“I am really, truly sorry, Rebecca. I can’t pretend to know exactly what you’re feeling, but I’m close to my mom, and I can only imagine how devastating it would be to lose her.”
She drew her shoulders back, and he could practically see her stepping into the safety of the invisible iron cloak she hid behind. No wonder he saw flashes of vulnerability. That cloak must get too heavy to bear the burden full-time.
“Thanks, but I’m okay. It was hard, but you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and all that.” She cleared her throat and looked away.
“Yeah, I know all about bootstraps. Either they’re made of leather and easy to pull, or they’re made of lead and they drag you down.”
A genuine smile crossed her lips, and the balls of her cheeks rose. “I do miss her, Pierce. I’m not trying to deny that. She was my best friend, and I know that doesn’t say much about me, but…” She shrugged. “She really was.”
“I think that speaks volumes about both of you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, a twenty-seven-year old with no life.” Her face grew serious again. “That’s not really true. I had a life. It was different from most people’s lives, but it was a good life.”
He could barely keep up with the undercurrent of emotional torment she experienced, and damn did he want to.
“We were close. My mom wasn’t just a really good mother, but she was a good person, and we had fun together before she got sick. We used to take walks a lot, and when I was little, she’d wake me in the middle of the night to watch a movie together, or we’d stay up past bedtime cooking or baking.”
“It sounds like she loved you very much.”
“Oh yes. Without a doubt. Sometimes I feel guilty about that. She never dated, and she never even went out with friends. She gave up her entire life for me, at least until I got my own apartment near the university. But then I moved back in three years ago when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. I treasure the time I had with her. It’s like she knew she was going to…you know…be taken away early. And one day I’ll pay her back for all she did. She always wanted to go back to Punta Allen, where she spent time as a little girl. I’m going to save enough money to bring her ashes back and spread them there.” She looked out over the park and sighed.
“Was your mom from Mexico?” Pierce owned a resort in Tulum, which was very close to Punta Allen, a small fishing village with fewer than five hundred residents.
“No. My grandmother was, though. She gave birth to my mother here in the United States, and she and my mother visited Punta Allen several times when my mother was young. She never went as an adult, but she talked about it all the time.”
It made him sad to think that her mother died without realizing her dream, and he was impressed with Rebecca’s determination to bring her mother’s ashes to Punta Allen.
“I don’t mean to bum you out. I’m sorry,” she said. “I never talk about her, and listen to me. Did you slip truth serum into that wine?”
Pierce sat up and took her hand in his. “You aren’t bumming me out. Truth serum would explain why I talked about my father, too. I never talk about him, either.”
“Well, let’s see. Two control freaks, each revealing their secrets to the other.” Their eyes met, and her voice quieted. “Sounds like we’re either going to—”
He slid his hand to the back of her neck, silencing her with his impulsive move as they stared into each other’s eyes.
She whispered, “End up in a horror flick where you belt out a sinister laugh or—”
Pierce moved closer, her lips parted, a breath away from his. There was so much he wanted to say, to ask, like how the hell she touched the most intimate, hidden places in his heart in just a few hours, but he couldn’t find his voice. He was too busy restraining himself from taking her in an impassioned kiss. His lips grazed over hers on the way to her cheek, where he pressed a soft kiss.
When he drew back, her eyes fluttered open.
“No sinister laugh,” he whispered.
She fisted her hands in his shirt and sealed her lips over his. Her kiss was everything he thought it would be and more. She met each lap of his tongue with her own. Good Lord, she tasted of sweet wine and strength, despite all she’d been through, and he wanted more of her. So much more. Pierce was no stranger to hiding from emotions in the safety of a woman’s arms, but his heart and mind were struggling against his desires, joining forces for the first time in his life and forcing him to tear his lips from hers, refusing to allow him to hide from the emotions swelling within him.
What the hell?
He wanted more of Rebecca; he wanted to touch her full breasts, to run his tongue along her lower lip, and to taste every inch of her sweet skin. He didn’t want to draw back and take her hand in his again, and yet that’s exactly what he did.
