Where my hands landed against his shirt to push him away, my fingers clawed into the fabric and pulled instead. I opened my mouth to protest, and some little throaty sound came out that I didn’t recognize. Or then again I did. It had just been a while.
An electronic ring across the room broke the moment, and Ian backed up, maintaining eye contact and holding up a finger.
“Don’t leave,” he said, his voice strained. “Please.”
And on that, he turned and hit a button on a laptop that was perched on a stack of wooden crates. A face filled the screen, a wall of scuba gear behind him.
“Hey, buddy,” the face said.
Ian shuffled on his feet, passed a hand over his face, and glanced back at me before turning back to the guy on the screen.
“Sy.”
“You all right? Bad time?”
Ian shook his head and cleared his throat. “All good.”
All good.
I felt like I’d been branded into the wall. My muscles wouldn’t move, my lungs wouldn’t let go of the air I was holding. Fuck me. I was friggin’ paralyzed, whereas Ian looked like he’d been hit with a jolt of electricity and couldn’t be still.
If I questioned the idiocy of being there before, I sure as hell had those concerns justified now. I needed to turn and haul my ass out of there that second. While he was busy and couldn’t stop me. It wasn’t his words that kept me there, though, or my body’s reaction to him. Or even my previous need for answers. My frazzled brain wasn’t even processing that clearly anymore.
It was the look in his eyes. The tortured need in them as our heads touched and as he backed away from me that rendered me rooted to where I stood. In those few seconds, it was as if he’d found air for the first time in years. I knew it exactly, because I’d felt it pulled out of my lungs when he’d stepped back.
This was precisely why we needed to stay away from each other. Nothing had changed. He was still the wrong kind of drug. Granted, my body was still primed and in frustration mode from the previous night’s groping with Duncan, but this had been all Ian.
My hands trembled and I shoved them into my pockets so it wouldn’t show. I forced my shaky legs to take me to a nearby bar stool and sit like a normal person. I’d wait him out like he asked, but I would not show weakness.
“Whoa, who is that?” the face he’d called Sy said.
Crap, I didn’t think I was in the field of vision. I looked at Ian apologetically and gave a little finger wave.
“Hi. Sorry,” I said.
Ian’s demeanor had relaxed a bit within seconds of talking to his friend, and his mouth curved into a grin. “This is Syrus Jamison,” he said. “My partner and best bud.”
“Hey,” I said again, smiling awkwardly for the scruffy-looking hottie on the other end. He had a messy sharpness about him that said he could clean up into James Bond if he wanted to. “I’m Savanna Barnes.”
Ian’s gaze shot straight to his friend’s as Syrus’s eyebrows lifted.
“Savanna—as in Savi?
The
Savi Barnes?” he said. “Holy hell, descriptions never did you justice.”
Heat shot straight to my face, as if lava resided there. I gave the freezer the eye again.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, chuckling, trying to act normal. He’d talked about me. Why was I holding on to that like a fifteen-year-old girl?
“What’s the latest?” Ian said, clearly eager to get off of that and back to business.
Probably eager to get back to all of it. Back to Florida and scuba gear and scantily clad tourists in bikinis needing private dive lessons.
“Class registration for Rescue Diving doubled since they heard you aren’t teaching,” Syrus said, a wicked grin on his face.
Ian looked amused. “Don’t go easy on them, Sy.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got Rachel playing the hysterical woman to be saved, and Monroe’s the wild card, so they’ll be sufficiently stressed.
Ian laughed. “Good deal.”
“Number three is in for repair right now, the engine’s still overheating.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and the last storm really beat up the wreck dive so I’m thinking of bringing the premium tours out to the Cutters for a while. Bypass all that till it settles out.”
“Good idea,” Ian said, nodding. “Did the new pool chemicals work?”
“It’s all good, bud,” Sy said. “Nobody’s eyes are bleeding.”
Ian chuckled. “Thanks for stepping up, man. I appreciate it.”
“Step up, my ass,” Sy said. “I already do my shit and yours as it is.”
“Truer words, man,” Ian said, fist bumping the screen as Sy did the same. “Keep me in the loop if anything blows up, and I’ll call you in a few days.”
“Good to meet you, Savi,” Sy said. “You should come down to Key West sometime, hang out with a grouper or two.”
I laughed. “I don’t get many vacations.”
“Well, maybe one day,” he said. “Nice to see he didn’t just make you up. Never know with him.”
Again with that. I looked at Ian. Why on earth would he go to so much trouble to make me hate him, leave the state, and then tell his new BFF all about me?
“Good to meet you, Sy,” I said, smiling.
He nodded at Ian, who responded with, “Later, man.”
The screen went blue, and he turned to me as if he wasn’t sure what to do now. I knew what to do now. Leave. Tell him I really didn’t need to know what went down after all, if he needed to fuck someone else so be it, have a nice life. My mouth didn’t do any of those things. Our eyes met, and we both went back to that last moment before Sy called. I could still feel his shirt under my fingertips. Still feel the heat from his skin.
“He seems like a good guy,” I managed, trying for anything to break the weird.
Ian nodded. “Sy’s the best. He and Jerry—shit, they’ve been more family to me than my own blood.”
“Who’s Jerry?”
A fond smile transformed the stress on his face. “He’s an old salt. Ran tours with two boats for thirty years, and took me in. Made me work my ass off, but he taught me all there was to know about being a divemaster. Pushed me to keep going for instructor so that I would have options if I wanted them.”
“That how you got your business?” I asked.
