Chapter 14
The day was warm, the sky a cloudless blue, the wind off the ocean blustery, keeping them from overheating. The trail along the bluffs offered a magnificent view of the Pacific.
Summer wore hiking shorts that seemed glued to her fabulous ass, her phone tucked in a side pocket along her thigh, her shoulders covered by the capped sleeves of her shirt.
Trail dust coated her sturdy hiking shoes.
Though he’d never asked—and she’d never shared—the muscles rippling in her calves declared her an avid hiker.
“It’s gorgeous out here,” she said from beneath the shade of her sunhat as the waves crashed against the cliff face below them.
“Absolutely gorgeous.” Knox didn’t give a damn about the view. There was only her.
The path wasn’t crowded, even though it was a beautiful day.
But this park was out of the way from Santa Cruz’s Beach Boardwalk, and not as well known.
If they were to cross under the highway and wander up into the hills, he was sure they’d see no one but mountain bikers.
He liked to bring his bike out here and ramble through those hilly trails.
“You obviously enjoy hiking.” He pointed to her well-worn shoes. “Do you bike as well?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t biked since I was a teenager.”
“Not even with your girls?”
“We’re hikers.”
He was holding her hand, had been almost since they left the parking lot, as if he didn’t hold on to her, she might disappear, a figment of his imagination, a wet dream who came to him in the night. Just like she’d accused him of being a phantom.
Stroking his thumb across her knuckles, he asked, “Did your husband hike with you and the girls?”
She huffed out a breath, shaking her head. “He preferred our home gym where he could watch the business news while he ran on the treadmill or pumped iron.”
“He didn’t go anywhere with you and the girls?”
She said simply, “No,” without any further explanation.
He wanted to say the man was a dickhead, but that was just his jealousy talking.
“I take it you’re a biker,” she said, taking the focus off her.
He squeezed her fingers. “I like to bike back there.” He twisted to point to the hills on the other side of the highway. “That area is part of the park too. You can reach it through a tunnel under Highway One.”
“Do you bike here every weekend? It’s a long drive from Silicon Valley.”
“Hike or bike. There’s another park just up Highway Nine in the San Lorenzo Valley, where you’ll find Boulder Creek and Felton. They’ve got some great bike trails there. Some great hiking trails too. I could teach you how to bike.”
She grinned at him, but he couldn’t tell if that was a yes or no. “I thought no one ever forgets how to ride a bike once they’ve learned?”
“No. But you can still feel wobbly until you get your bike legs under you.” With a gust of wind, a lock of hair blew across her face, and he reached over to tuck it back beneath her hat.
“We could make a date for next weekend.” He used the word intentionally.
He’d used it last night, wanting her to know this wasn’t an adventure or an experience, but an actual date. And he wanted more.
“Hiking is more my speed.” She grinned at him, teasing him. “I bet I can climb the Pinnacles as easily as you can.”
Pinnacles National Monument stretched to the south between Hollister and Soledad.
And whether you entered from the Soledad side or the Hollister side, the climbs to the peak were steep and strenuous.
“It’s a bet. But we have to go early in the morning to beat the heat.
It can sizzle out there. We should start from Soledad.
It’s more open on that side, and it’s best to reach the top before the sun really beats down.
And returning from the Hollister side, you’ve got more shade on the trail.
Plus, there’s a cave to climb through.” He gave her a shit-eating grin.
“Too bad it’s not bigger, or I could do very naughty things to you in there. ”
She slapped playfully at him. “Is sex all you think about?”
He leaned in to kiss her quickly before she could push him away. “Yes. When I’m around you. And don’t tell me it isn’t what you think about too. After all, you’re my phone fuck buddy.” And she’d become so much more.
She just smiled, a knowing smirk.
Reaching the grotto he’d told her about, he led her down a steep path through dense foliage, holding out his hand when he thought she might need help. But Summer never needed help. She was as sure-footed as a mountain goat, and he believed her claims that she could outwalk him in Pinnacles.
The beach, however, was dotted with families sitting on blankets, little kids dashing into the waves.
Knox reeled her in for a swift kiss. “And the dream died,” he murmured against her lips.
She smiled. “Too many people here for you to get naughty with me in the grotto?”
