The Best for Last (Whispering Bay Romance 4)

“I haven’t had the chance to wish you a happy birthday yet,” he said.

Her fingers automatically went up to touch her new diamond earrings. “They’re unbelievably gorgeous. Thank you.” This morning around ten, a delivery truck had arrived at her office with two dozen red roses along with a card and a small blue box from Tiffany’s. It was a wonderful gesture, but not the gift she’d really wanted.

“That’s not the end of your present, you know.”

“It’s not?”

“Not even close,” he said.

He pulled her against his chest and kissed her, and because she wanted it too, she didn’t protest. She opened her mouth and his tongue slid in, familiar and exciting at the same time. Kitty sighed and threw herself into the kiss. She couldn’t fight it anymore. She wanted him. She always had and she always would. Maybe this would be enough for her. Or maybe not. She only knew she wasn’t ready to let go of him yet.

He broke the kiss and began walking her back toward the restaurant. “Let’s go to my place.”

His place in Mexico Beach was over an hour away. Kitty couldn’t wait that long.

“No, let’s do it here.” She began pulling him toward the sandy area below a deserted pier. He hesitated a moment, then followed her lead.

“Are you sure?” His voice sounded rough, like he was excited by the idea.

Impulsively, she reached out and palmed the front of his trousers, causing him to suck in a breath. Oh, yeah. He was definitely excited, all right. “I’m positive. I’m thirty-six years old and I’ve never made love on the beach. It’s my birthday, so you have to do what I want.”

He yanked off his jacket, threw it down on the sand, and then lowered them both onto it. His mouth settled in the sensitive area just below her earlobes with the outrageously expensive earrings, and began placing little kisses there.

“Steve,” she panted.

He slid his big hand up until her black dress bunched around her waist. Then, using the tips of his fingers, he lightly drew a pattern on the skin of her inner thighs. It took him forever but he finally reached the edge of her panties. He palmed her through the thin silk crotch, making her hips buck off the jacket. Then he slipped off her panties and used his broad shoulders to spread her legs apart.

And that’s when she realized he was going to go down on her. Right here on the beach. She should be mortified. Instead, she now understood why he found the idea so exciting. Technically, they were obscured from view by the pier, but anyone could come along at any moment and see them. Or hear them. Because they were definitely not being quiet. At least, she wasn’t being quiet. He, on the other hand, had his mouth occupied at the moment.

He swirled his tongue, slow and lazy in all the places she liked best, until she couldn’t stand it anymore. Her hips began a herky-jerky, frantic kind of motion. “Damn it, Steve, just do it,” she ground out.

He laughed against her thigh, but he brought his hands under her bottom and raised her straight up to meet his mouth, flicking his tongue hard and fast against her clit until she collapsed in a heap of liquid bones back onto the jacket.

He unzipped his fly, pulled out his cock, and guided himself inside her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and let her body adjust to him. They’d made love hundreds of times by now, but every time it felt different. Better. How could that be? Was it the same for him? Or was she the only one that felt that way? “That…it feels…”

“Fucking perfect,” he moaned.

“Yes,” she squeaked.

He began pumping into her, his rhythm slow at first, just like his mouth had been earlier. His hands cupped her breasts through the material of her dress and she wished now that they’d taken the time to take off their clothes, but it was too late for that. She used her hips to subtly encourage him to increase his tempo, and just like that, he did.

Bracing his hands on the sand above her head so that he didn’t crush her, he began pounding into her. It was rough, not like anything she’d experienced with him before. Her hands slid beneath his dress shirt to run frantically over the smooth muscles of his back. She couldn’t stop touching him. Everything felt more intense. More powerful. This time, when she came she must have screamed because he covered her mouth to stifle it, his own low moan mingling with hers.

Afterward, they stayed together for a few minutes, trying to catch their breath. And then she began to laugh, because it’s what she always did after sex. It was her body’s natural response to orgasm. Call her weird. But she’d always done it.

“You are so sexy when you laugh like that,” he said, pulling out slowly.

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure either of us are going to be laughing when we stand up. I think we have sand in all the wrong places.”

He threw his head back and laughed, a natural, deep, rumbly kind of sound that made her want him all over again.

And then before she knew it, she blurted it out. “I love you.”

The second she said it, she knew it was the wrong thing to say. Gone was the comfortable camaraderie and after-sex glow of just a few seconds ago. Now the air was thick with an emotion she couldn’t even name. She sat up and began brushing herself off, trying to put her clothing back in place. But her hands were shaking. Oh God. She’d said it. And he hadn’t said it back. It was worse than her worst nightmare. It was the end of the world.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said quickly.