Keep talking. Keep talking.
Ian picked up his discarded apron and looped it over his head, of course instantly reminding me of what he’d looked like yanking it off and bull-rushing me.
“Partially,” he said. “Jerry handed it off to us when he decided to retire, but we added the retail store and the classes.”
“Wow, you must have done well,” I said.
There was a pause. “We do all right,” he said.
That awkward moment crept in again, and I had to fill it with something.
“Well,” I said. “At least you got what you always wanted.”
Ian’s brows came together. “And that was?”
“Starting something of your own,” I said. “Making it without the family business.”
The haunted look returned to his eyes. “You think I got what I wanted?”
My chest got tight. Yeah, that plan didn’t work.
“Didn’t you?”
I watched his jaw work and he pointed to the back wall. “Did it feel like it over there?”
My heart sped up again at the recollection. Seeing Ian coming at me with all that—whatever—pinning me to the wall, and then—
“I can’t do this,” I said, the words falling out of my mouth without my doing. That was okay, though, it was true. It needed to be said. And I needed to get the hell out.
“Do what?”
“This,” I said, gesturing between us as I stood. “It’s just going to repeat itself over and over, Ian.” I pointed to the wall like he had. “That is going to happen again. And again, and again. As long as we are breathing the same air, no matter how much bad blood is between us. Because we’re toxic together.”
“Toxic?” he said, laughing, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Yes, toxic,” I said. I raked my fingers through my hair. “You said you wanted to explain things—” I stopped to gulp in some air as my heart was going double time. “You left me, Ian. You chose that. I decided a long time ago that it didn’t matter why. But okay. Explain. If all you’re gonna give me are riddles, though, then I have a dog to feed.”
He let a few beats pass. “Come over here.”
I blew out a breath. “This again.”
“Your dog isn’t the only one that needs to eat, Savi,” he said, holding his hands up. “I’m hungry, too. It’s been a long day.” He pointed to the meat still sitting on the block. “Now, we can talk while we do this, I won’t touch you, and we can eat like civilized people. Or you can go.” He took two steps forward. “I won’t stop you. Your choice.”
Go home. He gave you an out.
“Do I get an apron?” I said instead.
You’re a moron.
Chapter Ten
“Go with the grain,” Ian was saying.
I had a really sharp knife in my hand and a really annoyingly hot man behind me, and I was having trouble concentrating on the raw hunk of dead cow on the table.
“I’m trying,” I said, getting my knife hung up again.
“Not as easy as you thought? Carving up cows?”
“I have a weapon,” I said.
“I have three within reach and I’m faster,” he said.
“Don’t bet on it.”
When we started with the meat and put the other stuff aside, things lightened up considerably. An old comfortable banter had found its way back in, and it was actually fun. As long as I didn’t look at him, and he didn’t touch me, and we didn’t talk about anything more historical than the past ten minutes.
“Look,” he said, reaching around me and then stopping when I tensed. “I’m gonna cut it with you, okay?”
So much for that.
He put his hand over mine and pressed with more force, making my mouth go dry. He guided my hand and the knife’s blade through the cut like it was butter.
“Wow.”
“When you cut with the grain,” he said, his mouth now entirely too close to my head, “it not only makes for a prettier cut, but it cooks better. When you cross the grain, you lose a lot of the juices in cooking.”
Another chef. Glorious.
“Well, aren’t you just Wolfgang Puck?”
“No,” he said, letting go of my hand and stepping to the side. “Just a single guy who likes to eat well. How do you like yours cooked?”
“Medium-well,” I said.
He gave me a pained look. “You lose the flavor.”
“Also lose the blood,” I said. “I’m not a vampire.”
Ian shook his head. “Pink center.”
“Slightly.”
He cut his eyes my way as he seasoned up the meat like a pro. “You used to like it medium-rare.”
I frowned in surprise. “Yeah, well, I used to do a lot of things. And how do you remember that?”
He put the steaks in a hot pan to sear them and the sizzle caused the aromas to fill the air.
“I remember a lot of things.”
I looked at his profile when he said those words, the pain in his tone pulling me in, not letting me look away. After a few seconds, he met my gaze, and I flashed back eleven years. The last time I watched him cook for me.
They were cooking. The sight made my breath catch in my chest. Ian and Abby, side by side, heads bent together. She was standing barefooted, with her ratty Snoopy pajamas still on, hair falling out of last night’s ponytail. Stirring pancake batter in a bowl as Ian cooked bacon, sizzling in a skillet.
He stayed.
This was what that looked like.
“You have to almost burn it,” she was saying.
“Burn it?” he said, overly mocking her. “Who likes burnt bacon?”
“I said almost,” Abby said. “There’s magic in knowing just when to pull it.”
I bit my lip, hearing her repeat my words.
“Magic—really now,” Ian said, amusement in his tone. “I don’t know about all that.”
“Well, you’ll know when you do it right,” she said, nudging him with her elbow.
“Don’t get all cocky there, Sparky,” he said, gently elbowing her in the head.
He stayed.
“You know I hate that nickname,” she said.
“You love that nickname,” he said.
“It sounds like a cartoon character.”
“Well, have you ever seen yourself all wound up, hair flopping everywhere?” he said, and then pointed at her bowl. “Better not be any hair in there.”
“There’s not.”
Ian turned to grab a plate behind him and caught me watching them. The smile that spread over his face nearly buckled my knees. Warmth shot from my scalp to the soles of my feet. This was what real felt like. Finally.
“Look who evidently smelled bacon,” he said.