Beach Cottage Kisses (The Cottages on Ocean Breeze #2)

Chapter Seven

H e’d seen her standing there, holding an object that had very clearly been made to take the place of a man’s penis.

Other than the wrong color, lack of warmth of any kind and batteries, she figured the sex toy could do the trick. For a woman who was sexually healthy and unable to commit herself to another human being in any way that involved a belief in, or desire for, a happily-ever-after.

Dropping it back in its drawstring gift bag, she placed it in the bottom of the box she was packing without the least bit of temptation to know more.

Let alone have one of her own.

Dress her friend in blue jeans and give him a hard-on, and she became mush. But a chance for adult sexual release—no commitment, no risk of getting messy, no human unpredictability involved—and she’d rather sit alone, fully dressed, in the sand with her camera.

She never had been one to make things easy.

Too much depth, Ivy used to say. Her ability to be aware of hidden emotions, to see in moments things that others couldn’t, defined her.

According to her identical twin.

That week, her definition was a curse. And on the blink. Showing her things that weren’t real. Taunting her physically until, on Monday afternoon, on her way back to Sage’s to help Scott with final details after the movers were gone, she actually thought about ordering one of those toys online.

Surely, there were better options than the one she’d found on Sage’s shelf.

As unappealing as the thought was, she preferred a practical resolution to the condition bothering her, rather than losing one of her best friends.

Someone who could be that person because he respected, accepted and even seemed to welcome her limitations, rather than trying to analyze or change them.

He was waiting for her in the front room of Sage’s cottage when she got there. Seeing him there, on the heel of the thought she’d been having, she felt a well of…gratitude…for him.

To him.

“What’s that look for?” he asked, sounding as though she’d just made him uncomfortable.

In a rush to reassure him, she said, “You’re the only person I’ve ever told that I don’t believe in love or happily-ever-after and you were okay with it. You didn’t challenge me. Or try to convince me otherwise. You just accept me. I was thinking how nice that was,” she told him. More than she should have.

A simple I’m grateful for our friendship could have done it.

An easy shrug, a shake of the head, a pretense that there’d been nothing behind any look he might have seen would have been best.

The warm look in his blue eyes almost undid her. Until he said, “Ditto,” and dived right into discussion about the most efficient way to finish the job they’d shown up to do.

She agreed with every suggestion he made. Added none of her own thoughts to the mix, and quickly went about completing tasks while keeping herself in rooms other than the ones Scott occupied.

She was happier when he was close.

Yet she didn’t want to be directly around him.

How was that combination ever going to work?

And yet…maybe it did.

When others were sharing space with them, she and Scott weren’t directly together.

Except…at the wedding…there’d been more others around them than would ever happen in their daily lives and none of them had been enough to keep the monster at bay.

Feeling as though she was running out of time, thoughts flew as she worked. By night’s end, if she didn’t find a way to rid herself of the appalling new reactions she was feeling around Scott Martin, her friendship with the lawyer could effectively be over.

Sex toys. Getting more desperate as one hour moved into two and she had her designated rooms emptied, with everything piled in the front foyer for the move down to Gray’s cottage, Iris actually thought about doing a phone search.

Producing her solution at zero hour. Only to herself of course.

Saving their world.

She didn’t even want to type the word sex into any browser associated with her name. Who knew what memory bank would store the search and throw it up on her in the future?

Adult toys were perfectly legal. Accepted in society. Much better solutions than sexual encounters that could lead to horrible things happening. They were used by couples, too, not just people without human partners.

Her mind duked it out. Back and forth.

With only one positive on the search-and-buy side.

If it would get her and Scott back to who they’d been…

She missed him.

More than she’d ever have thought possible.

You know I’m right here, in the next room, right? Her mind played his voice for her, as she imagined he’d playfully say were he to know what a tied-up little nit she was being.

But would he be there on Tuesday night? Or Wednesday?

Because…while yes, she’d been conscientiously choosing her spaces based on where he was not that evening, she hadn’t really had to make an effort at all to do so. Which told her he was doing the same.

All because of some ridiculous sexual awareness that had suddenly invaded their systems?

Claws of death seemed to be closing around her, soon to imprison her forever, locking her in solitary confinement from which there’d be no time of day for fresh air or conversation, ever.

A state far worse than the one she’d invented to keep her healthy in her new life.

As she stacked her last, smallest box on top of the rest, feeling her time in Sage’s home coming to an end forever, she was struck by the sudden realization that one ending could be mirroring another. Her time with Sage’s brother as she knew it could be ending, too.

Desperate, she barreled around, determined to fight the devil at her door. To win this time.

And ran straight into Scott.

His arms came out, steadying her, and eyes wide, feeling frantic, she stared at him. Did he sense it, too, their time together coming to an end?

Not just that night, but forever?

His blue eyes seemed to bore into her. To be filled with the same enemy that had been slowly building in her.

His hand slid. Up her arm.

Ready to let go?

To say goodbye?

Forever?

She started to shake.

Felt the ragged breath he drew against her stomach as he swayed on his feet and their bodies touched. Leaned in for a moment. Both of them. Taking a last breath while they found the strength to break apart. Turn their backs.

