Up to the Challenge ai-2 Page 9
“Are you all right?” he asked, concern etched in his voice. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Though her brain was screaming, Sid’s mouth had stopped working. Which was good since her brain was screaming things like Kiss him! and Good God, this feels good.
Her ponytail must have come loose because a long strand of hair covered the right side of her face. Lucas swept it back, tucking it behind her ear. His eyes met hers and time stopped. She licked her lips, causing his eyes to drop to her mouth.
One warm fingertip slid across her bottom lip and she considered tasting him the way he’d tasted her at Opal’s. Too bad they didn’t have any meringue with them. Tracing the outline of her face, Lucas said two words.
“So beautiful.”
A tear threatened in the corner of her eye, and her heart beat so fast she thought she might be the next to have a heart attack. Surely Lucas could hear it. Or feel it, he was so close. His face drew down, then tilted to the left, but he pulled back before their lips could touch.
He leaned in again, this time tilting to the right. With no idea what to do next, Sid held her breath, praying she wouldn’t screw this up. His breath brushed her lips a split second before the wave slammed over them.
Lucas’s throat and eyes burned from the salt water, which was cold enough to quell the effect Sid splayed beneath him was having on his anatomy. When he could finally see again, the sight before him took his breath nearly as quickly as the wave.
A goddess had risen from the sea, her white cotton tee molded to a perfect body, revealing firm breasts that heaved up and down as she struggled to catch her breath. Wet hair draped across one shoulder while tiny drops of water clung to the tips of her long, dark lashes.
If sirens did exist, Lucas was looking at one.
And then she did something unexpected. Sid started to laugh. She laughed so hard, she snorted, which threatened to ruin the goddess thing. Until she leaned back on her elbows and threw her head back. The occasional snort could be overlooked with a body like that.
Considering what he’d been about to do, and how his body did not appreciate the interruption, Lucas didn’t see the humor in the situation.
“Why are you laughing?” Maybe the force of the water had knocked her senseless.
Sid took in a full breath, pointed at him, then fell over with laughter again.
Lucas ran a hand through his hair, checking to see if something had attached itself to his person. No clinging crabs in sight. “Have you lost your mind?” he asked, sitting up and noticing he’d be extracting sand from between the boys for quite a while. Damn it.
Laughter abating, Sid sat up and crossed her legs while shoving the hair away from her face. Caramel eyes danced as she glanced his way. “You were going to kiss me.”
That’s what she found so damn funny? He’d show her a joke.
“No, I wasn’t.”
The shit-eating grin disappeared, and her face sobered immediately. “Yes, you were.”
“Was not.” He rolled to his feet. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
He’d taken two steps when he heard the growl. She was on him before he took another, charging around to block his path. “Don’t flatter yourself, dickhead. I didn’t say I wanted you to kiss me, I said you were going to try it. You’re lucky that wave hit or I’d have kneed you in the nuts.”
“Bullshit,” Lucas said, forgetting he’d been toying with her. “You were the one all soft and sexy, laying in the sand, staring up at me with those doe eyes and licking your lips. You wanted that kiss just as much as I did.”
Sid froze, arms dropping to her sides. For once, she kept her mouth shut. If he’d known talking kissing was how to shut her up, he might have tried the tactic long before now.
Her eyes dropped and she dug a toe in the sand. When she looked up again, the goddess was back. “So you were going to kiss me?”
He tucked his hands under his pits to keep from pulling her against him. Looking out over the water, he said, “Yeah. I guess I was.” Which would have been a stupid thing to do. That wave had been sent by sailors past to save him from the call of the siren.
The siren stepped closer. “Do you still want to?”
Lucas did the wrong thing. He looked her in the eye. Those watery candy depths nearly brought him to his knees. How could a woman with a body built for sin look so damn innocent?
Somehow he found the strength to look away. As he moved around her to head back down the beach, he said, “Sorry I knocked you down like that. I’d better go.”
“What?” Sid stomped through the sand beside him. “You can’t just leave.”
“I have to.” If he didn’t get away from her now, they’d both regret it. “Get back to your run. I’ll leave you alone.”
She moved in front of him, her turn to jog backwards. “But what if I don’t want you to leave me alone?”
“Trust me. You do.”
He tried to pick up the pace to get around her but she cut him off. “No, really, I don’t.”
Stopping, Lucas rubbed a hand across his forehead. This little visit home was temporary. Every instinct in his body told him Sid was not the temporary kind of girl. Regardless of what might be hidden, or not so hidden, under her clothes, her reactions gave her away.
Sid Navarro was not the casual type. And he was in no condition to do anything but casual. Especially when not casual meant being tied to Anchor Island.
“We can’t,” he said. Not his most eloquent argument but thinking wasn’t easy with her standing there looking like the winner of a wet T-shirt contest. The blood kept draining from his brain.
“We can’t what? Kiss?” she asked. “I think we should try.”
Wait. Was this the same woman who’d sooner spit on him than kiss him?
“Since when?” he asked, curious to know what had caused this sudden change.
“Well …” she sputtered, waving her hands and pointing to the spot where they’d fallen. “You started this. You should finish what you started.”
