Page 26

“ W hat’d my brother say to you?” Ryder casually inquired a few minutes into our drive.

“He just wanted to know where we were going.” Not a lie, but not the whole truth.

The whole truth entailed Leif’s scheming eyes across my collarbone as he tried to decode my body language for secrets.

I still kicked myself for that slip of impulse when he’d asked about my necklace.

“And what’d you tell him?”

“I said we were going to Ano Nuevo.” The gentle clinks of the keys swinging against one another filled the silence that followed.

I knew he was smirking without even looking at him.

“It was the first thing that came to mind!”

He laughed and slapped the leather seat with his palm.

“I’m not that wholesome.”

“That’s what he said,” I grumbled.

“But you planted it in his mind.” Ryder sighed.

“So, we should at least do a drive-by.”

My head swiveled towards him, but his attention didn’t leave the two-lane road.

Confusion brought my brows together, flipped my lips into a frown.

“Don’t we have to get to Half Moon Bay?”

“We can spare a few minutes.” He shot me an infuriating wink that made my heart race.

“For our alibi.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but that word had me thinking, watching the mirror for a certain motorcycle trailing in our exhaust. I hid the lapis, as if the cup of my hand could shield it from any threats.

Leif’s concern about our whereabouts started to feel more and more suspect as I replayed his interest in it—and the fact that we had to divert from our route in case he came to check.

I gazed at the flurry of trees on my right, green buds blooming between the red-black branches marred by a recent fire, the woodland broken apart every few miles by acres of lush golden farmland.

Suddenly, the truck swung towards the crushed grass that lined the roadside and idled parallel to the lane’s white line.

My stomach knotted as I glanced left, right, behind.

“Why are we stopping?”

Ryder hopped out and strolled around the hood, coming to the passenger side.

The sun highlighted the curve of his muscles as he crossed his arms and rested them on the base of my window.

“It’s your turn to drive.”

For a second my heart stopped.

“What? Now?”

“Yes, now. You need all the practice you can get. Now scoot.” He shooed me with a flap of his fingers, then slid in.

Panic swaddled me in a sheet of sweat as I brought my hands to the wheel.

Groaning, I shot him a look that said, Really ?

He patted the gear stick, waiting to blanket my hand with his.

“Just to Ano Nuevo. It’s no more than fifteen minutes away. Although…” His chuckle was a harsh reminder of the last time we did this, and I went twenty miles per hour in a forty zone.

“It’s an easy, uncongested road. You’ll be fine.”

My pulse tumbled from my chest to my gut, drumming up an emotion almost identical to what I was already feeling but was too stubborn to admit: excitement.

A quick review of the basics—clutch, brake, shift—and this time I didn’t wait for him to tell me to press on the gas and release the other pedals.

This time we didn’t stall or rev or lurch.

Okay maybe we lurched a few times; the rolling hills were new.

But for the most part we coasted, weightless and toasty from cruising with the speed and the wind.

The ocean sparkled on my left, and the forested hills dotted the horizon on my right.

And Ryder’s stare, as vast as the world in front of me, danced over my body, my face, like the tendrils of light pouring in from the baby blue sky.

The tension slowly eased from my jaw and my shoulders in the heat of his gaze, and the beautiful calm of the drive.

His thumb stroked my pinky, and I realized abruptly that he had never removed his hand from mine.

It circled the side of my palm, providing a whole other sort of rush—one that had me contemplating looking for a turnout and putting this bad boy in park.

Which I eventually did, but not because of my completely inappropriate thoughts.

We’d arrived at Ano Nuevo, purple and pink lupine and heavy cypress bordering the empty visitor lot.

I hadn’t even realized we’d made it.

“That’s weird,” I said.

“Hm?” Ryder twirled his wrists.

“I lost track of what I was doing.” I let out a yawn.

He caught it. “One minute we were on the road, the next we were here. Like I was on autopilot.”

A sleepy smile raised his cheekbones, rosy from the sun.

“It’s normal to zone out when you’re driving, especially longer distances. Relaxing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I admitted, surprising myself.

Tucking my shoulders behind me, I drew my arms back, a buttery satisfaction exuding from the stretch.

“Ready to switch?”

“Turn off the car.”

Objection bubbled in my throat.

I’d thought about doing that one too many times on the ride here.

When I met his eyes with a challenging stare, those golden-green specks blazed bright with excitement.

“Don’t give me that damning look.” He smirked.

“I want to show you something.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now ,” he repeated, exiting the vehicle.

“Come on.”

Weapon grabs were one thing, but biding our time like two seniors ditching math class when my destiny and potentially my safety were at stake?

I glared at him through the windshield, his fitted black t-shirt creeping up his lower abs while he waited outside and extended his long, athletic arms overhead.

The tat with the flowing rapids of water snuck out from his sleeve again, while the light gleamed off the V lines carved into his hips.

I blinked and he had already converted to his innate stillness, thumbs tucked into his belt loop, close to the knife at the waistband.

I wished there was a simple explanation as to why my feet hit the corroded asphalt and I strutted towards the guy with the emerald fire in his eyes.

