Page 30 of Beach Cottage Kisses

Scrambling for a way to fix the damage.

There had to be one.

Dressing. The first step.

Iris obviously felt the same, judging by the speed with which she’d righted her leggings, getting them back on both feet and up.

She hadn’t been wearing panties.

Not something he was ever going to forget.

He opened his mouth to apologize. Glanced at her. Got caught in the green-eyed gaze.

And heard himself ask, “What are you thinking?”

Did they say goodbye politely? Pretend that they’d hang out on the beach again when they both knew they wouldn’t? Couldn’t?

She seemed far more collected than he was as she continued to study him. “You sure you want the truth?”

No. But he said, “Yes.”

“I think we just had to get the damned thing out of us.”

He blinked. Reared back slightly.

“It wasn’t going away,” she pointed out, sounding just like…his friend Iris. “Were we really going to let our bodies ruin a three-year friendship that’s valued equally by both of us?”

She valued him.

As much as he valued her.

The point was key. Stuck. He held on to it as he said, “You know how I am. No expectations. No pressure. No promises.”

“Yes.” She almost smiled as she said, “And you know I don’t believe in the whole two-people-being-together-forever kind of thing.”

There was a point there. He wanted to find it. Saw his way clearly. “We’re both strong, independent, determined, successful professionals. Made so by the single-focused drive to be just that.” It wasn’t going to change.Hewasn’t going to change.

Wasn’t willing to risk another failed marriage on the chance that he could. He still struggled to live with the man who’d so neglected his first wife that he hadn’t even known she’d moved out.

“And that right there is why we’re friends.”

Her statement on the tail end of his thought of failure confused him for the second it took him to backtrack to the statement he’d made aloud.

Clarity started to show itself. “We’re determined enough that we put an end to the physical desire raging between us,” he told her. “We took it on, ended the torment. Shined a light right in the face of it. Our life choices reign.” They’d killed the beast.

Without getting emotional. Or looking for more from each other.

He definitely felt more relaxed.

“Exactly,” she said. Her look showing every ounce of her strength and determination.

He had to expound, just to be sure. “So…tomorrow? If we happen to get home from work in time and meet on the beach…we shoot the breeze a bit.”

“Same as always.”

He liked it.

Saw the logic in it.