Page 16 of Ebbing Tides (The Lighthouse Duology #2)

I shouldn't be thinking about her now, as my head tipped in time with Melanie's to deepen this kiss I'd dreamed of having since I had been a much younger man. I shouldn't sully Laura’s memory in this way, in this moment that suddenly felt an awful lot like infidelity.

I'm so sorry , I sent off toward the sky, yet I didn't stop—couldn’t if I wanted to, as I lost all semblance of free will.

Melanie took the lead—a welcome surprise—and steered us toward the countertop directly behind me.

I bumped into it; coffee cups clattered against each other, and the prehistoric coffee maker rattled.

Melanie's hands left my shoulders to lie flat against my cheeks.

She pressed her body flush against mine, her breath coming in heavy gusts.

Wanting, needing more, I took the reins and spun her around, pressing her to the countertop and reaching around to shove a mess of discarded coffee packets and stirrers aside and onto the floor.

Breathless, Melanie wrenched her mouth from mine and began to say, “What are you—”

But her words were cut short with a yelp of surprise when I lifted her onto the counter. Her thighs opened of their own accord, and I stepped between them, noting how good, how comfortable, how right it was to be there within her warmth.

I took her face once again between my palms.

“Is this okay?” I asked, grazing the tip of my nose along hers.

She nodded erratically, her eyelids drifting shut. “Yes.”

I answered with a gruff sound, barely a response at all, and I kissed her, hard and deep, until every part of my body hummed with an insatiable, undeniable need for more.

I wanted to touch every part of her. Wanted to memorize every slope, every curve with the tips of my fingers.

I wanted to know her, wanted to etch every whimpered gasp from her lips into my brain until I could hear them in the countless dreams to invade my sleep for the foreseeable future.

I throbbed with a heavy ache for it, and with a groan, I rested my forehead against hers to catch my breath and regain the control that was rapidly slipping through my trembling fingers.

“What's wrong?” Melanie asked, touching my face, neck, chest with her traveling fingers.

I tried to swallow the ever-growing lump in my throat, and then I chuckled.

Melanie answered with a throaty laugh of her own and asked again, “What?”

“I said I wanted you,” I replied.

“And?”

I laughed again, then cleared my throat. “I guess I'm just trying not to want you so much right now.”

The mirth left her eyes, the smile dropping from her face. “Max.”

I met her gaze. “Yeah?”

“I wouldn't be here if I didn't …” She let her words fade, and her tongue swiped over her flushed and swollen bottom lip.

Lord, my heart was frantic, wildly beating an irregular rhythm.

I'd been with my share of women. I was no stranger to lust and the ways of sex.

But this woman … I had set her so high on a pedestal, put her in a league so far outside of my own that the thought that she could want me as much seemed inconceivable.

It was unimaginable, outside any realm of possibility.

I needed to hear the words. Something more than just wanting my hands on her body and my lips on hers.

So, I waited, my eyes moving in an erratic dance over her rosy cheeks and full, wanton lips.

She closed her mouth and swallowed, a resolve falling over her features as she dragged her gaze back to mine. One small, lithe hand left the side of my neck to trail painstakingly over my chest, heading south.

“I thought about this for years,” she admitted, her words tentative and nearly unsure. “I regretted it.”

I shook my head. “No, don't say—”

“I wouldn't change a fucking thing,” she hurried to continue. “But if this is my only shot at a second chance, I want to take it.”

And she did, moving her hand lower, lower, lower until her fingers grazed my strained erection with a touch so tentative that I could've cried.

For me, for her … for a past and future we didn't have with each other or our dead spouses.

So simultaneously wrong and right that I didn't know which side to lean toward.

So, I pressed forward, capturing another kiss and another as one of my hands grasped the back of her neck and the other lowered to cup her heaving breast, caressing as her hand stroked and the height of our desire reached levels I’d thought impossible.

The night outside called in billowing winds and the scraping of outstretched branches against the office roof.

Sounds I would've normally ignored on any other night in the dead of February, but only listened now to memorize the symphony playing out around me, before me, above me.

Melanie's sighs and tiny moans. Our mouths, wet and needy, joined in a never-ending kiss.

The friction of her palm against my jeans.