He wasn’t the only one coming up with shitty arguments.
“You don’t even like me,” he accused. And if she did she had a funny way of showing it.
“Ha!” she squeaked. “I never said that.”
Lucas charged down the beach again. “The way you act, you don’t have to say it.”
“Then make me like you,” she said, stopping him in his tracks.
Oh, so that was it. He knew what she was doing. Another one of her damn challenges. A challenge is what had gotten him into this godforsaken situation to begin with. He wasn’t going to fall for it this time.
“You don’t think I could do it?” he asked, calling her bluff.
Sid crossed her arms, which thrust her breasts toward her chin. Lucas’s mouth went dry.
“I have my doubts.” She tapped a toe. “You’re not exactly my type. Too prissy. Too pretty. Too … what’s the word? Metrosexual?”
“Metro what? Did you just call me prissy?” Lucas bridged the distance between them in two strides. “I’ll show you prissy.”
Sid never saw the kiss coming. With little effort, Lucas swept her off her feet and slammed his mouth against hers. Stunned by the sudden contact, her brain took several seconds to realize what was happening. But once it did, instinct took over.
Her legs wound around his waist as Sid latched onto broad shoulders, determined to give as good as she was getting. Which was really freaking good. Lucas tasted of mint and heat. His lips were hot and wet and threatened to turn her brain to mush. The power humming beneath her fingertips was more arousing than any joy ride she’d ever taken.
Talk about horsepower.
Even their kiss was a competition. Sid didn’t give two shits whether she won or lost, so long as Lucas kept his lips on hers. The muscles in his shoulders bunched and flexed every time he pulled her closer. Higher. Tighter.
Sid shoved her hands into his damp hair, tightening her legs around Lucas’s narrow hips. Solid abs pressed against her c
ore, drawing a sound from her throat Sid had never made before. Her breasts ached, pressed against his broad chest.
As much as she loved the feeling of soaring off the ground, she wished he’d put her down somewhere so their hands could be free to explore. But then he thrust his tongue deeper and any thought of logistics disappeared.
If she’d known calling Lucas prissy would garner this kind of reaction, she would have done it years ago. Just when she thought her body couldn’t get any hotter, Lucas slid his hands down to her ass and she bucked like a speedboat bouncing over a rolling wave.
As if desperate to hold on, her hands fisted in his hair as she scattered tiny bites along his bottom lip. The reality of kissing Lucas was better than all her fantasies combined. He tasted better. Smelled better. And good God did he feel better. Without thinking, Sid said the words running through her mind.
“I want you so bad,” came out on a harsh breath.
His response was as unexpected as the kiss had been. With a growl, Lucas dropped her to her feet and backed away as if she were a live wire. And she felt like one, too.
Lucas bent, dropping his hands to his knees. He didn’t look happy and he didn’t speak. Sid waited half a minute but couldn’t take the silence.
“Are you all right?”
“Other than Mother Nature trying to kick my ass and you trying to fry my brain, I’m doing great.”
Her trying to do what?
“That shouldn’t have happened,” he said, panting. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
Sid fought between breaking his nose and breaking into a run. But she wasn’t sixteen this time. And there was no reason they shouldn’t be doing what they were just doing.
“Why shouldn’t we be doing this? What the hell is your problem?”
“I crossed a line. It won’t happen again.”
Sid’s hands balled into fists. “What line? Stop acting like we did something wrong, damn it. That was the best kiss I’ve ever had, and you’re ruining it.”
“I’m trying not to ruin you!” he yelled, standing tall again. Tall and hot with his hair a mess from where she’d been grabbing it seconds before.
She couldn’t go back now. Couldn’t finally get a taste of him and then have it taken away. “I’m not some storybook virgin here. In case you didn’t notice, I wasn’t exactly fighting you off.”
“You should have been.” Since when did guys argue with women not to have sex with them? And no matter what he claimed, that’s where they were headed with that kiss. Maybe what the other guys had said was true. Maybe she really did suck at this.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked, clutching the sides of her running shorts.
Lucas ran a hand through his hair and began to pace. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one making a mess of this.” Stopping, he gripped the top of her arms until she met his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Dark curls swirled around her face. “I was bad at it, wasn’t I?” Shoving off his hands, she kicked the sand. “Goddamn it, I knew it.”
“You knew what?”
“That I can’t do this. I can’t even kiss a guy right.”
“You can’t … What are you talking about?” But before he finished the question, Sid ran down the beach toward her truck. She needed to get away.
“Sid!” he called, chasing behind her. “Where are you going?” She reached her truck and was halfway in the cab before he caught up. His left arm blocked her from closing the door. “You did nothing wrong back there.”
“Let me go.” She pulled the door but he held it open.
“Not until you listen to me.” He trapped her on the seat, her knees pressed against his chest. “There was nothing wrong with how you kissed me. That’s the problem.”
“How is that a problem?” She wrapped her hand around the wheel and bit her lip to keep it from quivering. “You’re not making any sense.”
Lucas ran a hand over his face. “Sid, another few seconds and we both would have been back on the beach getting sand in places neither of us would enjoy. Not that I wouldn’t have enjoyed how we got it there.”
