Page 20 of Enemies in Earnest

The response on my tongue I had to bite back was akin tofuck the consequences.

“I think I’m about to combust,” I told him instead.

“I’m right there with you.” He rumbled right next to my ear, the flex of his hips stretching me in the most delicious, spine-tingling way. “Mmm, you liked that.”

I felt his smile against my cheek, the wiry hairs of his chest tickling my nipples as he flexed his hips again, lighting up every nerve in my body with pleasure.

“I want to do this all night,” he said. “But already I’m about to blow. You’ve reduced me to a teenager, Acacia. With your perfect smile, and luscious hair, the honeyed way you call my name. You’re Arete and Aphrodite, my sweet butterfly.”

He tickled at my intellect with as much surety as he coaxed my body. How he was still capable of words was beyond my understanding, however. The only thing I could say wasmore. I wanted to be filled and surrounded, to feed gluttonously on everything Edwin provided and then return to the table like Oliver and askplease sir, give me some more.

If I was nothing but a one-night stand, I wanted to make sure that I gorged myself. So that once I returned to my bed, and the only satisfaction I had was the battery-operated variety, I had plenty to use as material. Though I’m pretty sure after experiencing the all-consuming talents of Edwin Wheeler, I’d be hard pressed to find anyone even close to comparable.

“Edwin…” I gasped. Honest to God, I was certain my uterus clenched. “I think I’m about to…”

That was all I could say.

“That’s what I’ve been waiting for,” Edwin grunted, pressing into me with hard, focused pumps. “You know that’s what I want, sweetness. Take me with you.”

I felt it deep in my core. A throbbing, fluttering, mass of energy that barreled down on me with little concern how it would obliterate me. My legs held on to Edwin for dear life, my ankles pressed into his very shapely ass, trying to brace for the onslaught. One moment I felt breathless, unable to even warn Edwin of what was coming. The next, a swirling vortex gathered me in its power, yanked me away from conscious thought and flung me so far and so high away from my body, all I could do was scream.

* * *

“So,you never actually did tell me why you named your bar Temperance.”

Edwin and I sat on his bed– me leaning against his headboard, him sprawled across the foot of the bed. Our legs were entwined in the sheets, and we were eating ice cream. Of all the things I would have expected with an evening sleeping with Edwin, it wouldn’t have been how soft his t-shirts were or how wonderful they smelled. How sweet he was post-sex. That he cleaned me up, got me a glass of water, found my panties, and gave me a shirt to wear to bed. Or even, that he assumed I would stay the night and not want to slink off back to my apartment.

We laid side by side in the dark for a while, just listening to the sounds of the water and the ambient noise of the island. Eventually admitting neither was tired. Which was when Edwin offered me ice cream. Since we never did have dessert on our date, he had winked as he jogged down his stairs and into his kitchen.

“And you never told me why you decided to open a business offering booze cruises,” I replied back.

He sighed, pushing off the end of the bed to come around to the empty space next to me, which he crawled into after placing his bowl on his nightstand.

“Is everything with you a game of chicken?” he asked.

“More like aI’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.”

He mimicked me in pose, stretching his legs out straight in front of him. The soft gray pajama pants were back in place, but it didn’t slip my notice that once again, the cotton had begun to showcase the very piece of his anatomy that had blasted me into smithereens only an hour ago.

“My mom has always wanted to live in Candy Cane Key,” He told me. “She and my dad always planned to retire down here, to buy one of the cute little houses that dot the shoreline over on Biscayne. They fell in love with this place when they came to the Keys for their honeymoon and decided that one day they’d live here. Then came me, and the general press of life—jobs, mortgage payments, sending a kid to college—and my parents always seemed to be satisfied living in Tampa so they were close enough to the Keys if they wanted to visit but still within a major metro city so that could still work. Fast forward to when it was time for my dad to retire, and he died about a month before he was going to finally say sayonara to good old Marine Steele.

It was bad enough that my mom lost my pop. I didn’t want her to lose this dream also. I knew my way around boats. Figured I could easily sell my house and between dad’s pension and the death benefits, along with the sale of their house in Tampa, I could set us up down here with a nice little life. Neither of us needed much. A place to live, and since we bought the duplex in cash, the only thing I pay is property taxes and whatever expenses the two of us have. My overhead for Three Sheets is minimal, so I can take care of my mom and still enjoy being on the water every day.”

I think at that moment I fell a little bit in love with Edwin Wheeler.

“What did you do before you came down here?” I asked.

“I was a researcher for the Florida Maritime Historical Society.”

Color me speechless.

“I had a teacher in grade school that used to sayto assume makes an ass of you and me. I’ve never seen that saying so perfectly illustrated on someone’s face before, Ms. Ashley.”

His tone was playful, and the kiss he placed on my temple as he pulled me against his chest was full of warmth. However, it had to sting. My assumptions. The way I’d painted him as nothing more than a ball-scratching neanderthal.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

The words didn’t even scratch the surface of the mortification I felt.

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