Why when he flashed a true smile, the kind that displayed his dimples, like right now, it made my insides melt and freeze at the same time.

Why with a single gesture he made me feel like the ugliest parts of me were not only worth saving, but worth exploring.

This could get so damn messy.

But I was ready to get my hands dirty.

Ignoring every red flag, I reached his side, and we trekked the crushed golden-granite path towards the ocean.

We journeyed through the bushy headland, passing a pond layered in algae and surrounded by cattails, the mossy surface only broken by foraging herons.

And then we descended crumbling steps framed by poison oak coils, until we finally reached an expansive beach spotted with blanched driftwood.

Shoes plunging into the dunes, we strode to the northernmost bluff jutting out to the sea.

A fissure in the rock, invisible from across the sand due to its crags and jagged arches, revealed itself when we reached its base.

The music of the ocean roared against walls smoothed by the tide.

Only when the water shrunk far back enough in between sets were we able to cross through the tunnel to the other side.

And now we stood in a cove and waited.

“What exactly are we waiting for?” I shot Ryder a look, but his eyes didn’t stray from the water.

And waited.

I tilted my hip, shifting my weight onto it, about to ask again.

He shushed me with a light, teasing finger on my lips.

With a playful swat I knocked it away as we continued to stand, and wait, in this pristine crescent-shaped clearing, its naturally formed ramparts ancient and sacred—a mural of shells and fossils unearthed in the fresh copper soil from the small earth slides from the cliffs.

Tucked away here, we watched the water creep towards the soles of our shoes, rainbows reflecting in the tips of the waves that crashed on the diamond-flecked sand.

The cove thrummed with a power that encased my skin like the salty brine on the tepid breeze, and then…

a massive, opalescent blob jumped out of the ocean, and splashed back in.

I blinked, unsure of what I had seen.

Before I could ask, I covered my mouth in shock, as a group of similar creatures followed suit—breaching, spinning, diving, much like a pod of dolphins, their lustrous coats of blubber shimmering with a pink and turquoise ombré sheen.

Elephant seals—the otherworldly kind.

Or maybe they were the same mammalian species I’d grown to know and love, but I’d never given myself the chance to look past the surface and truly see them for what they were.

Regardless, they weren’t ghastly; they were beautiful.

Only a miserable fool would say otherwise.

Tears pricked my eyes as they rotated through the air, nimble as torpedoes.

Right then and there, I knew that when I got to show Javi this world, this’d be the place I’d do it.

If he ever forgave me.

A whisper tickled my ear.

“What do you think?”

“They’re the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.” I turned to my companion to find him fixed on me—not on the ethereal creatures springing out of the water, but me .

I dipped my chin and let out a low, laughy breath, an attempt to downplay my tear-flecked eyes, the wonder written all over my face.

“I agree,” he responded, guttural and absolutely yielding, his breath taken by the sight of me, just as mine had been taken by seeing the magic in the waves.

“Well…Leif was right about one thing,” I said, filling the space with mindless words to cover the sound of my pounding heart.

“This is way too wholesome for you.”

“Well…” He took a step forward, the minty burn of his words coating my lips as a finger traced my jawline, then cupped my chin.

“I know how we can make this experience a little less wholesome.” The suggestion came in the form of a low, silken growl, stemming from the deepest part of his throat.

“Well…” I mimicked his movement, leaving nothing more than a sliver of charged air between us.

“We wouldn’t want to risk your reputation.”

In one fluid motion, his hand dropped from my chin to my lower back.

Resting on the slope, his fingertips slid into my jeans’ back pockets.

I rose onto my tiptoes, and his entire body stilled as our mouths met.

The heat of embarrassment flooded me—was I about to be denied?

My heels dropped an inch, and then his lips parted against mine and he scooped me into his sculpted chest. Whatever doubts I felt about him—about us—melted away as his tongue slipped past my teeth.

I answered its patterns, my senses severed from feeling anything except the circular motions it made.

His touch was like the pull of the undertow.

Once I was caught in it, it threatened to drown me, but I gave in to it without thinking.

We swayed, riding our own current towards the shelter of the bluffs.

The brittle sediment crumbled beneath my spine as he hoisted me onto a natural ledge, and I curled my legs around his hips.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked like he was coming up for air from a dive far too deep.

“Yeah.” My words trembled against his lips, the cavity intertwining our breathless voices with the ocean’s bellows.

His hands followed the outline of my waist, slowly skimming the outer arc of my thighs.

I gripped the hem of his shirt, and we broke apart for less than a heartbeat for me to pull it over his head.

I took in his naked upper body, so imperfectly perfect, with its nicks and moles, defined in all the right places.

My hands swept over the peaks and valleys of his muscles, across the scars along his back, so similar to mine…

He was a blanket I wanted to wrap myself in, so I covered every inch of myself with his warm ivory skin.

The flimsy straps of my tank slid off my shoulders as his kisses drifted from my mouth.

Stamping my jaw, trailing beneath my ear, brushing down my neck.

I dragged my fingers through his hair, the smooth strands of his grown-out locks the perfect part of him to hold on to as he sucked on my collarbone and pressed his hips into me.

