Let Me Burn (Angel Sands 1)

“Can I ask you something?” Lucas’ question brought her out of her reverie.

“I guess…” She smiled at him to show she was kidding. “It’s only fair, isn’t it? Tit for tat?”

“What made you split up with your fiancé?”

“I think it was his girlfriend that did it.”

“What?” Lucas looked appalled. “He was cheating on you?”

She wasn’t sure she was ready for this conversation yet, maybe she never would be. In the past months she’d found a way to bury those feelings deep inside her, and there wasn’t a chance in hell she wanted them to rise to the surface. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “But I think so. We were having… a few problems… and then one day he told me he had a new job in San Francisco and was leaving. I was completely blindsided. After all those years I never expected him to do something like that. To be honest, I still find it hard to believe.” She kicked at the water, seeing the droplets rise up, then fall back again. “Ally stalked his Facebook for a while. She said within a couple of weeks he was in a new relationship with a woman called Norah.”

Okay, that was about as much as she wanted to share. She opened her mouth to try and change the conversation, but Lucas beat her to it.

“Can I ask you one more thing?”

She wrinkled her nose. “If you have to. But just so you know, I’m keeping score.”

“Are you still in love with him?”

She definitely wasn’t expecting that. “Wow. I think you owe me two answers for that one.”

He laughed. “I’ll give you three if you tell me.”

She lifted her head up to look at him. “Why do you want to know?”

Lucas reached out and ran the tip of his finger across her jaw. His feather-like touch made her shiver.

“Because I don’t want to kiss a woman who’s still in love with another guy.”

Oh! The butterflies were back in full force. She tried to breathe in, but her throat felt too tight. “I’m not in love with him anymore,” she whispered, her heart hammering in her chest. “I haven’t been for a long time.”

Lucas didn’t reply. She watched him, her breath still caught in her throat, as he inclined his head toward hers. Their eyes were locked together as the tip of his nose slid along the bridge of hers, his lips lifted in a half-smile.

She couldn’t help her own smile. It felt as though fireworks were exploding inside her, bleaching everything with light. He slid his hand around her waist, his fingers cupping her hip, and she stepped closer to him, wanting to feel his body pressed to hers.

“Is this okay?” he murmured. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin.

“Yeah.” It was so much more than okay.

She lifted her head a little more, until their lips were almost touching, and those fireworks in her chest exploded again.

Softly, slowly, he brushed his lips against hers. She lifted her arm, cupping his warm neck with her hand. He deepened the kiss, his mouth warm and firm, their lips moving in harmony as they became breathless with need. She melted into him, her soft curves molding into his hard muscles. He was so strong, so tall, so big. He could dominate her if he wanted to, yet she was the one who let her mouth fall open, the one who let her tongue slowly slide against his.

Another burst of laughter came from the boardwalk, and Lucas slowly pulled his lips from hers. He smiled at her, and she grinned back, her whole skin on fire at his touch.

“Shall we take this somewhere more private?” he asked her. He ran the tip of his tongue across his bottom lip. She wondered if he could taste salt, or her.

She was already missing the sensation of his lips against hers. Already needing her next fix of Lucas Russell. She wanted to kiss him again until those fireworks burned their way out of her skin and engulfed them both.

“Yes,” she said. She couldn’t have wiped the smile off her face if she’d wanted to. “I’d like that a lot.”

19

He wasn’t sure why he took her to his place. Maybe because it was close, only a few hundred yards along the beach, and the roads would be gridlocked with cars leaving the fair. Driving to her place would take so much longer. He found himself kissing her every few feet, the need to feel her lips against his overriding every bit of good sense he had left. Once it took somebody whistling loudly at them before he could bring himself to break the kiss. They’d both laughed as he waved at the guy behind him and got a two-fingered salute in response.

“Before we go in I should warn you it’s a mess,” he told her, sliding his key into the door. He couldn’t resist touching her again, tracing her cheekbone with his finger.

“That’s okay.” She sounded as breathless as he was. “You didn’t know I was coming back. You don’t have to tidy for me.”