The Private Serials Box Set (33 page)

   My skin was warm from the sun, but hot from the way his tongue caressed mine, the way his fingers dug into the tender flesh of my neck.  His other arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me to him, but he also rolled over me, pinning me into the sand between our towels.

   His hand grazed the skin just above the back of my bikini bottom, fingertips sliding just barely into the elastic.  My heart trampled in my chest, and even though we were on a public beach, in broad, albeit dwindling, daylight, I couldn’t bring myself to stop him.  His hands felt too good on me.  Thankfully, his hand didn’t roam any farther and I trained my focus on letting him kiss me.

   My mind swirled with the feeling of him over me, his mouth taking everything from me: my breath, my voice, my ability to think clearly. 

   “Lena,” he finally rasped against my mouth, after what seemed like hours of making out on the beaches of Hawaii.

   “Yeah?”  I said, my hand raising up to run through his hair.

   “I think we should go back to the apartment.”

   I laughed at his to-the-point statement.  Nothing sexy about the way he said it, but sex was all he implied.  I kissed him through giggles, then laughed even harder when he pouted.

   “I’ve only just come up for air.  I’ve hardly spent any time with Sam.”  I trailed my hand down from his hair to his cheek, trying to soften the blow of my tiny rejection.  “We can go back to the apartment when it’s time for bed.”

   He rolled off me and motioned toward where Sam and Piper were still sitting in the waves.  “They wouldn’t notice if you left.  They’re entertaining themselves just fine.”

   “That’s not the point.”

   “I see my plan to get everyone here to force you into listening to me is backfiring.  You’re using my own weapons against me,” he said as he pressed his mouth into my neck, biting me gently.

   “We have plenty of time to spend together, don’t we?”

   He pulled back, suddenly looking very serious.  His hand started at my forehead, then moved down my dark hair, twining through the strands, gently tugging when he got to the ends.  “Yeah, sweetheart, we do.”

   “How long before you think you’ll have to go back to Portland?”  I asked the question even though I didn’t want to hear the answer.  In my perfect world, Preston and I would stay on this island forever, giving not one care about what happened back in Oregon, not letting anything taint the perfection we’d found in each other.  But I knew that was an unrealistic daydream.  I knew eventually we’d have to sort our shit out.

   “I’m not on a timeline, Lena.  I know how you feel about Portland, but we don’t have to go back there.  We don’t have to stay here either.  I can be a private investigator anywhere.  The only thing I need is you.  So, what do you want to do?”

   I looked at him, looked into the beautiful chocolate eyes I’d lost myself in so many times before, but would never tire of seeing.  Looked at his new, hipster beard, running my hand along his jaw.  Then I looked at his mouth, the mouth that was so expressive.  He was always smiling, or smirking, or grinning, or even pouting.  I leaned forward and pulled his bottom lip into my mouth, tugging just hard enough to get a low growl from him before I let it loose.

   Before I could answer, before I could tell him pretty much what he told me, that all I wanted for now was to be with him, the location ultimately unimportant, his mouth opened again.

   “I want you to know, though, Lena, the two months we were apart, I wasn’t just sitting around.”

   I inhaled deeply, my hand still resting on his cheek, his eyes not meeting mine.

   “I know you were here, trying to move on with your life, trying to forget everything that happened with Derrek, and I totally respect that.  I could go the rest of my life and never see his face again and I swear nothing, well, almost nothing, would make me happier.”

   His words were scaring me, my heart was thumping rapidly in my chest, and I could only imagine what he was alluding to.

   “But I couldn’t let him get away with it, Lena.  I couldn’t.  I also couldn’t come here without something to offer you, something to help prove I was, and will always be, on your side.”

   “What are you saying, Preston?  What did you do?”

   His eyes snapped to mine, and I’d never seen him so worried.  His eyes were almost frantic, looking back and forth between mine, as if he were afraid he’d never look into them again.

   “I found him.  I found Derrek.”

   My body snapped to attention.  “What?”

   “I found him.”

