Page 69 of Beachside Kisses With My Enemy

Inhaling a breath, I place one hand next to her head and step closer. “Hi.”

“H-hi.” The word skitters out in that adorable Southern accent—the one that becomes stronger when her emotions are heightened, whether anger or otherwise—and her nose scrunches. “What are we doin’, Blake?”

“We”—I pause—“are standing here.”

She snorts. Atta girl. “I mean…”

“I know what you mean. And I meant what I said.” With my free hand, I slowly move my finger along the strap of her tank top, mesmerized by the soft skin of her shoulder. “We’re standing on the precipice of something, Sunshine. Something that started a long time ago. Something I fought. Something I’m still not…” I frown, blink.

Am I doing the right thing here? Because I don’t have a plan. Not really. I only have a hope. But I don’t want to hurt Lucy, to promise something I can’t deliver.

“Hey.” She lifts her hand to cover mine. “I never thanked you for the other night. For taking such good care of me.”

Is she kidding? “What other option did I have?”

She flinches, and I realize how that might have sounded. “That’s not what I meant.” I blow out a shaky breath. “I meant…Lucy, no matter what I’ve done to convince myself otherwise, I can’t help but be drawn to you.” Crap. I’m ruining this. I groan. “And I realize that sounds like Mr. Darcy saying how much he wishes he didn’t like Elizabeth Bennet?—”

She raises her eyebrows in amusement.

“What?” I chuckle. “I have a sister. She forced me to watch my share of romcoms and Jane Austen.”

Tilting her head, she’s biting back a laugh herself. “You may proceed.”

“Don’t know if I should,” I tease. Only Lucy can make me feel better about how utterly bad I am about sharing my feelings. “Next thing you know, I’ll be saying ten things I hate about you.” Shaking my head, I turn her hand around and grasp it, lowering our clasped fingers toward my chest. “But in all seriousness, Lucy, my stupidity in staying away from you—back twelve years ago, and this whole last month—has nothing to do with you. With your quality. With you not being good enough. Honestly, you’re too good for me. You always have been. I don’t deserve…”

Her eyes have gone misty, and she squeezes my hand. An encouragement to keep going. She’s not running away screaming—or laughing—so that’s something, I guess.

Here goes nothing. “I don’t deserve you, and yet, I want you. I want this. I want to see if there’s something here that can last.” My heart’s going crazy in my chest, and I’m sure she can feel the wild beating going on inside. “If we can ever want the same things.”

Lucy’s tongue flicks across her bottom lip, and I can practically see the gears moving in her brain. She presses her eyes closed, then open again. “I’m not going to lie, Blake. That really scares me.”

“It scares me too. In a lot of ways, it would just be easier…”

“To walk away. To pretend like…”

I feel a tug on one of my belt loops, so I acquiesce to her call, closing the distance between us. Now my whole left arm—from palm to elbow—presses against the rock wall, and our bodies are flush against each other. Leaving her hand pressed against my chest, I fit my right hand underneath her jaw, my index finger curled there, tilting her face slightly upward. My thumb softly rests against the point of her chin. “Like we don’t…” I lift the pad of my thumb, letting it glide across her mouth.

She shudders. “Like we aren’t…”

My head sinks down, closer to hers, and I can’t think, can only breathe and smell and feel Lucy—all of her. Physically, emotionally. She’s all here with me, and I’m all here with her. “Like I’m not crazy.” The tip of my nose skims hers, then slides down the side and along her cheekbone, where my mouth hovers over that freckle. “About.” I press a soft kiss there, and her breath vibrates out.

In response, her hands both find their way to my waist, and her fingers tuck themselves under my shirt, grazing the skin just above my belt.

I finally move my mouth along her cheek, kissing my way to her ear as her fingers dig into my skin. And when I kiss a ring around her ear, I can feel both of us near the boundary we’ve always set for our emotions, about to break with wanting. The slow burn has us both in flames.

Pulling back, I look her in the eyes. There’s a haziness there, a drunkenness I recognize in myself. “You,” I finally say.

Then I’m plunging in, kissing her with all the pent-up passion I’ve held back for so long. My hands cup the back of her head and I’m angling my mouth deeper, and she’s gripping my back, arching toward me, giving as much as I am. Then I’m tugging the rubber band from her hair so I can sink my fingers into it, plunging and stroking like I wanted to do that night in the kitchen while I nip her bottom lip and kiss her neck and revel in the glory that is Lucy.

“Blake,” she groans as she moves her hands up my chest and around my neck, leaning back and letting the rocks hold us both up. I suddenly worry that it’s too rough for her, so I flip us around and now the rocks are against my back and Lucy is leaning into me, reaching up on her tiptoes to kiss the stubble on my jawline.

I can’t help but release the deep rumble in my chest when she lets me slide my hands along the curve of her waist as she tugs my head down and nibbles the lobe of my ear. How did I get this lucky, to be the guy that this goddess of a woman—this perfect girl next door, with the temper and the goodness and the loyalty and the forgiving nature of a saint—would allow me to touch her?

It’s utterly unreal, but I want to spend every hour of my life showing her how grateful I am.

“Lucy.” I say her name again and again, as I kiss her eyebrows, her eyelids, her nose, each corner of her mouth. Then I give her lips the softest kiss I can manage. “Lucy.”

She must hear the difference in my tone—that there’s something I need to say—and her eyes flutter open. “Hmm?” she says in the sweetest way, like she’s just waking up from a dream.

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