She licked her lips and he nearly went back for more.
“Sorry. I’m sorry.” She tried to pull her hand from his, but he held on tight.
“Rebecca, I’m the one who should apologize. I’m sorry.” Jesus, he was so not sorry, but goddamn conflicted.
“No. You kissed my cheek, and I…” She covered her face with her hand. “I’m really not like that. I haven’t been with a guy in years. I’m just…” She drew in a deep breath.
“Years?” Did she mean weeks, maybe?
“My life hasn’t really been conducive to a romantic relationship. Hell, Pierce.” She yanked her hand from his. “I have no excuse. I can’t even say I’m an emotional wreck, because I’m not. Yes, I lost my mom six weeks ago, but after three years, we both knew it was coming. I just…I don’t know. You were looking insanely handsome and listening to every word I said like you really wanted to hear them, and…Ugh. I should go.”
“Insanely handsome?” he joked, in an effort to lighten the mood.
She shook her head. “Like you don’t know that? Please don’t play coy with me. I don’t have a high threshold for bullshit.”
“Okay, fine. I’m as insanely handsome as you are wickedly, exotically, lovely. How about we both write it off to a nice kiss?” The last thing he wanted to do was irritate her. She was just beginning to open up to him, and he hoped she’d continue.
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to go over the top. Bullshit limits, remember?”
“Okay, scratch the nice kiss, and make it scorching-hot kiss.”
She laughed. “That’s better.”
“Come on.” Pierce pulled her to her feet. “Let’s walk off our desires before you take advantage of me again.”
Without her heels, she couldn’t have been more than five four or five five. He held her hips—Jesus, they felt good. He’d been dying to touch them since they’d met. Most curvy women worried about their body image, but she didn’t primp or suck in her stomach the way he’d noticed other women did. She didn’t fiddle with her blouse or do any of the other things that signaled insecurity. Rebecca seemed to pay no mind to her curves, and that confidence made her sexy as hell. He was tempted to lower his mouth to the crook of her neck, enjoy one little taste to make her insides crave him. Instead, he folded her into his arms. Her body stiffened, and he held her tighter. His mind flew back thirty years, to the days after his father left. In an effort to comfort his younger brothers, Ross, Jake, and Wes, he’d held them close, and they’d fought against his embrace as Rebecca was doing now, but somehow, Pierce had known even then that they needed to know they were loved despite being abandoned by their asshole father. His mother was still pregnant with Luke at the time, and Emily had been only about a year old, too young to understand the magnitude of what was going on. They’d had only one another in the days after their father left. He couldn’t count the times he’d woken up and found his brothers sleeping on his bedroom floor, as if they wanted to make sure he wasn’t leaving, too. There was safety in numbers.
Rebecca didn’t seem to have anyone, and the thought that she’d gone through losing her mother alone made him warm to her even more than it had when he’d seen the hint of vulnerability the night they’d met. She was tough as nails, but now he was beginning to understand where her underlying vulnerability came from.
After another full minute, maybe two, he felt the tension in Rebecca’s arms ease, and he felt her hands touch his back. Despite the way she’d gone rigid in his arms, it felt natural to press a kiss to the top of her head. When his lips touched her hair, he hoped like hell she didn’t bolt.
Chapter Three
AT FIRST REBECCA wanted to push away from Pierce’s embrace. It was too intimate; she’d already let him in too much. But he held her so tightly, and he felt so safe and smelled so good, that she allowed herself a minute of enjoying the feel of being wrapped in his arms. Okay, just two.
When they’d met the other night, she thought that with his good looks and his pressuring her to have a drink with him, he was going to be self-centered and easy to walk away from. Boy, had she been wrong. She’d never met a man who listened so intently or could restrain his desires so well. She felt his arousal against her, but he didn’t push her for more—and when they’d kissed…God, when they’d kissed, he was the one who’d pulled away.