye contact first, instead taking in his body in a way that revved his engines. “Do you always run that hard?” she asked, her voice barely carrying over the sound of the surf hitting the sand.

He shrugged.

“I see you sometimes in the mornings,” she said. “And you do. You always run that hard.”

He smiled. “Peeper to the bone.”

“Can’t seem to help myself,” she admitted.

He dropped to the sand beside her and didn’t miss the fact that she stiffened up at his quick motion. To give her a minute, he stretched out his tired legs. “I worked at sea for seven years. I missed running. I promised myself when I got off the rig, I’d get back to it.”

She took her gaze off his body to look into his eyes. “What was the job?”

“I worked for a consulting firm monitoring the deep drilling rigs. We’d go out for months at a time, no land in sight.”

“We?”

“I had a crew,” he said.

“You were out at sea with a bunch of guys for months at a time?”

“There were a few women too,” he said. Three, to be exact, one of whom had neatly sliced Cole’s heart in two.

“What was your job out there?” Becca asked.

“OIM. Offshore installation manager.” He shrugged again. “Basically just a fancy title for babysitting the operation.”

“All of it?”

“I handled the business side of things,” he said, “the shifts, the tasks, everything.”

“
Sam knows everything
,” she said softly. “That’s what people keep telling me.”

He didn’t know everything. He didn’t know, for example, why he was so drawn to her. Or what made her so wary.

“Must have been a tough job,” she said.

“The job was hard as hell,” he agreed. He had few good memories of those years, working his way up from grunt worker to manager. After they’d lost Gil, he and Tanner had come back to Lucky Harbor with Cole, who’d wanted to be here to take care of his mom and three sisters. Tanner had needed recovery time. And it’d been as good a place as any to start their charter company.

“So you retired from the rigs and now you run, surf, take people out on charters, and handcraft boats,” she said.

He slid her a look.

“Peeper, remember?” she said. She bit her lip but a sweet, low laugh escaped. “Plus, I looked you up.”

Now it was his turn to narrow his eyes. “Why?”

She squirmed a little, which he found fascinating. Actually he found
her
fascinating. “I’ve spent the past three mornings at the diner for the free WiFi,” she said. “I’ve been . . . researching.”

“Me?”

“Not
just
you. But I was curious,” she admitted.

“Yeah? You didn’t get enough information from watching me out the window?”

“Hey,” she said on another laugh. “I can’t help it that you’re pretty to look at.”

At this, he went brows-up. “You said attractive. You didn’t say pretty.”

“
Pretty
,” she repeated, still smiling.

He loved her smile. “I’m not pretty.” But he was smiling now, too.

“Okay,” she said. “You’re right.
Pretty
is far too girlie a word for what you are.”

They looked at each other. The air seemed to get all used up then, and his heart beat in tune to the pulsing waves. “What else did you learn about me, in your . . .
research
?” he asked softly.

Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “That you guys take people deep-sea fishing, scuba diving, that sort of thing. Also, your charter company’s got four and a half stars on Yelp—although I’m pretty sure some of those reviews were written by women who want to date you because there’s lots of mentions of the three hot guys who run the company.”

He winced, making her laugh again.

“Might as well own it,” she said. “Also, did you know that the town of Lucky Harbor has a Pinterest account? The woman who updates it has a board there for her favorite things.”

“Lucille,” he muttered.

“And one of her favorite things,” Becca said, “is
you
.”

He grimaced. “Lucille’s a nut.”

“She seems very sincere.”

“Okay, so she’s a
nice
nut,” he said. “A nut’s a nut.”

“People around here seem to look to you as a leader, as someone to turn to,” she said. “If there’s a question,
people say
Sam’ll know
, but I’ve noticed something.” She waited until he met her gaze. “No one seems to really know
you
except for maybe Cole and Tanner.”

That was just close enough to the dead truth to make him uncomfortable.

“I think it’s because you come off as a lone wolf,” she said, head cocked as she studied him. “And then there’s your approach-at-your-own-risk vibe.”

Hard to deny the truth, so he didn’t bother.

“I mean you’re really good on the fly,” she said quietly, as if talking to herself, trying to figure him out. “And you’re good at helping people, but you’re not readily available to get to know.”

It was a shockingly accurate insight, but he went with humor. “Not seeing the problem,” he said.

“Well, it’s
interesting
, is all.”

“Interesting?”

“Yeah.” Again she looked at his mouth. “Because your distance is perversely making me curious to know more. And I haven’t been . . . curious in a long time.”

