Runaway Heart (A Game of Hearts #2) (7 page)

My eyes were glued to her lips. A nervous laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “It’s ah… it’s a—”

“Forgot the name of it? Some bartender you are.” She shook the ice in the cup and put the straw back to her mouth.

My chest hitched up and down faster than it should have for such a small act. I tugged her hand away. “Leave off with that for a second, yeah?”

Her eyes rounded. “Okay… Ed, you’re acting really weird all of a sudden.”

“Orgasm on the Beach. That’s what it’s bloody called,” I blurted, wincing.

Here it comes. She’ll belt me like the tosser I am. And serves me right since I was acting like every other man. Like the dogs I’d compared them to. I’d probably hump her leg if she let me close enough. I should have said men were pigs. Pigs don’t hump legs. Do they?

But then she proved me wrong.
Again.

She laughed. Soft at first, and then louder as it really sank in all that just transpired between us. It was a sound I had unconsciously searched for the entire night. A sound so beautiful and catchy that I didn’t want it to end right away. I wanted to pull out all my best jokes and lay them on her, just to keep the smile on her face and the sound of happiness coming from her.

She clutched her belly as her laughter continued, contagiously catching me. In fact, she laughed so damn hard she snorted.

That was a new one.

It took her a minute to wind down and, by then, I wore a cheesy grin. When she did, she handed me back her empty cup in between another round of giggles trying to escape. “Oh damn, that’s priceless.”

I dumped the ice in her cup, stacking it with my own, and hooked my elbow out to her. “The least I can do is walk ye home after giving ye such a good time on the beach

I felt like I could float along the sand when she slipped her arm around my waist as we made our way to Maggie and Phil’s house. “I gotta say, Ed. That was a damn good orgasm,” she joked in a seductive voice.

Fucking hell.

“I’m glad ye enjoyed it,” I replied, wishing it had been the real deal and not some blasted drink.

“Oh, I did.” She giggled. “In fact, I’d wager to say that was the best non-sex orgasm I’ve ever had. Thanks for giving it to me.”

She was flirting with me, the little minx. Two could play that game. “The bartender told me the first one was on him. The second was all me. What d’ye say? Wanna give it a go?”

“Give it a go?” It took her a second. When she realized what I’d said, she slapped her hand over her mouth, talking through her fingers. “You said that earlier and, when I asked you what it meant, you said you’d tell me later! You’re totally hitting on me, aren’t you?”

She playfully pushed at my shoulder, but I caught her hand up, my face going serious. I enjoyed the way her smile vanished into an intensity that made every nerve ending in my body painfully aware of her.

“I mean it, love. I’m up for it.” I pulled her into my arms and held her hips firmly against my own to prove I needed nothing more than her. “Ye’ve had me going from the moment I laid eyes on ye.”

She licked her lips.

My blood boiled.

“I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t feel the same. There’s this… this…”

“Tension?” I threw out to her.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding as she looked up at me with those beautiful eyes and moved her hips closer against me. “Tension,” she repeated, dragging a slow finger down my chest.

Bloody hell.

“There’s this tension between us, and I’m not sure if it’s the sultry air, or that delicious drink… but I feel it too.”

“And?” I dragged out, feeling like I might explode any second.

She sighed, moving closer as her chin rested on my shoulder. “And everything in me is shouting yes, Ed, but…”

“But?”

“But I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“And why’s that, love?” I moved my hands from her hips down to her arse so I could pull her hard against me.

I smiled as a small moan escaped her lips.

“I’ve tried to keep my hands off ye. I just can’t do it anymore,” I said against her ear as the tension grew to an all-new level between us. One I wasn’t sure I could take a second more of without release.

Her breath hitched against my shoulder as she jerked in response, her fingers digging into the material of my shirt.

Damn. She made me want her in a way I hadn’t ever wanted anyone before.

And she wanted it as badly as I did.

There was something about Hannah that snuck past the defenses I’d put into place. Ones I’d built up for a long time. Sure, I’d mucked about with other girls. I hadn’t lived the life of a saint, but I also never let anyone in. Hannah breached my barrier at an accelerated speed with no caution to what the fallout could be.

I felt the tension in her body, the need to have me just as badly as I needed her. One move and she’d snap, and we’d be at each other like we both craved.

