After the Christmas Party(88)

“I like it. When I was looking to buy, I knew I’d make an offer on this one the moment I stepped inside, even though it’s a little further from the hospital than I’d intended. It felt like I was coming home.”

She glanced out the windows towards the sea. “Great view.”

“It’s better tonight than usual.”

But when she turned to him, he wasn’t looking at the gulf. He was looking at her.

Heat infused her entire body. “You don’t have to say things like that, you know.”

“I know. I want to.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He sounded confused. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know. You’re just always complimenting me and I don’t want you to feel it’s necessary.”

“But complimenting you is necessary. Very necessary.”

She wanted to ask why again, but didn’t want to sound like a broken record. So she smiled. With Riley, when in doubt about what to do, smiling seemed to work best. “This house suits you. Functional, beautiful—”

“Christmasy?” he interjected, grinning.

“Christmasy,” she agreed, unable to deny his claim. He was everything Christmas should be. Everything that Christmas had never been. Not for her. But everything he did made a long-suppressed part of her memory pull forward.

Enough so that she experienced a twinge of panic, but the evening was too nice to let doubt ruin it.

They finished eating and together cleared away the dishes, stacking them in the sink. Trinity tried to load them into the dishwasher, but he shook his head.

“Not now. Let’s go for that walk on the beach. I’ve been looking forward to it since you first mentioned doing so earlier.”

“Okay.” She set her plate down on the marble countertop and picked up the jacket he’d set out earlier for their walk as the wind was brisk. “You talked me into it.”

Putting on his own lightweight jacket, he laughed. “That’s my girl.”

As much as she kept telling herself that she wasn’t in love with this man, that she wouldn’t fall in love with him, she couldn’t argue with his statement.

She was his girl.

Indisputably.

Hand in hand, Riley and Trinity walked along the beach. Ignoring how much he wanted Trinity was getting more and more difficult. He didn’t want to rush her, didn’t want to make wild assumptions, but from the moment she’d arrived all he’d wanted to do was pull her into his arms.

Her mind stimulated him.

Her quick wit stimulated him.

Her curvy little body stimulated him.

It was the latter that was currently tearing his resolve into bits. He felt as if he was in a constant state of stimulation.

He couldn’t recall ever feeling this way. Not even when he’d been a randy teenager.

Letting go of his hand, she’d ran ahead of him, laughing as the waves lapped at her bare feet. She turned to beckon him to join her. Wind whipped at her hair.

Temptation whipped at his soul.

What he wanted was to push her down in the surf, rip her clothes off and make love to her right then and there, with the waves crashing around their naked bodies.

He swallowed, watched her dance around in the white foam.

“Riley, hurry,” she called. The water crashed around her ankles and she laughed, looking and sounding freer than he recalled ever seeing her.

Like a child set loose to play.

Like the most tantalizing woman to ever tempt man.

“I ate too much to hurry,” he called, enjoying watching her play too much to rush.

“Right.” She laughed then plopped down just beyond the water’s reach, her toes stretched out towards the sea, tempting the water to move closer and closer.

“You know you’re going to get wet, right? Then you’ll be cold.”

She shrugged. “At the moment I don’t care. This is wonderful.”

He glanced out to sea then back at the smiling woman leaning back as if offering herself to the moon shining above them.

If so, he was jealous of the moon.

Because he wanted her to offer herself to him that way.

Every way.

He wanted her to come to him, for her to initiate their lovemaking, for her to have no regrets and for him to have no worries that he’d talked her into something she hadn’t really wanted.

He’d thought himself a patient man, but looking at her body stretched out under the bright moonlight, the surf nipping at her toes, he had none.

“Besides, if I get cold, you’ll warm me up, right?”

He hadn’t realized she was watching him. He gulped back the knot her words caused to form in his throat and willed the one forming in his pants to go away.

“Riley?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you afraid to join me?”