Page 80 of Pucking Wild

Her eyes go wide as we hold each other’s gaze. It only lasts a moment before she busts out with a laugh. “Ohmygod, that was so fucking hot. But I can’t tell if you actually mean it.” She drops her glass down to the table and leans forward, eyes alight. She lowers her voice, her tone oozing sex. “Is that what you wanna do, Daddy? You want to take me into the bathroom, bend me over the sink, and spank me for being a bad girl?”

I lean back in my chair, eyes wide. “Holy fuck.”

She laughs, leaning back too. “No, you’re a good boy, aren’t you. My sweet, lost beach puppy without a home. Man, when I nail it, I really nail it,” she adds, almost to herself. “So, Ryan Langley, Mr. King of Organization, is organized in every aspect of his life except his living situation,” she summarizes.

“It’s where all my chaos reigns,” I reply with a shrug. “I’ve never cared where I live, or whether the house is a dump, or if the windows even lock. It just doesn’t matter to me, not until I have some control over my fate. So, I rent a shitty split-level over by the practice arena that the guys all affectionately call ‘the death trap.’ When the injury happened, I think Sully and the guys took it as their chance to rescue me.”

“And now what will you do?” she says, plucking a shrimp from the silver dish and dipping it in the cocktail sauce. “Now that star forward, No. 20 Ryan Langley, has a four-year contract and a three-mil signing bonus, you finally gonna invest in some curtains?”

I grin from ear to ear. “You know my number.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ve watched you play, remember? I was in L.A.”

“Oh, I remember,” I reply, holding her gaze. “At the wedding, you told me I was your favorite Ray to watch.”

“Hmm,” she hums, popping the shrimp cocktail in her mouth. “You must have misheard me.”

“I didn’t mishear anything,” I reply, unable to look away. She’s just so goddamn gorgeous.

I’m saved the embarrassment of saying something regrettable like ‘sit in my lap’ by the arrival of our meals.

Our conversation takes a more fun,casual turn as we eat. We fight over the check—her demanding that this was her idea and thus her treat, and me arguing that I never let a lady pay on a first date. I only get her to relent by promising that she can buy me ice cream.

By the time we leave the restaurant, it’s dark outside, but this part of the beach is hopping with night life. The restaurants are all packed, with people milling around outside waiting to be seated. It’s a bit chilly, but not too bad that more people aren’t strolling with dogs and kids.

There’s a line out the door at the little ice cream shop. Tess pouts when she sees it, glancing around the other shop fronts looking for an alternative. “Hey, let’s walk over to the beach,” she says, pointing to the ghostly white stretch of sand that marks the hilly dunes. “The line will die down in a few minutes, and we can come back. Can you manage without crutches?” she adds, gesturing to my knee.

“I’m not sure,” I reply with a grin. “I may need you to wrap your arm around me…you know, for balance.”

“Oh, well that was happening anyway because I’m cold,” she replies, slipping herself right up next to my side and wrapping an arm around my waist.

I blink in my surprise as my arm goes automatically around her shoulders. I’m not actually sure what it is that we’re doing here. She called it a date. More than once. But she’s also distracted and sad and something definitely happened to her today.

Fuck, I just need her to let me in. She’s gotta give me something. Anything.

Sure, I want sex. I want another taste of her so badly. But this has already moved so far beyond sex for me. I want…her. I want her laughter and her curious questions. I want the way she explains about the nonprofit and building out a donor base. I want foreplay as we talk about the environmental scourge of geotubes and compare our favorite plot lines ofSOA. I want the smell of her coconutty hair on my pillow.

The truth is that I’m falling hard for this woman, and from everything I see and feel, she’s just…falling. And I don’t know how to catch her. I don’t know how to make it stop. And she won’t give me a goddamn clue. It’s driving me insane.

“Let’s stop by the car,” she says. “I think I’ve got a beach towel in the trunk.”

“Are we sitting out on the sand?”

“No,” she says with a laugh. “I’m gonna use it as a blanket.”

We hurry over to the car—well, as fast as I can go in my current state. She pops the trunk and whips out a big striped beach towel.

“Aha,” she says with delight, shaking it loose of sand. “Get over here. There will be better body heat with both of us—and hold my phone.”

She tosses her clutch into the back, and I shut the lid of her trunk. Tucking her phone in my pocket, I let her drape the extra-large beach towel over my shoulders. Then she tucks herself against me, wrapping the other end around her shoulders. I hold one end, and she holds the other, and that’s the way we walk down the boardwalk to the beach. I’m not even cold but fuck if I’m gonna tell her that.

“Oh god, it’s so beautiful,” she says with a sigh, looking up at the dark, starry sky.

The moon is out tonight, large but not quite full. Only a few clouds dot the sky. There’s quite a bit of light pollution down this stretch of the beach, but you can still see a few stars. I gaze out at the quiet ocean. The surf is strong, the white caps breaking once, twice, as the water inches towards us.

I’ve always liked seeing how the ocean can change day to day. Some days you’ll come out here and the beach will stretch out for almost a hundred feet before you hit ocean. On a night like tonight, with the tides rising high, there’s really not much further we can go off the end of the boardwalk.

Another couple slips past us with a dog on a leash. Losing their shoes in the sand, they walk hand-in-hand along the dune. Next to me, Tess shifts her weight, her hand under the towel brushing my hip.

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