Did I want that?
Yes.
Could I live with it later?
No.
She wasn’t the kind of girl ye’d add a notch to your bedpost with. I mean, sure, ye’d definitely want her all over your bed, but she deserved more than that. Better.

She was the total package I could only stare at through the shop window, because my heart was too empty to lay purchase to hers.

With a relenting sigh, I forced myself to move my hands from her arse and put a little distance between us, cursing myself for pulling the good-guy card. Since when had I become the good guy?

“Ed, I—”

“Ye don’t have to say anything. I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m sorry for it.” I took another step back, raking my hands through my hair.

Something like regret, or maybe it was hurt, flickered in her eyes before she gave me a sexy, crooked smile. “I don’t want you to be sorry, Ed. We’re two people looking for a good time. Nothing wrong with that.”

Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I rocked back on my heels. “Do ye think we can start over? Maybe try to get to know each other a little better?”

She nodded. Shoved at my shoulder again in a playful manner, making it easier to get past the heavy moment. “I think I’d like that.”

I went right back into joking mode. “Me too. It’s not every day ye get to give your friends an orgasm on the beach without touching them,” I said, unable to keep my witty retort to myself. “Wonder what else we could accomplish between us?”

There was a moment after that remark, when the air grew heavy again and her eyes met mine, where we exchanged a mutual, curious look. One that could mean more than just sexual tension.

A look that could get us into bloody trouble.

I wanted to get back to the way it was between us the night before. Me cracking jokes and her rolling her eyes at me. It was safer for both of us. She broke the connection, biting her bottom lip as she looked out over the ocean. I couldn’t help but feel relieved. And maybe a little disappointed.

She wrapped her arms around herself. “We should probably call it a night since we both have flights to catch tomorrow.”

ROLLING OVER ONTO MY SIDE to get comfortable, I listened to the clock tick away. Time counted down, bringing my return home closer and closer with every second. Back to the rain. Back to the bar.

Down the hall, Hannah slept the sleep of the blissful. After sitting outside of Maggie and Phil’s house, we’d danced around the moment we shared on the beach with small talk. We’d both thrown our guards up, keeping things light and simple.

I kept my sob story to myself since I didn’t really want to bring up my past. It was firmly locked away in a place where it stayed buried deep enough not to hurt me anymore.

But even that was trying its best to break loose through the darkness.

Sighing, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Sleep evaded me. Memories pelted me. There was nowhere to turn my mind to that didn’t bring everything back ‘round in a full circle, and I knew why.

Hannah.

Hannah and her wide, fathomless blue eyes reminding me of the storm-filled skies at home. The silver specks in them like rain pelting the ground. Most would think me daft relating the beauty of them to that, but it was hard not to compare them to home. People always claimed home was where your heart was. And I could see a glimpse of it when I looked into her eyes.

She was fast becoming a burgeoning light to the darkened path I’d walked for so long.

Everything I didn’t want. What I never knew I needed.

I’d gone on so long, moving through life jaded, using humor and sarcasm to get me past one more day without a heart.

And now that I’ve found it, I know I can’t have it. What the hell is wrong with me?

I just had to get through the morning. Get my arse on the plane and put all of it behind me. It was the only way.

Closing my eyes, I gave over to the memories, hoping they’d run their course and finally leave me in peace after all the years they’d haunted me.

I’d given her everything. All of me. Every last bit of who I was. In return, she’d left me, quite literally, standing outside in the rain as she drove off with another man and my heart, just two days before we were to be wed.

I’d tried for so long to understand what I’d done to push her into the arms of a stranger. When she refused my calls, I showed up on the front doorstep of what used to be our home, and the stranger, the one who stole her from me, told me to leave.

It never detoured me. I wanted answers. I deserved answers. So one day when I showed up and he wasn’t there, I was given all the answers I’d been looking for. Ones I no longer wanted.

She’d been in love with him the whole time, but he was married. When he’d found out we were getting married, he left his wife and upended my entire existence by taking everything from me in one fell swoop.

Had she ever really loved me? She’d said she did, but she also claimed she fell out of love a long time before it all ended. That I had been a warm and safe place to hole up and try to figure out her life.

I left and never looked back. I couldn’t look back. The old me was a washed-up, battered shell of the person I’d been. Used. Discarded.

I’d never allow someone close enough to do it to me again.

SHE WAS CRYING AGAIN.

