Wallbanger (36 page)

“How about this?” he finally said, resting on his elbows, face intense. “As I mentioned earlier, I broke it off with Lizzie.”

I stared back, barely breathing. I tried to play it cool, so cool, but I couldn’t stop the grin sneaking across my face.

“I see you are not at all broken up by this,” he scoffed, sitting back in his chair.

“Not so much, no. Want the truth?” I asked, the grin ushering in a sudden surge of confidence.

“Truth would be good.”

“I mean
truth
truth, back-and-forth truth. No witty comebacks, no snappy banter—although we do give great banter.”

“We do, but I could go for some truth,” he said, his voice quiet as his sapphire eyes blazed away at me.

“Okay, truth. I’m glad you broke things off with Lizzie.”

“You are, are you?”

“Yes. Why did you? Truth now,” I reminded him. He regarded me for a moment, sipped his coffee, ran his hands through his hair in a maniacal way, and took a deep breath.

“Okay, truth. I broke it off with Lizzie because I didn’t want to be with her any more. With any other women, in fact,” he finished, setting his cup down. “I’m sure we’ll always be friends, but the truth is, I’ve been finding lately that three women? It’s a lot for me to handle. I’m thinking of paring things down a bit, maybe trying just one for a while.” He smiled, the blue getting dangerous.

Knowing I was a grin and a clench away from total embarrassment, I stood quickly and went to dump my coffee in the sink. I paused there for a second, only a second, thoughts whirling. He was single. He was…single. Sweet mother of pearl, Wallbanger was
single
.

I felt him move across the kitchen and come to stand behind me. I froze, feeling his hands gently brush my hair away from my shoulders and slip down to my hips. His mouth—his ever-loving mouth—barely touched the shell of my ear, and he whispered.

“Truth? I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Still facing away from him, my mouth dropped open and my eyes went wide, torn between fist pumping and actual kitchen sex. Before I could decide, his mouth moved more purposefully, pressing into the skin just below my ear and making my brain burn and parts below dance a jig.

His hands gripped my hips, and he turned me toward him—to face that body and grin—I quickly composed my face, trying desperately to keep it together.

“Truth? I’ve been thinking about you since the night you banged on my door,” he whispered, bending down to kiss the hollow of my neck with breathtaking precision. His hair tickled my nose, and I fought to keep my hands to myself. He pushed me to the side a little and surprised me by lifting me onto the counter. My legs automatically opened to allow him between them, the Universal Law of Wallbanger superseding any actual thought I had in my head. Not to worry, my thighs knew what to do.

One of his hands snuck around to the small of my back, while the other gripped the back of my neck. “Truth?” he asked one more time, pulling my hips to the edge of the counter, which forced me to lean back as my legs once more went on auto-pilot and wrapped themselves around his waist. “I want you in Spain,” he breathed, then brought his mouth to mine.

Somewhere, a kitty began to call…and an O finally began her journey home.

“More wine, Mr. Parker?”

“No more for me. Caroline?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” I stretched out luxuriously in my seat. First class to LaGuardia, then first class all the way to Malaga, Spain. We’d be taking a car from there to Nerja, the small coastal town where Simon had rented a house. Scuba diving, spelunking, hiking, beautiful beaches, and mountains, all set in a quaint village.

Simon squirmed in his seat and shot an angry look over his shoulder.

“What? What’s the problem?” I asked, looking behind and seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

“That kid keeps banging my seat,” he grumbled through clenched teeth.

I laughed for a solid twenty minutes.

Chapter Sixteen

“W
E
D
ID
I
T
T
OO
S
OON
. We should have waited.”

“We waited long enough—are you kidding? You know I was right. It was time to do it.”

“Time to do it, what a crock! We could have waited just a little longer, and then we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.”

“Well, I didn’t hear you complaining at the time. You seemed pretty pleased, as I recall.”

“I couldn’t complain, my mouth was full. But I had a feeling. I just knew this was wrong, what we were doing was inherently wrong.”

“Okay, I give up. You tell me how to fix this.”

“Well, for starters, you’re holding it upside down,” I shot back, grabbing the map and turning it right side up. We’d been parked along the side of the road for five minutes, trying to figure out how to get to Nerja.

After landing in Malaga, navigating customs, navigating the rental car system, and finally navigating our way successfully away from the city center, we were now lost. Simon drove, so I was in charge of the map. And by that I mean he took it away from me every ten minutes or so, looked it over, hmm-ed and hawed, and then thrust it back my way. He didn’t actually listen to anything I had to say, instead relying on his innate man-map. He also refused to turn on the GPS that had been provided for us, determined to get us there the old-fashioned way.

Which is why we were now lost. Taking a train would have been too easy. Simon needed a car to get around for his photos, which
was
ultimately why we were here. After flying through the night, we were both exhausted, but the best way to fight jet lag, allegedly, was to get on local time as quickly as possible. We had both agreed not to nap until we could go to sleep that night.

