Chapter 23
Tonight, it’s go big or go home—because I’m telling Lucy how I feel.
If I can manage to get her alone, that is.
But at the moment, it feels like the whole town is here on the beach outside of The Purple Seashell, where Chloe is throwing the festival planning committee (and their families and possibly all their friends too) a “soiree” to say thank you for all of our hard work. That feels like too fancy a word for the cookout and volleyball game going on right now, but I guess when you’re from a European country, everything’s fancy.
You’d think that my feelings for my sister’s best friend would have been abundantly clear two nights ago when I came home and had the privilege of being the one to literally care for Lucy, but I haven’t said the words yet. Mostly because I wanted her to be fully recovered from her food poisoning, which—given the way she’s chowing down on a burger with Marilee at a table not too far from where I’m in line to grab a drink—she thankfully is.
But also, the last twenty-four hours, I’ve hardly been home again. In addition to running the food truck like normal (though I shut down early tonight, obviously), Dale and I have been texting and calling back and forth about the upcoming TV spot on Tuesday.
Still, now that Lucy is better and here, I’m not losing my nerve. And I’m not wasting another minute.
Literally.
Abandoning the line, I beeline for her table, and when she glances up, her eyes widen. “Flake. Hi.” Is it my imagination, or does she run her tongue over the teeth underneath her upper lip?
“Hey, ladies.” I speak to both of them, but my eyes are only for Lucy. I’m sure my sister will forgive me once she realizes I urgently need to talk to Lucy.
But then Jordan comes running up with a volleyball, punching my arm. “Dude, there you are. We need your help.” He gestures back to the sand volleyball pit, where Elisse, Kelsey, and a handful of other women are facing off against Frederick, Landon, and, I assume, Jordan. “The girls are slaughtering us.”
I glance back at Lucy, who’s got an amused look on her face. But when I open my mouth to protest, she takes a swig of her Diet Coke and nudges my sister. “Should we go join in the fun, Mare?”
Marilee shakes her head, her bun bobbing. “Oh no, I’ll just watch.”
“Aw, come on, Lee.” Jordan winks at her. “You’ll help even out the sides.”
“How dare you talk to my friend like that,” Lucy says in mock anger. She stands up and pulls Marilee to her feet, and my eyes can’t help but linger for a moment on her powerful legs in those jean shorts again. Her high ponytail swings over her shoulders that are both delicate and toned at the same time.
Marilee, for her part, is laughing, good-naturedly accepting Jordan’s teasing. “Fine, fine. I’ll play.”
“Let’s show them who’s boss,” Lucy says as she starts to drag Mare away. Then she looks back at me and Jordan. “Coming, boys?”
There’s a glint in her eyes, the way she’s beckoning me—commanding me—with a single glance that makes her just about the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen. No way I’m turning down that challenge. I crack my knuckles. “Guess it’s up to me to take you down.”
“Oh, you think so?” Now Lucy’s rounding, stepping right back up to me, and we’re toe to toe in the sand. It reminds me of when she cornered me in my food truck a month ago—back when we were enemies.
How much has changed.
There’s always been a charge between us, but now it’s crackling like lightning that knows it’s about to be released. The energy is palpable, exciting.
Filled with possibility.
And I crave it. I want to pour it into my veins and explode. Lucy does that to me.
I lower my face so it’s within a few inches of hers. “I know so.”
She lifts on her tiptoes and places her hands against my chest—and a bunch of tiny explosions begin. I can hardly stand another moment without kissing this woman. The words I’ve wanted to speak to her for the last two days nearly fall from my loose lips.
Her own lips nearly skim the shell of my ear as she whispers, “I’d like to see you try to take me down.”
And that’s it. No way can I go stand on a volleyball court and pretend like all I want is to flirt with her from afar. I want so much more with Lucy.
My hands fall to her waist, and it’s my turn to whisper something to her. “Challenge accepted.” And with that, I press the tiniest of kisses to her earlobe.
She gasps, and the sound only reassures me that this is good, and right, and real.
Even though I’m fully present in this moment with her, I sense the gaze of others, starting with Jordan and Marilee. One glance at them shows they’re frozen, watching us with wide eyes.
Grinning, I grab Lucy’s hand. “You guys are going to have to excuse us for a minute. We’ll be right back.” Though I actually hope not.
Before they can say anything, I tug Lucy away, toward the cliffs abutting the beach just north of the inn.
“Blake,” she hisses. But she keeps trailing me.
I stop and turn, taking the opportunity to not just grasp her hand, but entwine every other finger of mine with hers. “Sunshine, if you don’t want to come with me, I understand. But I need to talk to you. So…please?”
