Chapter 18
COLT
The water ran cold before I was ready to get out, but I stood there anyway, letting it finish the job on the last of the egg dried in my hair. My arm was stained pink. I worked the shampoo through my hair a second time.
I’d been trying not to think about Summer’s face when I climbed those steps. The way she’d looked at me with disappointment. She’d been watching and hoping I’d make a different choice. I hadn’t. I’d stood up there and let Judd Mathers shake my hand in front of everyone.
I deserved the eggs. I turned the water off and stood there dripping.
She’d asked me to look at the crowd and I had.
I’d looked at all of them and I’d thought about the data I had collected.
The economic projections and revenue forecasts.
The employment numbers. I’d been running those numbers in my head for months.
The data was clear that the port would help the town, which I actually cared about, contrary to what the angry mob thought.
I thought about the egg hitting Judd. The genuine, open-mouthed shock on his face. I didn’t see who had thrown it, but they had great aim. I’d stood up there covered in someone else’s breakfast and I’d grinned like an idiot because part of me thought he had it coming.
I kept coming back to Summer. Not just the protest, not just this morning. I kept thinking about all of it. The whole picture of her that I’d been trying to put back together since I got back. The pieces I knew from before and the new ones I’d been collecting without meaning to.
She wasn’t the same woman she’d been seven years ago when I first met her. I thought about everything she’d been through and now she was looking at losing her town. The place that had been her entire support system her entire life.
She’d lost her mother too young. Summer had been seventeen.
She had managed to hold herself together and I knew a lot of that was because of the community.
She had told me many times about the meals the women in town delivered.
The offers to do laundry and sit with them when they were having a bad day.
I thought about the first night I saw her.
She’d come from somewhere up the beach at a dead run, hit the water without hesitation, and went in after a kid twice her size who was going under in the dark.
I hadn’t known her back then. She was a beautiful hurricane.
I hadn’t known anything about her. But I’d watched her put her life on the line to save him.
And even when she should have been furious with him for being such a damn fool, she’d comforted him. Dealt with his stupid flirtations.
Summer took care of people. It was who she was. She was doing it now by taking care of her sister and her kids. She’d stepped in when that situation fell apart. She gave up her place with Capri to move in and help take care of her niece and nephew.
I thought about the students she taught how to love the water and not be afraid of it. She was something else on the water but watching her teach was a different thing entirely.
She was extraordinary.
I smiled thinking about her standing up to me. Feet planted. Chin up. Arms crossed like she was daring the whole world to try her.
That was the image I couldn’t shake. She hadn’t yelled or thrown anything. She’d just stood there looking at me with that particular brand of disappointment that was so much worse than anger. Anger I could argue with. Disappointment just sat there and made me feel like I was two inches tall.
The project couldn’t happen.
I could not look into those eyes and see her look at me like I was the biggest piece of shit she’d ever encountered.
The next time I saw her, I wanted her looking at me like she had that night on the beach.
She didn’t come right out and tell me she was thinking about our time together, but I felt it. I knew that look in her eyes.
I groaned thinking about the woman I’d never been able to stop thinking about. I braced both hands against the tile wall, letting the water beat down on the back of my neck. Seven years. Seven goddamn years and she still lived in my head like she owned my very soul.
The steam rose around me, pulling up a memory of one of the hottest showers of my life, and it had zero to do with the temperature of the water.
The memory of her hit me full force. My cock hardened. Being near her had left me with the worst case of blue balls. I needed relief. I wrapped my hand around myself slowly, exhaling hard through my nose.
I thought about her mouth first. The way her bottom lip was slightly fuller than the top. The way it had felt between my teeth. She liked when I did that. Made the sweetest sound I ever heard.
I stroked slowly, remembering that low, involuntary catch in her breath when my hands skated between her legs. I always liked to tease her.
Damn.
My grip tightened on myself. I reached for the bodywash, squirted some on my hand, and stroked faster.
I thought about her hands on my chest. The way her fingers had spread wide while her mouth latched on to my neck.
I thought about the way her nails had dragged down my back and then dug into my ass when I pushed inside her.
I thought about her body under my hands. The dip of her waist. The flare of her hips. The way she’d arched into me when I’d dragged my mouth down her throat. Her body was so responsive.
My hips rolled forward against my own fist, the water running hot down my spine.
I thought about those eyes staring into mine as I drove into her. Over and over. I pumped my hand. When she came apart beneath me, it had wrecked me then and wrecked me now.
My forehead dropped against the tile. I thought about the sounds she made. My breathing was ragged now, my free hand pressing flat against the wall for balance. My legs shook with the need coursing through me.