Now we argued about where we took the wrong turn. I’d been devouring some churros from a roadside stand when the wrong turn supposedly took place, and so we played “Place the Blame.”

“All I’m saying is that if someone hadn’t been stuffing her face and was watching for the turn, we wouldn’t be—”

“Stuffing
my
face? Seriously? You were stealing
my
churros. I told you to get your own when we stopped!”

“Well, I wasn’t hungry at first, but then you were smacking your lips and licking that chocolate, and well…I got distracted.” He looked up from the map, which he’d spread out on the hood of the car, and grinned, breaking the tension.

“Distracted?” I grinned back, leaning a little closer. As he looked at the map, I looked at him. How could someone who’d been on a plane for the last hundred years look as good as he did? But there he was, faded jeans, black T-shirt, dark blue North Face jacket. Twenty-four hours of stubble begging to be licked. Who licked stubble? Me, that’s who. He braced himself on his arms as he studied the map, his lips moving silently as he tried to figure it out. I snuck underneath his arms, draping myself across the hood of the car as shamelessly as a pinup girl in a garage calendar.

“Can I make a suggestion?”

“It is a lewd suggestion?”

“Surprisingly no. Can we please turn on the GPS? I’d like to make it there before I have to leave in a few days,” I moaned. Due to my last-minute booking, I had to fly back a day before Simon. But five days in Spain…I was not complaining.

“Caroline, only pussies use GPS,” he scoffed, turning to the map again.

“Well, this pussy is dying for some dinner, and a shower, and a bed, and to get rid of this jet lag. So unless you want to see me reenact
It Happened One Night
, Spanish version, turn on the GPS, Simon.” I grabbed him by the North Face and pulled him down to me. “Did that sound harsh?” I whispered, giving him the tiniest of kisses on the chin.

“Yes, I’m terrified of you now.”

“Does this mean GPS?”

“It means GPS.” He sighed resignedly, leaning back and pulling me off the car with him. I gave a little cheer and started for the door.

“No, no, no, you were harsh, Nightie Girl. I’m gonna need some sugar,” he instructed, eyes twinkling.

“You need some sugar?” I asked.

He tugged on my arm, bringing me back to him. “Yes, I require it.”

“You’re twisted, Simon.” I leaned into him, slipping my arms around his neck.

“You have no idea.” He licked his lips and waggled his eyebrows like an old-timey gangster.

“Come get your sugar,” I teased as he brought his lips to mine.

I would never get tired of kissing Simon. I mean, how could you? Since the night he “truthed” me right up on to my kitchen counter, we’d slowly been exploring this new side of our relationship. Underneath all the snark and spark, there’d been some serious sexual tension building these many months. And we were letting it all out—albeit slowly. Sure, we could’ve raced right back to the bedroom that night and let the sex ring out across the city for days, but Simon and I, without saying a word, seemed to be on the same page for once, and were content to let this unfold.

He was wooing me. And I was letting him woo. I wanted the woo. I deserved the woo. I needed the wow that would surely follow the woo, but for now, the woo? It was whoa.

And speaking of woo…

My hands slipped into his hair, tugging and twisting and trying to pull his entire body inside my own. He groaned into my mouth, I felt his tongue touch mine, and I fell apart at the seams. I sighed, the tiniest whimper, and it became harder and harder to kiss him due to the giant grin overtaking my face.

He pulled back a little and laughed. “You sure look happy.”

“Keep kissing me, please,” I insisted, bringing his face back to mine.

“It’s like kissing a jack ’o’ lantern. What’s with the grin?” He smiled down at me with a grin that looked as wide as my own.

“We’re in Spain, Simon. Grinning is implied.” I sighed contentedly, messing with his hair.

“And here I thought it was all to do with my kissing,” he answered, kissing me again, gently, sweetly.

“Okay, cowboy, ready to see where the GPS takes us?” I asked, stepping away. I couldn’t keep my hands on him for too long or we’d never leave.

“Let’s see how lost we really are.” He smiled and we were on our way.

“I think this is the turn…Yep, this is it,” he said.

I bounced in my seat. Turned out we were closer than we thought, and we’d gotten a bit antsy. As we made one last turn, we looked at each other, and I squealed. We’d seen bits of the ocean for the last few miles or so—peeking out behind a stand of trees or over a cliff. Now, as we turned down a tiny cobblestone drive, the realization that Simon had rented a house not just
near
the beach, but
on
the beach washed over me, and I was silenced by the sight.

Simon pulled up to the house, the tires crunching on the rounded stones. When he turned the car off, I could hear the waves crashing against the rocky coast about a hundred feet away. We sat for a moment, just taking it all in and grinning at each other, before I scrambled out of the car.