He pulled her to the mouth of the cavern, which was dripping with moss and condensation, ferns sprouting all around. “If it was just adults, I’d do it. But we shouldn’t traumatize little kids.”
He led her to a log in the sand right outside the opening and shrugged off his pack. “But we can at least eat the feast I prepared for you.”
He was almost glad he couldn’t fuck her. If they had, it would have taken this beautiful day from date status to an adventure, or even an experience.
Fishing in the pack, he pulled out a sandwich sealed in a plastic bag.
She gasped, a flirty smile on her lips that made him want to kiss her again. “Don’t tell me you actually prepared sandwiches,” she said with a laugh.
“Drinks.” Twisting off the cap on a water bottle, he gave it to her. “Sandwich.” He handed her the baggie. “Dessert.” He placed two chocolate-covered nut bars on the log.
She guzzled thirstily, her throat working, and he mused it was the same way her throat would move when she swallowed his come.
She would swallow all of him eventually. But not now and not here.
Resting the bottle on her knee, she tipped her head back. “Oh my God, that was so good. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was.”
She couldn’t know how good it would be when she finally took him in her mouth and drank all of him. He ached for it.
Digging into her baggie, she pulled out the sandwich. “Tuna fish.” She beamed at him.
“With hard-boiled egg and relish,” he elaborated. “That’s how my mom always made them.”
She ate with gusto. Just the way she came, with pleasure in every moment.
Maybe the time wasn’t right, but he didn’t care, and he said, “I had my annual physical and I’ve got a completely clean bill of sexual health, all my tests negative.
” He was a careful man, always using protection, but he had himself regularly checked too.
But with her, he craved skin to skin contact.
She stared at him for a moment. “That’s nice.” Then, half a beat later, she added, “My recent doctor visit gave me a clean bill of health too. I always get tested just in case. But I’m careful.”
“So we’re both clean and healthy. I presume you use some sort of birth control.”
She actually blushed, but answered boldly. “I do.”
He smiled. “Then let’s forget about using condoms. Because I want to feel your silky flesh surrounding me with nothing between us.”
As her cheeks heated with either embarrassment or pleasure, she said, “You do have a way with words.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then murmured, “Are you okay with that?”
She sucked in her breath, then finally said, “Yes. I’m okay with it.”
With that settled, they finished their sandwiches in a strangely companionable silence. As if they’d gotten something out of the way. The day was glorious, even if he couldn’t fuck her in the cavern. And he wanted way more than fucking from her. Which reminded him of her words from last night.
It’s not making love, it’s fucking.
But he was going to show her that what he made her feel, what he made her want, what he made her need, was so much more than fucking. Tonight, he would give her the fantasy, falling asleep with his cock buried deep inside her.
After they’d made love.
The day had been brilliant, the bright blue sky above, the turquoise ocean, the camel-colored sand with flowering vines running through it, the deep green fern fronds, and his dark brown eyes looking at her with something she was terrified to define.
Summer wanted what was between them to be just about sex.
But every day seemed another escalation closer to making their relationship into something more.
See, even she was calling it a relationship.
It was supposed to be just phone sex. But then they went out together.
It wasn’t supposed to be physical, but then he’d taken her on the hood of his car.
It wasn’t supposed to be dating, but then they’d gone on a date to the beach.
And now they’d agreed not to use protection.
She believed him, they were both protected against the physical.
But what would protect her heart?
When she brought him into her townhouse, her home, after their long hike and delicious lunch, she needed it to be just sex. And it terrified that with Knox, it was no longer just sex. It was becoming more.
Was it making love?
But once they were inside her home, she couldn’t resist. Hell, she didn’t even want to resist.
Slipping her fingers inside his belt buckle and hanging on, she whispered seductively, as if they were on the phone, “I want my fantasy.”
He gazed down at her with his dark eyes, darker than maple now, as dark as mahogany. “Which fantasy?” he murmured.
“The one where I take you in my mouth.”
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile. “I thought that was my fantasy.”
“I definitely remember last night—” She smiled for him. “—when you asked me what my fantasy was, and I said it was your cock in my mouth.”
She flipped open his belt buckle.
He stilled her hands. “As I recall, that was on your bed. Not in your front hallway.”