   “How?  Where? Wha—”

   “It was the only thing I could think of to do that would prove I was never working for him.  Not after I saw you.”

   “What did he say?”

   “I didn’t approach him.  Haven’t gone anywhere near him.  I didn’t know if that was something you would want.”

  “What I would want?”  I was nearly speechless, not able to wrap my mind around the fact that Preston had found him.

   “Sam told me he disappeared.”

   “He did.  Right after you left, he bolted.  But you were gone, and you didn’t want to be reached.  So, I did the only other thing I could think of.  I hunted him down, determined to make him pay for what he put you through.  I spent six weeks trailing him, following any lead I could find.  When I finally was sure I’d nailed him, I couldn’t do it.  I needed you more than I needed him, and I didn’t want to do anything that might take me farther away from any chance I had with you.”

   “You could have nailed him?  What the hell does that mean?”  My pulse was pounding, the very last thing I wanted was for Preston to go to jail, and I had no idea what nailing someone entailed.

   “Nothing major, just, you know, confronting him, trying to find some sort of information to convince him to give you what you deserve.”

   “I don’t need anything from him anymore,” I said firmly.

   “I know, baby,” he said, his hand coming up to my face.  “But you deserve so much more than what you walked away with.  He not only took what you earned in that marriage, but he took everything your father worked for too.”

   He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.  I’d given up thinking about everything Derrek had taken from me, mostly because I didn’t feel like there was anything to be done about it.  I’d signed every document he’d ever placed in front of me – and put in the position again, I’d do the same thing.  Every time I made one of those mistakes, I’d done it out of love for someone.  It wasn’t my fault that Derrek ended up being a complete bastard and took advantage of me and the love I had for him.  And it wasn’t my fault that some asshole beat the crap out of Piper and Preston was forced to agree to ruin me before we’d ever met.

   No, these problems were all Derrek’s fault.

   Suddenly, there was a fire inside of me.  I was angry.  More angry than I could ever remember being, and there was only one person responsible for the rage.

   Preston was here, offering me the opportunity to find Derrek and get back everything he’d taken from me.

   “You really think you can find him, you could find something to persuade him to give me what’s rightfully mine?”

   Preston’s eyes never left mine.  “All I know is that if it’s what you want, I’ll die trying to make it happen.”

   I looked at him, focused on his eyes, and I knew what I had to do.

   “All right,” I said firmly.  “Let’s find him.”

END OF PART THREE

Part Four

Private

Property

Chapter One

   There were few things in my world that could beat a morning cup of coffee on the beach in Hawaii.  However, watching Lena jog toward me in rather small shorts and a sports bra ranked higher than any other luxury.  I tried to ignore the fact that she was jogging with my baby sister, focusing more on the stretch and coil of the taut muscles in Lena’s legs.  Sam was also jogging with them, albeit reluctantly, but my feelings toward Sam also bordered on brotherly.

   Lena was the first woman in years who made my blood run hot.  She was also the first in years who I felt could match me in intelligence, humor, and—most importantly—in the bedroom.  It wasn’t even that Lena was overtly sexual—she wasn’t.  She was conservative in most areas of her life, including her body.  I considered myself supremely lucky to be privy to what she covered up with clothes.  I would forever be grateful that at the end of the day, she was in my bed, telling me about her day, and letting me turn her inside out with pleasure.

   I’d never been with a woman before who inspired me to find every single part of her body that could make her writhe, to spend as much time as possible using my mouth, hands, and cock to get her off.  A woman so perfectly made to fit me, it was as if we were pieces of the same puzzle.

   Being away from her for two months as I tried to find something to offer her, something to convince her that I wasn’t the man she’d been led to believe, was torture.  I was sure she’d come to Hawaii and, inevitably, some other man would try to fill up the part of her heart I’d left empty and I’d lose my chance to rectify our situation.  Piper had been my saving grace in those early weeks.  That critical time when, in most other situations, I’d try to fix the problem immediately.  I knew Lena needed something more, something I’d have to dig to find.