A pounding wave broke with my moan as he pulled the bust of my top down and the cool brush of air peaked my nipples.

His eyes widened at the bare sight of them.

“Arch your back for me a bit, baby.”

I sat up a tad straighter, slightly bending my spine.

“Like that?”

“Yes, oh my God.” He cupped the lower swell of my breasts with tentative hands.

“So, so perfect. I cannot wait to get these beautiful things in my mouth.”

“I”—I gasped as he did just that, suctioning the rougher, pigmented part of my skin with a slight graze of his teeth—“I don’t know about that.”

“What?” he asked with a gentle tug that sent a shivery bolt through my heart and settled between my thighs.

My head shot back, every ounce of awareness honing in on that spot.

“They’re just your average boobs.”

“Oh no, they are perky little bells, and you have the most exquisite nipples. Like I said, they’re perfect.” His tongue did figure eights around the hard, sensitive point as he massaged the other with his hand, his callouses a pleasant scrape against my tender skin.

“Everything about you is.” He switched, and I was seeing stars at the light nips and pressure as he fondled them like they truly were the most magnificent things to bless this Earth.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the night we met.” My lashes fluttered shut.

He returned to my mouth.

I peeked through slitted eyes, knowing he did the same once I closed them, and my fingers traveled to his waistband.

For a moment I let my imagination take me to a dark, sultry place within the shadows of the rocky overhang, where we were reduced to nothing but feelings and flesh.

Where I succumbed to the increasing roll of his hips and spread for the hardness pitched between them, and the motion of our bodies swelled with the waves.

Where I was a tide of nerves and pleasure, a surge of magic and release, and Ryder was the gravity that moved me.

I had these urges—normal, human urges.

But I knew more than anyone that bodies and minds don’t always match up, and that night with Chet I didn’t want it, no matter what the slickness between my legs relayed.

I dismissed the unwanted thought, as intrusive as its namesake, and lifted the strap from Ryder’s buckle, because this…

this was different. This was my choice.

My fingers froze.

I wanted this.

I did. My grip tremored as the belt’s prong released and a swell of nervous heat overtook me.

The rocky nook suddenly felt like a prison where my pain would be recorded on the walls with my nails.

The tension heightened and changed, like the rawness had coiled into something jagged that would tear me apart.

Up against the wall, trapped beneath his chest, it’d be so easy for him to take me.

No one would hear us.

He might or might not stop.

I winced, slowing as he continued to claim me—then he paused, his swollen pout featherlight on my lips.

I expelled a sigh, one of equal parts desire and relief.

He backed away, the fire tamed but still smoldering, taking all of me in.

Every hair, every freckle, every rise and fall of my chest. I waited for the snarls, for the sexual slurs, for his anger from the sting of rejection.

Instead, he picked his shirt up off the damp sand, pulled it down over his head, and outstretched a tattooed hand as he waited to guide me into the open air of the clearing.

I slid the straps over my shoulders and cinched up my snug top as my muscles began to shake.

Ryder was unreadable as he stared at the uneven patches of skin on his palm, averting his eyes while I took what seemed like forever to get myself dressed.

Then I accepted his hand and we headed for the narrow split in the bluff where we first entered the cove.

There was another kind of demon that followed our footprints, invisible and unrelenting.

Livid at myself and embarrassed for ruining the moment, I did what I do best: shut down my emotions and buried the old wounds.

The crushing quiet bored into me as we trudged through the sand.

I wanted to spit out the most cliché line ever, it’s not you it’s me , to let Ryder know my freak reaction had nothing to do with him.

Halting, I reached for his elbow, panting from the walk or the aftereffects of what had just happened.

But instead of saying what I needed to get off my chest, I blurted out, “He asked me about my necklace.”

“What?” Those powerful shoulders of his stiffened.

“Leif. He said he’d been looking for one like it.” I bit down against the searing frustration that bubbled up inside me for deflecting.

Ryder slowly turned to face me.

“Did you tell him?”

I nodded and took a deep breath, not realizing my hand had flown back to the pendant, clutching it tightly.

My brain sparred with my heart.

“I’m sorry I pulled away back there.”

“You…” He sighed with a heavy longing, his stance softening.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. One look at you and I…” His gaze drifted over my body before meeting my eyes.

“I got carried away. I need to control myself better.”

“You did , though.” Without thinking, I fisted his shirt, twisting the soft fabric as I spoke.

“You listened to me, Ryder, and I didn’t have to say anything out loud. A courtesy that wasn’t given to me the last time I…” A quiet sob cut off my confession.

I squeezed my eyelids together in attempt to stave off the memory.

But the mental anguish from that misogynistic, over-beefed jock hit me as hard and fast as the adrenaline from Ryder’s kisses.

With a gentle coax, Ryder settled me into the crook of his chest, seemingly unnerved by the messy emotions that’d been on lock for so long and were now spewing out of me.

I folded into his arms delicately draped across my back, dabbing my lashes against his tee.

For once, his silence didn’t drive me crazy.

I was grateful for it.

He bent to kiss me one last time—a sweet, loving peck to my forehead.

It felt like a promise.

Or a goodbye.

I wasn’t sure which.