Then the pause as she pulled away to tug her sweatshirt off, leaving her bare and braless and me staring and stunned, like an adolescent boy who'd just seen breasts for the first time in his life.

Melanie didn't have any patience for it.

“Take this off,” she demanded, already reaching for the buttons of my shirt.

“What's the rush?” I asked, even as I complied. “It's only midnight.”

I regretted the words immediately when she looked up at me, unamused and stern.

“Some of us have kids who wake up in the morning.”

A harsh, bitter sting accompanied the comment, one she couldn't have been aware of. No, she was good and wouldn't have hurt me intentionally, but, oh fuck, did it ever. Just days before the decade-long anniversary of when I'd lost every member of the family I'd built.

I dropped my eyes to the buttons, fumbling as I undid one, then another. My throat working around a boulder that was immediately big enough to choke the life out of me.

Melanie noticed my sudden lack of confidence, or maybe it was the tightness in my jaw or the reluctance of my fingers. Whatever it was, she took my hands in hers and asked, “Wait, do you have kids?”

“I told you I didn't,” I replied, aware now that sex was far from the forefront of my mind, even as I continued to remove my button-down shirt.

“ Did you have kids?”

Winner, winner chicken dinner.

I bit back a reply in the time it took to pull in a deep breath, then exhaled. But as I undid the last button and both sides of the shirt fell open, I allowed myself to nod.

“You had …” She swallowed, then asked, “How many?”

Jesus Christ, what she must've been thinking. I shook my head, hurrying to downplay and cover up my silliness.

“They were my stepdaughters. Two of them,” I said. “And Laura …” I closed my eyes and inhaled. “She was pregnant when she died.”

“Oh my God,” Melanie whispered. “I'm so sorry.”

I sucked in a deep, cleansing breath and opened my eyes to the breathtaking sight before me.

This woman, who'd once invaded my dreams, half naked beside the nearly broken coffeepot.

Her lips the color of fresh strawberries, her cheeks the color of roses.

Her eyes, shimmering in pools of tears for me and all I'd lost when she and her boys had lost enough themselves to deserve a lifetime of tears.

Luck had seldom knocked on my door, but tonight, it called me by name.

“Be sorry for me tomorrow,” I said, dropping my hands to the tie at her waist.

She worked at my jeans button and zipper as she asked, “Will you still want this tomorrow?”

“I have wanted this forever,” I replied, undoing the knot and holding either end of the string in my hands. “I'm not going to stop when the sun rises.”

Melanie's teeth dragged over her bottom lip as her gaze flitted across my face.

What was she seeing? Was she remembering what I had looked like as a younger man?

Smooth face and less wrinkled. Was she noticing the hairline that was more noticeably receding or the white that had peppered my facial hair years back but was new to her now?

Hell, it was all new, wasn't it? It was easy to forget that we'd only spent a mere few hours together years ago when it felt like so much more.

God, even now, standing between her open legs, I felt so much more familiar with her in a handful of hours than I had with most people in days, weeks, or even years.

Shit, there were men and women I'd served with for years who never stopped feeling like strangers, but Melanie …

I knew her in ways I could only describe as a familiarity of the soul, and I wondered if she'd deny it if I asked.

But I didn't have the chance because just then, without speaking another word, she smoothed her hands over my chest, opening my shirt, and leaned forward to replace her hands with her lips, just above my heart. I closed my eyes as her fingers carefully undid my jeans.

This is it , I thought, the point of no return .

And I held back a chuckle, thinking about all the years that had passed since Laura had died and Sid would ask with reluctance if I'd ever thought of dating, if I was lonely, if I was at all desperate …

even in the biblical sense. And I always said no , always told him I was just fine, being alone—and that had been the truth.

It was still the truth—for everyone else but her, this woman with me now.

She was the only person who could pull me from this self-appointed prison, and maybe it was dramatic, but I believed she was the only person who ever would.

Her hands laid against my waist and pushed both my jeans and boxer briefs over my hips.

The air, warm enough but cool to my recently unclothed skin.

Then her hands, warm and soft, wrapped around the length of my erection, and, fuck, it pulsed with tumultuous need.

Her fingers traveled, exploring as if she wasn't sure of herself or this moment.

God , I hoped she didn't regret what we were doing.