Just like the rain pouring down outside my bedroom window, I heard her tears falling fast from somewhere down the hallway, and I crawled out from under my bed, knowing the worst was over now.

I hated storms.

Hated rain.

Hated him.

I tossed and turned in my bed until I woke myself up, my face wet from the tears that fell during my reoccurring nightmare. Outside, a clap of thunder sliced through the air. I jumped as the images of my dad shoving my mother against the heated stove cut through my mind. As the boiling pot of water rocked back and forth, sloshing water onto her skin.

My heart took up residence inside my throat.

“No!” I shouted, covering my ears with my hands as his belligerent voice ripped through my memory. I forced my eyes open, not wanting to see what happened next. What always happened when he had one too many and came home late, wanting a hot meal and willing wife.

The balled-up fist that could land a punch just as hard as any boxer could. The furniture knocked over and thrown against walls, shattering portraits of my childhood. Her tears. His vein-inducing anger.

And, in all that time, blow after blow… year after year… she never left him.

Even when I pleaded. Even when I helped clean her bleeding wounds. Even after she found out that he had cheated on her at some point and fathered my half-brother who I loved dearly but rarely got to see because of his touring schedule with his band.

She told me men were like that, they made mistakes, and it was a wife’s job to stand by her husband no matter what.

Fuck.
That.

I made my escape when I was seventeen. When he hit me for the first and last time. It was then I knew I’d never let a man into my life. Not like that. They all had a mean streak… an evil streak that eventually came out. Some used their fists. Others used their words or their straying dick to hurt you.

Buckets of acid poured over in my stomach as I pulled the sheet up to cover my nose, my knuckles white from gripping it so tight.

But, no matter how many times I told myself that, there was the old me… the innocent me deep down that called bullshit.

I knew I was jaded. Knew there was so much I didn’t know about love, because witnessing what grew between Maggie and Phillip told me I was wrong.

That there was a loophole to love.

But it was for girls like Maggie. Girls with fathers who didn’t make them feel like garbage or break their trust. Girls with mothers who taught them what a woman’s true strength was and didn’t tune the world out to avoid dealing with what was really happening.

I had neither growing up.

I had anger. Resentment. Abandonment.

I had only myself, and that was all I could trust.

MY EYES FELT RAW BY the time sunlight hugged the gathering morning clouds.

Maggie didn’t believe in curtains. The windows to her room were wide and long, showcasing the oceanic view like a prized painting.

I tried to roll away from the window, my eyes barely able to stay open, but it was the gusty breeze and the concerning grayish hue to the clouds that kept my mind from falling back into the arms of sleep.

Damn it all to hell.

Reaching for my thin pajama pants, I sat up, wiggling them up my legs. I thought about throwing a T-shirt over my sports bra, for Ed’s sake, but decided not to. This was who I was. This was what I wore. I wasn’t going to let a guy make me feel like I should have to cover myself up to keep the heat to a minimum.

Or maybe I just didn’t want to keep the heat low,
I thought with a smirk.

Trudging my way down the hall to the kitchen, I found Ed on the phone, cursing under his breath.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I reached on tiptoes for a mug to fill with coffee.

“You’re not gonna believe this, love,” Ed said as he spun around to answer me in just his pajama pants.

I pretended not to care he had the abs of a track runner. Ones I wanted to run my fingers and tongue over. Acted like I didn’t notice how his swimmer’s V pointed like an arrow to the exact spot I had the pleasure of feeling more than once.

My hormones did cartwheels inside the pit of my stomach, and I prayed to Aphrodite herself I wasn’t being delusional in thinking he hadn’t noticed just how quickly he had me wound up without even trying.

The subtle, sly glint in his warm, coppery eyes told me to keep on praying.

I cleared my throat for composure. “Believe what?” I asked, putting the mug to my lips and averting my eyes to the window.

He ran his hand up and down the back of his head, stretching his stomach as he said, “A storm’s heading this way. The kind planes won’t fly through.”

I nearly choked on my coffee.

“Yeah,” he said, getting the reaction he wanted from me. “I got Phil on the phone now. They’re trying to work out when we’ll be able to reschedule our flights.”

Storm? Reschedule?

I marched right over to him and yanked the phone from his hand. “Phil, put Maggie on the phone,” I demanded, my foot tapping against the tile.

Ed lifted an eyebrow at me.

I squinted at him. “Please,” I added for good measure.