   Piper owed me nothing, but insisted on going to Lena and being my eyes when I couldn’t be there myself.  Parker had always been the brother to swoop in and save the day, and I’d been grateful when he’d decided to head to the island to help Piper.  Parker had a life back in Oregon, and his departure was harder on Lena than I’d anticipated.  She’d bonded with him in the small time they’d been together, but I was happy they’d connected.  I planned on keeping Lena in my life for a very long time, so her relationship with Parker was a tick in the pro column.

   I smiled as all three girls approached me. Lena’s eyes locked on to mine.

   “You’ve certainly become an early riser since you’ve come to Hawaii,” Piper said, her breath slightly labored.  She knelt down and placed her hands on her knees, taking in deep breaths.

  My eyes were still locked on Lena, but roamed down her body.  “I’d never really had a reason to get up early before.  But there are some sights in Hawaii you have to wake up early to appreciate.”

  Sam took clomping steps to join the group and then collapsed on the sand, not appearing to care that the sand would stick to the sweat covering her body.

   “I,” she said, then dragged in a deep gasping breath.  “Am never,” she rasped out before she took another breath.  “Jogging again.”  She was sucking in air as if she’d been trapped under water, deprived of oxygen.

   Lena smiled at her friend, but looked back at me.  “She’s used to jogging on a treadmill,” she said, her voice light and happy, finding joy in simply being with her friends, and me, I assumed.

   “Ah, yes,” I said, sipping my coffee.  “Running in the sand is a different exercise altogether.”

   “That’s not exercise,” Sam growled from the sand.  “It’s torture.”  She rolled to her side and stood up slowly, still breathing a little heavily, brushing sand from her body.  “The devil endorses beach jogging.”

   “Dibs on the shower!”  Piper sprinted past Sam, laughing, as she ran toward the apartment building the four of us were currently staying in.

   Lena laughed but Sam’s eyes narrowed at the disappearing Piper.

   “She’s going to regret that,” Sam said.

   “You can use our shower,” Lena offered. 

   Sam’s hands, which were still brushing sand away, stilled and her eyes darted from Lena to me.  “It’s all right.  I’ll wait.  Besides, it looks as though he’s about to eat you alive.”  Sam nodded toward me and I tried to hide my grin.  Sam had proven to be one of my biggest advocates in the last few weeks, and I appreciated her complete and unwavering support.  She also was exceptionally good at making herself scarce when I needed to be alone with Lena. 

   Sam winked at Lena and then limped off the same way Piper had gone.  Lena turned her smiling face to me and tilted her head to the side, her grin spreading.  “Are you going to eat me alive?”

   I walked to her, pulling her against my body, feeling the heat from her sweat-slicked body pressed up against mine, my hand sliding up her back to cup her neck just below her raven ponytail.  “Only if you’re a really good girl,” I said quietly, my lips at the shell of her ear.  I felt her shiver and myself harden.  Knowing the effect I had on her was the biggest turn on. 

   It had only been a week since I’d made my presence known to her.  Just seven days since I’d laid my whole story out, hoping she would believe me, that she would give herself to me again.  And in those seven days, after she had accepted that I never betrayed her the way she was led to believe, she’d been nothing but eager and responsive.  She wanted me just as much as I wanted her.

   My tongue darted out and pressed against the tender skin just under her ear.  The salty taste of her caused a low groan as I imagined how the rest of her tasted.  I felt her hands both come to rest on my forearms, then slide slowly up my shoulders.

   “If you weren’t holding that cup of coffee, I’d ask you to carry me upstairs right now,” she whispered, her breath hot on my ear.  My hand moved up, grabbing hold of her ponytail, pulling it down and forcing her eyes to look into mine.  I dropped my cup filled with coffee to the sand and pressed my now free hand to the swell of her backside, pulling her in to me, letting her feel my erection.

   “Be careful what you wish for, sweetheart,” I muttered, just before bending down and capturing her with my arms, and turning to carry her up the stairs.  She immediately started squirming, laughing and mildly complaining as I climbed the stairs with her in my grasp.