Walk away.

Still looking up at him, she almost cried out with her inability to find the words, the solution that would send them back to who they were.

She opened her mouth. Willing answers to burst forth. To save them.

But his head lowered. Stifling any answers that might have come to her.

And obliterating further thought.

* * *

Scott kissed. He touched.

He was devoured. By the passion within him.

And the woman who’d brought it to that point.

Her lips, her tongue, her moans consumed him. He had no control.

Clothing ripped off.

He had no sense of anything but getting her to the floor, shoving a condom from his wallet down on himself and entering her. He’d have taken a breath then.

A moment.

But she bucked against him. Sliding up and in, and then down, once. From there, he had no idea how it went.

There was sweat. A hard floor in there somewhere. And a drive to explode out of the hell that had been taking over his sanity. His life.

When it happened, right after her inner folds started clenching around him, he could do nothing but let it take him. Ride the waves.

Until there weren’t any.

Waves.

Or barriers to thought, either.

Feeling the bruises forming on his elbows and knees as he held himself above the woman he’d just had sex with, Scott pulled out, and stood.

Horrified by what he’d done.

Scrambling for a way to fix the damage.

There had to be one.

Dressing. The first step.

Iris obviously felt the same, judging by the speed with which she’d righted her leggings, getting them back on both feet and up.

She hadn’t been wearing panties.

Not something he was ever going to forget.

He opened his mouth to apologize. Glanced at her. Got caught in the green-eyed gaze.

And heard himself ask, “What are you thinking?”

Did they say goodbye politely? Pretend that they’d hang out on the beach again when they both knew they wouldn’t? Couldn’t?

She seemed far more collected than he was as she continued to study him. “You sure you want the truth?”

No. But he said, “Yes.”

“I think we just had to get the damned thing out of us.”

He blinked. Reared back slightly.

“It wasn’t going away,” she pointed out, sounding just like…his friend Iris. “Were we really going to let our bodies ruin a three-year friendship that’s valued equally by both of us?”

She valued him.

As much as he valued her.

The point was key. Stuck. He held on to it as he said, “You know how I am. No expectations. No pressure. No promises.”

“Yes.” She almost smiled as she said, “And you know I don’t believe in the whole two-people-being-together-forever kind of thing.”

There was a point there. He wanted to find it. Saw his way clearly. “We’re both strong, independent, determined, successful professionals. Made so by the single-focused drive to be just that.” It wasn’t going to change. He wasn’t going to change.

Wasn’t willing to risk another failed marriage on the chance that he could. He still struggled to live with the man who’d so neglected his first wife that he hadn’t even known she’d moved out.

“And that right there is why we’re friends.”

Her statement on the tail end of his thought of failure confused him for the second it took him to backtrack to the statement he’d made aloud.

Clarity started to show itself. “We’re determined enough that we put an end to the physical desire raging between us,” he told her. “We took it on, ended the torment. Shined a light right in the face of it. Our life choices reign.” They’d killed the beast.

Without getting emotional. Or looking for more from each other.

He definitely felt more relaxed.

“Exactly,” she said. Her look showing every ounce of her strength and determination.

He had to expound, just to be sure. “So…tomorrow? If we happen to get home from work in time and meet on the beach…we shoot the breeze a bit.”

“Same as always.”

He liked it.

Saw the logic in it.

Held on to it. Took it in with him for a long shower when he got home. Washing away any trace of Iris’s scent.

And when he found a strand of her long auburn hair on his pants as he started to throw everything he’d had on in the washer, he got a trash bag instead.

* * *

Iris slept great. She was exhausted, satiated and consciously chose to slide into the place inside herself where she blocked out the world. A zone that her psyche had created to allow her once-sensitive self to venture out into the world again.

On Tuesday, rested and bursting with energy—both mental and physical—she rode a wave of relief. Just wasn’t sure what fuel propelled the wave. Relief that the temptation was gone?

Relief from the godawful tense, unrequited sexual desire that had been amping up inside her?

There were some slightly uncomfortable moments in the shower, when the spray tingled against her nipples, when she washed other sensitive parts, and for a second, her mind jumped back to moments on the floor that were never to be revisited.

They’d served their purpose. And she was through with them.

So why, even when she forcefully turned her mind away, cataloging colors in the shower to distract her train of thought, did her heart and nerves hold on to the high spirits that she might have experienced in those few seconds?

Or had it been afterward?

Either way, her mind and body were playing tricks on her. Trying to convince her the part of her that had died years before, preventing any full-out emotion, was suddenly sprouting seeds of life.

She’d lived through the accident that had killed the other half of her soul, but only on the surface. Existing on a different plane. One where she experienced life from a distance.

Iris didn’t feel wants and needs personally, deep inside herself, as she once had. She felt great compassion for others. Appreciation. Most highly for Sage, Leigh and Scott Martin. Soon to be Sage and Leigh Bartholomew as soon as the legal paperwork was filed.

She was super in favor of Sage’s re-found love. Rejoiced from the sidelines for her friend.