She bites that lip I’m dying to kiss again, and nods. Behind her, the sun is sitting on the horizon, preparing for another glorious sunset. The Hallmark Beach gossips are probably watching, having a field day with the way we’re sneaking away. But I don’t care about them.
I only care about her.
What a strange and new sensation. If I’m not careful, I’d give up everything for this woman. I can’t quite do that—after all, I’m still the logical Blake I’ve always been, and I still have Dad’s words in my ear. But no longer can I pretend like those dreams of nebulous “success” are enough either.
I want to see if it’s possible to have both.
Want to see if Lucy is willing to try.
Finally, we reach the sandstone cliffs, where we’d find a perfect overlook for the coming sunset if we climbed to the top. But I don’t want to be up there for the world to see—both the crowd gathered on the beach and anyone who happens to be at the marina just north of here.
I want a world that’s made up of just me and Lucy.
So I steer us straight for an outcropping in the reddish brown rocks, where the sun’s rays only peek between, where the sand is dark and cool, where the air is damp. When we get there, tucked away from everyone else, even the sound of the ocean is muffled as I turn Lucy to face me, pressing her gently back against the wall.
There’s enough light that I still see every one of her perfect features. The bumps in her hair from where she threw it up in a rubber band. The slight upturn of her nose. The freckle at the corner of her mouth. The way she’s biting her lip, like she wants to speak but isn’t sure what to say.
And the questions in those eyes that I once thought were icy blue but have since come to think of as Lucy Blue. Wholly, utterly belonging to her and only her.
Inhaling a breath, I place one hand next to her head and step closer. “Hi.”
“H-hi.” The word skitters out in that adorable Southern accent—the one that becomes stronger when her emotions are heightened, whether anger or otherwise—and her nose scrunches. “What are we doin’, Blake?”
“We”—I pause—“are standing here.”
She snorts. Atta girl. “I mean…”
“I know what you mean. And I meant what I said.” With my free hand, I slowly move my finger along the strap of her tank top, mesmerized by the soft skin of her shoulder. “We’re standing on the precipice of something, Sunshine. Something that started a long time ago. Something I fought. Something I’m still not…” I frown, blink.
Am I doing the right thing here? Because I don’t have a plan. Not really. I only have a hope. But I don’t want to hurt Lucy, to promise something I can’t deliver.
“Hey.” She lifts her hand to cover mine. “I never thanked you for the other night. For taking such good care of me.”
Is she kidding? “What other option did I have?”
She flinches, and I realize how that might have sounded. “That’s not what I meant.” I blow out a shaky breath. “I meant…Lucy, no matter what I’ve done to convince myself otherwise, I can’t help but be drawn to you.” Crap. I’m ruining this. I groan. “And I realize that sounds like Mr. Darcy saying how much he wishes he didn’t like Elizabeth Bennet?—”
She raises her eyebrows in amusement.
“What?” I chuckle. “I have a sister. She forced me to watch my share of romcoms and Jane Austen.”
Tilting her head, she’s biting back a laugh herself. “You may proceed.”
“Don’t know if I should,” I tease. Only Lucy can make me feel better about how utterly bad I am about sharing my feelings. “Next thing you know, I’ll be saying ten things I hate about you.” Shaking my head, I turn her hand around and grasp it, lowering our clasped fingers toward my chest. “But in all seriousness, Lucy, my stupidity in staying away from you—back twelve years ago, and this whole last month—has nothing to do with you. With your quality. With you not being good enough. Honestly, you’re too good for me. You always have been. I don’t deserve…”
Her eyes have gone misty, and she squeezes my hand. An encouragement to keep going. She’s not running away screaming—or laughing—so that’s something, I guess.
Here goes nothing. “I don’t deserve you, and yet, I want you. I want this. I want to see if there’s something here that can last.” My heart’s going crazy in my chest, and I’m sure she can feel the wild beating going on inside. “If we can ever want the same things.”
Lucy’s tongue flicks across her bottom lip, and I can practically see the gears moving in her brain. She presses her eyes closed, then open again. “I’m not going to lie, Blake. That really scares me.”
“It scares me too. In a lot of ways, it would just be easier…”
“To walk away. To pretend like…”
I feel a tug on one of my belt loops, so I acquiesce to her call, closing the distance between us. Now my whole left arm—from palm to elbow—presses against the rock wall, and our bodies are flush against each other. Leaving her hand pressed against my chest, I fit my right hand underneath her jaw, my index finger curled there, tilting her face slightly upward. My thumb softly rests against the point of her chin. “Like we don’t…” I lift the pad of my thumb, letting it glide across her mouth.