I thought about her standing in front of me today and how desperately I wanted to kiss her. The thought of her hands in my hair pushed me over.
I groaned low, forehead still pressed to the tile, my whole body tight and shuddering through the orgasm, water pouring over my shoulders while I rode it out.
I stood there for a long moment after, breathing hard, the shower running cool now.
I turned off the water, dried off, and wrapped the towel around my waist.
Walking away from the project wasn’t quite as simple as pulling the plug. There were contracts. Financial penalties written into every agreement. The contracts were designed to discourage exactly what I was currently thinking about. Judd had good lawyers. They anticipated cold feet.
The penalties were structured in tiers. Pull out before construction began, you paid one amount.
Pull out after groundbreaking, you paid significantly more.
Pull out after the port infrastructure was in the ground and you were looking at a number that would hurt even at my level.
We hadn’t broken ground yet, but the permits were moving. The clock was ticking.
And it wasn’t just the financial hit to me personally. There were other investors in the port project. Some of them were institutions. Pension funds. Pulling out didn’t just cost me money. It sent a ripple through every one of them.
I ran a hand through my damp hair.
There were businesses that had already made commitments based on the port being built.
A restaurant group out of San Francisco had signed a letter of intent for two of the pier locations.
A surf brand was ready to open a store in Surfside.
A boutique hotel developer had purchased a parcel two blocks off Front Street.
The port was the keystone. Pull it and the whole arch came down. And I was about to blow it all up because I didn’t want a certain girl looking at me like she hated me.
I dressed in shorts and a tee. I didn’t dare go for a run.
I was going to be hiding in the house the rest of the evening.
I found Cody in the kitchen, which was exactly where I expected to find him.
He had the island covered in everything he needed for the grilled steaks we were planning for dinner.
He was seasoning the meat with what he called his special blend.
He looked up when I came in.
“There he is,” he said. “The human omelet.”
“That’s not funny.”
He looked me over, taking in the fresh shirt, the wet hair. “You get it all out?”
“Most of it.” I pulled out a barstool and sat down at the island. “There’s still a faint pink tint on my forearm.”
He leaned over and looked. “That’s not going away for a couple of days. You’re going to look like you lost a fight with a highlighter.” He went back to the seasoning. “The good news is it’s a very flattering color on you.”
“Fuck off.”
He chuckled. “Heard from Judd?”
I exhaled through my nose. “Nope, which is either a good sign or a very bad one.”
“I’m going with very bad,” Cody said. He picked up both steaks and carried them to the plate he had waiting, covered them loosely, and slid them toward the back of the counter to rest.
He washed his hands at the sink and dried them on the dish towel tucked into his waistband. “You want a beer while we wait for the grill to heat up?”
“God, yes.”
He pulled two from the fridge, twisted the caps off, and slid one across the island to me. I took a long drink.
Cody followed suit. “So, that happened.”
“Yep.”
“Judd went full tin-pot dictator,” Cody said. “What an idiot.”
I set my beer down on the island. “The guy had it coming.”
“I agree.”
Cody studied me. “What are you going to do?”
I considered my answer, and unsurprisingly, the answer hadn’t come to me since stepping out of the shower.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“But you have an idea.”
“I don’t want to do it,” I said. “I don’t want to follow through with the project.”
He let out a low whistle. “That’s a massive hit,” he said quietly. “You know that, right? We’re not talking about walking away from a bad lunch tab.”
“I know.”
“And the downstream stuff could cause major problems.”
“I know all of it, Cody.”
“I’m not trying to talk you out of it,” he said, holding up a hand. “I’m just making sure you’re thinking about all the pros and cons. I know what the major pro is but is she worth it?”
“I don’t know. I mean, yes, but I don’t know if she thinks I’m worth it.”
He grabbed the steaks and headed out to the patio. I followed behind him.
“I need to call Judd,” I said.
Cody’s eyebrows went up. “Tonight?”
“Before he does something I can’t undo. He’s already talking to lawyers. If he starts filing harassment suits against locals, that’s not going to help. I’m not putting my name on that.”
“He’s not going to take it well.”
“No,” I agreed. “He’s not.”
“You can make the call after we eat. Whatever’s coming, you should face it on a full stomach.”
My eyes drifted toward the fence line. More specifically, her house. Was she home?
“She’s not going to make it easy for you,” Cody said.
I chuckled. “She never has. She doesn’t trust me.”
“You’re going to have to earn it back.”
“I’m not sure she’ll give me the chance.”
He put the steaks on the grill. The sizzle filled the air. The smell of onion and garlic washed over me.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re making the right call,” Cody said.