There was another surge of that something between them. Heat. Hunger. At least on his part. Testing, he shifted a little closer, moving slowly because he was learning that fast tripped a switch for her, and not in a good way. As he came in, she dragged her teeth over her lower lip and her eyes went heavy-lidded in invite. Their mouths nearly touched before she suddenly pulled back, jerking to her feet. “Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I thought I heard something.”

They both listened. Nothing but the waves hitting the rocky sand, and her accelerated breathing.

She grimaced. “I guess not.”

He stood as well and kept things light by giving her some space. “You didn’t keep the waitressing job.”

“Turns out I’m not much of a waitress.”

“What are you?” he asked.

“Well, I’m supposed to be a jingle writer, but that’s not working out so well, either.”

“A jingle writer?”

“I write songs for commercials,” she said. “Nothing nearly as difficult as risking limb and life at sea for seven years, I know, but it presents its own challenges.”

“Would I recognize any of your jingles?” he asked.

“Maybe, but nothing recent. The one I just turned in was for Cushy toilet paper.”

He grinned. “Nice. What are you working on now?”

She hesitated, nibbling on her lower lip again. “Diaxsis.”

“Which is . . .?”

She blew out a sigh. “An erectile dysfunction med.”

He laughed. “And you’re having a . . .
hard
time?”

“Funny,” she said. “It’s all fun and games—unless you have to write the jingle. At the moment, I’m wishing I had a job serving ranch-flavored popcorn on the pier instead. Or
anything
.”

“I used to want to be a rock star,” he told her.

“Yeah?” she asked. “What stopped you?”

“I’m completely tone-deaf and can’t sing worth shit.”

She laughed, and he smiled at the sweet sound of it.

“Is that why your music’s so loud that the windows rattle?” she asked. “You’re in there pretending to be a rock star?”

“I work to it,” he said. “Or I did. The past few days I’ve been listening to whatever it is you’re listening to.”

She froze. “You can hear me messing around on my keyboard?” she asked, sounding horrified.

He paused. “That’s you? You’re fantastic.”

She immediately shook her head. “No.”

“Actually, yeah.”

“No, I mean you can’t listen.” There was a new edge to her voice, and she took a step back. “I can’t play if I have an audience.”

“Why not?”

“Because I choke,” she said, sounding genuinely upset.

“Okay,” he said quietly, taking in the fact that she was now pale by moonlight. “I’ll pretend not to listen. How’s that?”

“No.” She didn’t relax or smile. “Because I’ll know you’re only
pretending
not to listen.”

She wasn’t being coy here, or searching for compliments the way women sometimes did. She was truly unable to bear the thought of him hearing her play. “I could wear earplugs,” he said.

She stared at him, then looked away, to the water. “I sound crazy, I know. But I don’t play for audiences anymore. I’m only playing for myself now, while trying to come up with my next jingle.”

“You used to play for an audience?”

“Oh, God, Becca,” she muttered, “just shut up.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I really need a subject change.”

“Is that why you left New Orleans?”

“How is that a subject change?” She dropped her hands and sighed. “I left New Orleans because I needed a break from . . . things. Family, to be honest. It’s hard to explain.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” he said. “Maybe you’re too focused on the past instead of the here and now.”

She stared at him.

He stared back.

“Maybe,” she finally said softly. “You don’t ever do that? Get stuck in the past?”

Sam didn’t like to think about the past at all, much less try to get back to it. “Hell no.”

“So . . . you’re a little broken, too?” she asked hopefully, her eyes locked on his with great interest.

“I’m not broken.”

She sighed. “Of course not, since you have a penis.”

“What does that mean?”

“Guys don’t admit to being broken,” she said.

He laughed, and she stared at him. “Okay,” she said, “you’ve really got to stop doing that, laugh all sexy-like, Mr. Broken Sexy Grumpy Surfer.”

“I’m not broken,” he said again.
Much
.

“Well, if you were, I should let you know, I’ve heard of this remedy . . .”

“Yeah?”

Again she dragged her teeth over her lower lip. “Maybe it’s not a remedy so much as a . . . temporary fix. Like a Band-Aid,” she said, tipping her face to his.

There was an intimacy that came with the dark night, and with it came an ache. An ache for a woman. This woman. It’d been a while since he’d held someone, gotten lost in someone. The truth was that no one had tempted him in a while.

Becca did. Becca with the dark, warm eyes, the sweet smile, and the pulse racing at the base of her throat. He wanted to put his mouth there. He wanted to put his
mouth to every inch of her, and he reached for her hand, slowly pulling her in so they stood toe-to-toe. “What’s the Band-Aid?”