She shudders. “Like we aren’t…”
My head sinks down, closer to hers, and I can’t think, can only breathe and smell and feel Lucy—all of her. Physically, emotionally. She’s all here with me, and I’m all here with her. “Like I’m not crazy.” The tip of my nose skims hers, then slides down the side and along her cheekbone, where my mouth hovers over that freckle. “About.” I press a soft kiss there, and her breath vibrates out.
In response, her hands both find their way to my waist, and her fingers tuck themselves under my shirt, grazing the skin just above my belt.
I finally move my mouth along her cheek, kissing my way to her ear as her fingers dig into my skin. And when I kiss a ring around her ear, I can feel both of us near the boundary we’ve always set for our emotions, about to break with wanting. The slow burn has us both in flames.
Pulling back, I look her in the eyes. There’s a haziness there, a drunkenness I recognize in myself. “You,” I finally say.
Then I’m plunging in, kissing her with all the pent-up passion I’ve held back for so long. My hands cup the back of her head and I’m angling my mouth deeper, and she’s gripping my back, arching toward me, giving as much as I am. Then I’m tugging the rubber band from her hair so I can sink my fingers into it, plunging and stroking like I wanted to do that night in the kitchen while I nip her bottom lip and kiss her neck and revel in the glory that is Lucy.
“Blake,” she groans as she moves her hands up my chest and around my neck, leaning back and letting the rocks hold us both up. I suddenly worry that it’s too rough for her, so I flip us around and now the rocks are against my back and Lucy is leaning into me, reaching up on her tiptoes to kiss the stubble on my jawline.
I can’t help but release the deep rumble in my chest when she lets me slide my hands along the curve of her waist as she tugs my head down and nibbles the lobe of my ear. How did I get this lucky, to be the guy that this goddess of a woman—this perfect girl next door, with the temper and the goodness and the loyalty and the forgiving nature of a saint—would allow me to touch her?
It’s utterly unreal, but I want to spend every hour of my life showing her how grateful I am.
“Lucy.” I say her name again and again, as I kiss her eyebrows, her eyelids, her nose, each corner of her mouth. Then I give her lips the softest kiss I can manage. “Lucy.”
She must hear the difference in my tone—that there’s something I need to say—and her eyes flutter open. “Hmm?” she says in the sweetest way, like she’s just waking up from a dream.
Me too, Sunshine. Me too.
“Lucy, I don’t know what happens from here.” I pull her against my chest and stroke my hand down her arm. “But I want to find out.”
“I do too,” she whispers. Then we’re still for a while, and finally she speaks again. “And I know you’re still leaving at the end of the summer. That scares me. But we have some time to figure this out, right?” Her hold around my torso tightens.
Maybe I should tell her that there’s a small chance I’m leaving earlier than planned. But nothing is set in stone, and I don’t want to ruin this moment with what ifs. Once I know anything for sure, I’ll tell her. “Right.”
She looks up and pulls me in again for more kissing. I happily comply.
Finally, when we’re both exhausted and breathing hard, I gently push us away from the rock wall and hold her at a distance—much to Lucy’s whimpering protest, which makes me smile.
“We should probably get back out there before our friends send a search party.”
“Let them.”
I curl a strand of her hair around my index finger. “I don’t know about you, but I kind of want to keep this in a little bubble for a while. To keep you this way all to myself.”
“Good, so we’re agreed. More kissing.” She takes a step closer, and I chuckle.
“I do like that idea. But…”
She sighs. “I know. We should probably pace ourselves.” Then she points at me. “But I don’t have to like it.”
“Believe me. If it were up to me, we’d never leave this spot. But since we are…” I loop my fingers through hers. “There’s a question I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time. Like, about twelve years.”
She tucks away a smile. “Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”
“Would you like to go on a date with me? Tomorrow, maybe?”
“Boo. I have to work tomorrow until late.” She smiles. “But what about Sunday? I’m off then.”
It stinks to have to wait, but it gives me more time to figure out the perfect plan for her. “Sunday works.”
“Can you afford to close up shop that day?”
She doesn’t know yet that I’ve pretty much gotten all the data I need now. That I don’t have to keep the food truck running every day. But I don’t want to go into that just yet. “Definitely.”
Her smile turns shy. “I can’t wait.”
My heart shifts inside me, and I want to give her the world. Still, I can’t promise her that just yet. But I can give her a date. A really good date.
I kiss her knuckles. “I can’t either, Sunshine. I can’t either.”