But didn’t, for a second, want it for herself. No one was ever going to know her as completely or love her as fully, as unconditionally, as her identical twin had done.

And no way was she going to risk the devastation of losing even half that much again.

Period.

Thoughts firmly on board and in sync with her inner self again, Iris did what she was on earth to do. Camera to her eye, she sought out that which others didn’t stop to see. Didn’t know to see. Behind the lens, her spirit soared. The only place it still could do.

She had another full zoo day. Capturing the thoughts, feelings and soul of a couple of Amur leopards—a species at risk of extinction, with only eighty such leopards alive in the world. The zoo was globally committed to fighting extinction and Iris was honored to have been chosen to help them in their efforts.

Her job was to raise in others an appreciation for the nearly extinct. To show the at-risk creatures’ unique contributions to the world, and to build an emotional need within human beings to help keep them alive.

She was at her best, doing what she did, on an adrenaline high, until she realized that she’d worked so long it was dinnertime and she hadn’t even noticed the sun starting to set.

Sunset. Angel. Scott on the beach.

Reality hit with a force she didn’t recognize. Couldn’t take in stride as she always did with everything that denoted any bit of bad news, tardiness or tension.

Any other time, she’d simply call Sage, who’d let Angel out, feed her and give the girl her playtime on the beach.

It wasn’t any other time. It was the day after she’d had sex on Sage’s living room floor. With Sage’s brother.

Who she also could not call because…

The whole sex-on-the-living-room-floor thing.

Instead, she stopped work before she was done. Cutting off her own lifeline. And drove to the beach as though death could be at her door. Angel had been out at lunchtime. The girl was fine.

But Iris wasn’t. Not until, a quarter of the mile down the beach, she caught sight of Morgan about the same time Angel did.

Iris didn’t take off into a gleeful run, but she smiled as she watched Angel do so, living vicariously in those four paws, the wagging tail.

Because Scott was there.

Not avoiding her.

Or them.

As he approached, every move she made was calculated. Chosen deliberately. Drawn from memory of their three years as friends. Acting as she could remember acting in the past. Forcing something that would come naturally as soon as she was certain that Scott was still in a good place with them.

The same place.

He didn’t want permanence, but the man was emotionally fully alive. And what had happened the night before…well that had been…a once-in-a-lifetime combustion. For sure.

It was possible it had awoken emotions in him that wouldn’t fit who they were.

“So…” he said while he was still a few feet away.

And for a second there, she panicked. Chest tight, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. “So…”

What?

Was he waiting on some kind of review of the night before?

Her thoughts and opinions in the fading light of day? After having had time to process?

She had none. Hadn’t processed. Wasn’t planning to. Ever.

There were no words available when one didn’t entertain thoughts on a topic.

“So…you going to let me see?” he asked as he reached where she’d stopped dead cold upon his first communication.

Let him see? Was he…on the beach…and…

He was looking at the camera she had slung over her shoulder. Put there, not because she planned to take it off her shoulder, but because she wore it on the beach a lot.

Usually to show Scott some photo or another.

“You had the Amur shots today, right?” Scott said then, a frown forming on his face.

“Yes!” Brain activity returned, normalizing, and Iris maybe overdid the enthusiasm in that first word, but had herself firmly back on track as she pulled the camera off her shoulder, and quickly brought the shots up on-screen.

Handing him the camera as she’d done in the past, she stepped back. Taking no chances that he’d lean in to share a shot with her as he commented. Giving herself no option to move her head closer to his chest in order to share what he was seeing.

She’d left the job so abruptly, she hadn’t even had a chance to go over what she’d caught that day. Something she always did before leaving a jobsite. Making certain she had enough good shots to work with.

“These are phenomenal, Iris.”

Scott’s tone held a note she hadn’t heard before. Scaring her.

Had emotion for her clouded his judgment?

They couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t give him back the adoration he deserved. He’d get hurt.

She’d rather die, or live alone with no other souls in sight, than hurt Scott.

“Seriously, shot after shot, I feel like I know what he’s thinking. Feeling. I want to comfort him. Reassure him. Praise him…”

She stared. Never…in all the time since death…in the years she’d known Sage and Scott…in her years as a photographer… Never had anyone seemed to know exactly what she’d been thinking, feeling, grasping, without her saying…

Still scrolling on her camera, his attention fully focused on the screen, Scott didn’t seem to notice that Iris was fading. Getting cold. Feeling the blood drain from her face.

Until something inside her clicked into gear. The anger. The determination not to let the drunk who’d stolen life win it all.

She was still there. Had to contribute to the world for both of them. Herself and Ivy.

She glanced over at Scott as he said, “You know…” and then held his gaze as he continued with, “All the years I’ve been looking at your photos, they’ve spoken to me. It’s like I can see you in them, as well as whatever you’re shooting. You know your pictures have always reached me. But today…it’s like there are captions here.”

She smiled. Filled with pride. Gratitude.

With a gush of emotion that overwhelmed her.

Until fear took over.

It was just like at the wedding.

And that could not be allowed.