Page 19 of The Love Game

As she spoke, he kissed her fingertips. If she’d stopped to think about it she’d have realised the folly of her words, because even that barely-there touch of his mouth was enough to tell her she was kidding herself.

Then he shifted her hand up and kissed her palm, his lashes lowered, tilting his head to let his lips slide down slowly over the pulse point in her wrist. She leaned into the heat of his body, gasping at the touch of his tongue on her skin.

And then he circled his arm around her body, holding her against him, and she tilted her head back as he lowered his.

He kissed her slowly, deeply, opening her lips under his own, sighing into her mouth at the slide of her tongue over his.

He controlled it, built it, until she snapped and pushed her hands into his hair and took the kiss from sensual to X-rated.

He leaned into her until her back pressed against the glass, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him, scared by how turned on she was.

‘You’re crying,’ he whispered into her mouth, slowing the kiss down to agonising and sweet. ‘Don’t cry, mermaid girl.’

‘It’s just that …’

‘Shh,’ he sank his teeth into her bottom lip then kissed it better. ‘It’s just a kiss. Hardly anything, really.’ He wrapped both arms around her, holding her tight.

‘I shouldn’t have asked you to do it,’ she said, still kissing him because she didn’t want it to end.

‘I think it was the best idea you’ve ever had,’ he said, licking his tongue back into her mouth, cupping her face, stroking his thumbs across her cheekbones.

And then they didn’t say anything for a few minutes, because the kiss was too intense, too deep, too vulnerable, too fragile and close to be able to withstand conversation.

Cal had known that kissing Violet wasn’t going to be hideous.

He’d been imagining how she’d taste from the first moment he met her, and his imagination hadn’t done her justice.

Her skin smelt of fresh bed sheets after a shower and of the beach at sunrise, and the sea-salt on her warm lips gave way to rich, deep sweetness when she opened her mouth for him.

He could taste the wine they’d shared, and her excitement, and the way she flipped from being kissed to kissing him was dynamite in his veins.

She was delicious, and for a few minutes he threw all of his reasons not to get involved with her off the end of the pier and just let himself be a man kissing a woman because she was lovely and she’d asked him to.

He wasn’t the black sheep of the family, or the failed husband, or the perceived Jack the lad.

For those minutes, he wasn’t any of the labels so frequently attached to him by other people.

He was just Calvin Dearheart, a man with a temporary clean slate and it felt so damn good.

She felt so damn good. She was too damn good for a man like him, but Jesus, when she kissed him like that he lost every rational thought in favour of just wanting more, and more, and more.

‘Cal? Violet?’

They jumped guiltily apart at the sound of Keris’s voice carrying through from outside the birdcage.

‘Shit,’ Violet said, wide-eyed and shaky.

‘I dropped the bolt when I came in,’ he said. ‘Don’t panic, it’s okay.’

She nodded, pressing her fingers to her kiss-swollen mouth. ‘I should go and let her in.’

Cal nodded. Fond as he was of Keris, he’d quite like to go and push her into the sea right at that moment.

Standing up, he held his hand out to Violet and helped her to her feet, straightening the neck of her blouse gently. They locked eyes, and he was blindsided by a distinct urge to protect this woman. What from, he didn’t even know. It was just … primal.

‘I’ve got you.’ He ran the blue ends of her hair through his fingers, and a small, curious smile touched her lips.

‘I better go and open the door before Keris wonders what we’ve been up to,’ she said, and when she left the room Cal buried his face in his hands and swore repeatedly.

When Violet opened the door, she found Keris wasn’t alone; there was a woman with her Vi hadn’t met before.

‘Violet, this is Lucy,’ she said, looking Vi up and down quickly as if she knew what she’d interrupted. ‘Lucy’s a photographer. We were chatting in the pub last night, and it occurred to me that the pier might make a great photography studio with all the light?’

As she smiled and invited them both in, Violet tried to absorb the information and work out how it slotted in with the adult theme of the pier. Lucy was all curves and curls and smiles, but her eyes were wary as she looked around the birdcage, assessing.

‘It’s the end studio that’s still available,’ Vi said, leading them through to the back. Cal wandered out of her room as they drew level, raising his hand in greeting, and again Keris frowned slightly, glancing questioningly back at Violet.

Lucy stood in the centre of the available room. and then broke into a wide smile. ‘It’s bloody perfect. Being in the corner gives me complete privacy.’

Violet nodded, still not quite getting it. ‘Is it portrait photography you do, Lucy?’

Lucy nodded. ‘Kind of. Boudoir.’

Ah, now it was starting to make more sense.

‘As in … bedroom?’

Lucy shrugged. ‘As in photographs that make women feel good about themselves, for themselves.’

‘I see,’ Vi said. She liked Lucy instantly; older by a decade or two, there was a quiet, contained warmth to her that reminded her oddly of her mum. ‘Well, it’s available for the summer to begin with, and then I’m going to review things at the end to see where we go from there.’

Cal put his head around the doorway. ‘I’m off now. See you later, guys.’ His eyes lingered on Violet for a few seconds before he left.

‘Well, he made my fingers itch for my camera,’ Lucy grinned.

‘Cal,’ Keris said. ‘You’ll get to know him over the summer, he’s in the next one along.’

Lucy put her hand out. ‘I think you’ve got yourself a deal.’

Vi grinned as they shook on it. This was really happening; within a week or two, Swallow Beach Pier would finally hum again with life and laughter. She only hoped her gran would have approved.

Walking back up the steps into the Lido a while later, Violet yawned wide. ‘Sorry Keris,’ she said, blinking a few times. ‘I’m not sleeping all that well.’

‘Must be all the excitement,’ Keris said, holding the door open for Vi to go through first. ‘Am I going mad or did I pick up on something with you and Cal earlier?’

Violet shrugged, not meeting her friend’s eye. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘We just had a drink to celebrate the end of the week.’

She could feel Keris eyeing her curiously so threw in an extra yawn to close the conversation down. ‘Right, I’m going to go and run myself a bath and see if I can get my second wind,’ she said, already heading for the stairs. ‘I could do with working a couple of hours after dinner.’

‘Sewing?’

Vi shook her head. ‘Boring stuff. Insurance paperwork and all that stuff for the pier to run as a business. My dad’s got his solicitor doing all of the necessary, he’s sent me a load of forms and paperwork to fill in.’

Keris pulled a face. ‘Bleurgh. That kind of thing brings me out in hives.’

‘Me too. Got to be done though.’

She took the stairs at a jog, waving over her shoulder without hanging around for more. All she wanted was to make it inside her own front door without bumping into Cal, and then lie in the bath and try to work out what the hell had happened earlier at the pier.

Which was why her heart stopped when, just as she was closing her door, Cal opened his and said her name.