“So I’m such a good kisser you were ready to have sex, but that’s a bad thing.” This never happened in her fantasies. He was supposed to be ripping her clothes off, not ordering her to keep them on. “What am I missing here?”
“My time on Anchor is temporary,” he said, as if that were supposed to be a news flash.
Sid rolled her eyes. “What does that have to do with anything?”
He brushed the hair from her face. “Anything we started now would have to be casual and temporary. And you’re neither of those things.”
“I am so,” she said, with a kick to his ribs. She could do casual. “Try me.”
Not the two words he expected if the look on his face was any indication. She could see it in his eyes. Temptation warred with whatever fucked-up gentlemanly delusions were going around that damn head of his.
“No,” he said, moving away from the truck.
She hit the ground behind him. “No? Just like that? Why do you get to decide? I get a vote, and I say yes.”
“No,” he said again, stopping when she pulled on his arm. “I won’t start something I can’t finish.” His voice dropped to nearly a whisper as he wiped sand from her cheek with his thumb. “I’ve screwed up enough lives lately. I won’t screw up yours, too.”
His touch was so gentle and the regret in his eyes so real, Sid didn’t have the heart to keep arguing. Instead, she watched him walk away. He could have his upstanding ways today. But she’d change his mind. One way or another, Lucas Dempsey would have a spiritual moment in the bed of Sid Navarro. He could bet on that.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
By the time Lucas reached the house, he’d berated himself for being an idiot, vowed never to touch Sid Navarro again, and prayed his father would recover faster than expected. The last reminded him of his parents’ imminent arrival. At least he hadn’t had time to mess up the house, though there were dishes in the sink he needed to load into the dishwasher.
He’d driven his mom’s minivan up to the beach and the ride back felt like torture. Between fighting a hard-on, thanks to Sid’s scent and taste lingering in his brain, and the sand shot up his shorts by what he now thought of as the sanity-restoring wave, sitting comfortably in a bucket seat was not happening.
Cutting the engine, Lucas climbed from the van with one goal in mind: a long, cold shower followed by a hot, rich cup of coffee. Thank God his mother kept the good stuff on hand. As he approached the porch, he spotted a man and woman occupying his mother’s Adirondack chairs. The faces looked vaguely familiar so he knew they had to be islanders.
“Lucas Dempsey, I need to hire you,” said the man sitting to the left of the front door. Lucas stopped at the bottom step to buy time. Putting a name to the faces took a second.
“Mr. and Mrs. Ledbetter?”
“Mr. and Ms.,” corrected the woman. “I’m not married to this SOB anymore.”
Lucas didn’t have an answer for that. Ms. Ledbetter didn’t sound like she needed condolences, but offering congratulations seemed rude since the SOB in question was present.
“What is this about?” he asked. Based on the greeting, this wasn’t a social call.
“Gladys cut my tree and I’m going to sue her for it.” Franklin Ledbetter crossed his arms but remained seated. No neck could be seen between his large, bald head and thick, rounded shoulders. Bushy black brows anchored his forehead like one long hedgerow, and his bottom lip protruded in a pout that should only appear on someone four years old or younger.
Gladys occupied the chair on the other side of the front door. Flat brown hair, parted down the middle, flowed over her shoulders while blue eyes carried a look of amusement. If the threat of being sued by the man four feet to her right was keeping her up nights, she hid it well.
“I only cut the branches on my side of the tree. I was perfectly within my rights.”
Then Mr. Ledbetter’s words of greeting sunk in. “Did you say you want to hire me?”
“That’s right.” The older man pointed to his left. “I told her I’d cut that tree when I got around to it and she went and did it on her own.”
“Please,” Gladys said. “I’ve heard ‘when I get around to it’ for thirty-five years and you haven’t ever gotten around to anything in your life except a fishing pole and a beer.”
“You see what I’m dealing with here?” He went into full pout again. From the look of his gut and the tackle box next to his chair, Lucas didn’t doubt Gladys spoke the truth.
“I’m afraid I’m not for hire, Mr. Ledbetter. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Lucas reached the top step but Frank blocked his way to the door. For a man who resembled a Weeble Wobble, he moved quick. The smell of not-so-fresh fish filled the air. Lucas tried not to breathe in.
“Artie said you could help us. Said a lawyer up in Virginia could practice anywhere. You’re here, so you need to practice with me.”
The only thing Lucas would be practicing with Franklin Ledbetter would be his patience. And what the hell was Artie doing sending islanders to his door?
“Mr. Ledbetter, I’m on this island to run my family restaurant. Though Mr. Berkowitz is correct about my ability to practice here, that is not my intention or inclination. I’m afraid you’ll have to find yourself another lawyer.”
As Lucas swung open the screen door, Frank stomped his foot. “You have a civic duty here.”
He considered ignoring that statement, but worried the man would follow him into the house, assaulting the interior with his putrid odors. Lucas turned to Gladys. “Did you cut down his tree?”
“No, I did not.” Gladys smiled up at him. “I trimmed the branches on my side of the yard because they were getting too close to the house. It’s hurricane season and I’m not having my windows knocked out because his lazy butt won’t get out a ladder.”