Ed smirked as Phillip called out, “Sure thing. Hoops, Hannah needs to speak with you.”

My heart galloped in my chest like a racehorse as I listened to the steady flow of rain falling outside. As the nightmare from last night tried to work its way back into my mind.

“Hannah, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I mean, I knew there was a storm brewing out there, but its trajectory was all over the place. I didn’t think it would come that way.”

My heart decided to vacation in my throat. “Maggie,” I said, my voice shaking, “what kind of storm are we talking about here? Because you know me and storms don’t do well together.”

There was a soft, nervous sigh on her end before she said, “It’s a hurricane, Hannah, but it’s only like a category one. The winds will be too high, so all flights are canceled and all air traffic has been rerouted. But I don’t want you to worry. The house is reinforced for this kind of thing. I’ve been through a few, and I promise you everything will be fine. You’ll be fine.”

Only a category one. As if slapping a tiny, little number on a hurricane could ease the fact that I was going to be stuck on this island in the middle of a freaking storm that has the potential to devastate.

Storms don’t discriminate.

Ed stood next to me, watching my every move. Watched as I unraveled like a damn ball of yarn.

I turned my back on him. “Maggie, please tell me there’s another way off this island.”

Dead silence.

That was all the answer I needed.

I set the phone down against the counter and blindly made my way to the small kitchen table. Placing my hand against my chest, I took in slow, deep breaths, trying to calm my racing heart.

I couldn’t be trapped in Maggie’s house with a hurricane ripping around outside. I couldn’t. I couldn’t…

I couldn’t breathe.

Ed hung up the phone as my chest heaved up and down. He squatted in front of me, saying words I couldn’t make out through the loud ringing sound in my ears.

“I have to go, Ed. I can’t… we can’t stay here. Not with the storm. There’s… there’s nowhere to hide. No place to go.”

He stood up. Fiddled with something in the cabinet, and then made his way over to me, grabbing my hands and holding them firmly. “Here.” He placed a glass filled with amber-colored liquid in it in my hands. “Take this.”

I didn’t hesitate. I took the shot and waited for the warmth to spread through my limbs, offering the liquid courage I needed.

I expectantly held the glass out.

He filled it and I shot it, greedily tossing the liquid back.

He searched my face. “Better?”

I nodded, sagging in the chair as the warmth kicked in.

It was just rain. Just a little rain and a small delay. I’d be fine.

I’ll get through this.

We’d make it through this.

“WE’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE it!” I shouted as we dragged the mattress from Maggie’s room into the hallway.

Wind beat against the house like a stampede trying to trample over us. The rain had been pouring so hard for the last couple of hours. We were both soaked to the bone because Phil instructed us on how to lock the house up to maximize protection. That included closing the shutters outside.

Of course, every freaking wall in this house had to have multiple windows.

“Phil said this was the safest place to be in the house,” Ed said for the millionth time as we dropped the mattress and stepped back, our chests rising and falling at the same fast pace. Water dripped from the ends of his hair down the sharp angles of his face in a way that made my heart race a little faster.

He knocked on the walls, the sound thick. “See? Reinforced. Nothing’s getting through these walls, love,” he said encouragingly, his soaked shirt clinging against his skin.

“Right.” I snorted. “Call me crazy, but I think the loud, angry gusts of wind and sharp sounds of thunder beg to differ.”

Shivering from head to toe, I grabbed the half-empty bottle of whiskey I’d taken a few healthy swallows of throughout the afternoon and said, “Fuck it.”

Pressing the glass to my lips, I took as much of a chug as I could before Ed pulled the bottle away from me, telling me I needed to calm down on the alcohol.

“Calm down? You want me to calm down when there’s a storm outside that sounds like giants are falling from the damn clouds?” I tried to take the bottle back, but he yanked it away from me.

He took a large swig from it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ye want to get drunk? Fine. But ye’re not doing it alone, love. I’m not the designated babysitter.”

“Whatever.” I took the bottle he offered and chugged another healthy sip.

My throat was on fire and my brain was getting that warm, fuzzy feeling. The kind that let your guard down and had you shrugging your shoulders at the worst of situations.

“We need to get out of these clothes,” Ed said, pulling at his shirt. Puddles formed around our feet. I couldn’t help but giggle. I knew it was the alcohol kicking in, but I didn’t care.