Southern Heartbreaker (Charleston Heat 4)

My pussy is still pulsing with the aftershocks of my orgasm when Ford presses a kiss to the back of my shoulder. My heart goes soft.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say.

But really, I’m not. Safe to say this is so much more than lust. There are a lot of great reasons why I shouldn’t be falling for Ford—he broke my heart once, we lead totally different lives—but it’s happening anyway.

I don’t know what to do.

“Let’s get back in the water,” Ford murmurs against my skin. “Get you cleaned up. Maybe open a few more beers and hang out on those floaties I was talking about. I have a unicorn, a flamingo, and a donut with sprinkles. Which one do you want?”

My lips curl into a smile, even as my eyes burn. Just the sunscreen. Although, please. That’s not at all true.

“In keeping with today’s food theme, I’ll go with the donut,” I manage.

“Solid choice.” He kisses my neck, and I shiver at the feel of his scruff against my skin. “Also. I can’t properly clean you up if you have your bathing suit on, so…”

I straighten, falling back on my haunches. “If yours stays off, mine will, too.”

“Deal.”

He helps me to my feet. Naked as the day he was born. Cock hanging innocently between his strong, solid thighs.

He’s gorgeous.

This day is gorgeous. Even if it makes me a masochist, I never want it to end.Chapter FifteenEvaWe float for hours. Drinking beers. Ogling each other. Groping each other. The late afternoon sun coating everything in shimmering layers of gold and copper. I am definitely getting sunburned, but I don’t care.

After Ford gives me my second orgasm in as many hours—he uses his fingers this time, one hand on my tits, the other on my pussy—I fall back onto my donut inner tube with a contented sigh.

“You make the best sounds,” he says.

“You give me the best orgasms.” I grab the neck of the unicorn floatie—Ford’s pick—and pull him closer so that I can kiss him. “Thank you. For the orgasms. And the encouragement. And all the great ideas. Today has been the best day I’ve had in a long, long time.”

“Me too,” he says. Eyes serious as they search mine. “Remember back at the shower? When I told you that you can trust your process?”

My lips twitch. “Don’t forget the universe. You told me I could trust the universe, too.”

“Well?” He brushes a wet strand of hair out of my face. “Isn’t it delivering? We just spun a simple lunch of fish tacos into a whole new concept for your cookbook.”

I look at him. My God, my entire being is smiling. My chest filling with so much light and hope and happiness that it’s squeezing my lungs. My heart.

I want to believe him. Maybe I really can trust fate. The universe. Whatever you want to call it.

Maybe Ford is right, and I can stop stressing so much about everything going wrong and start believing that whether it goes wrong or right, it’ll all be okay, and I’ll be able to handle what’s thrown my way. What a lovely concept, that the world is a place of enough. That you’re strong enough. That you’ll get enough.

That you aren’t doomed to repeat past mistakes or circle the same ruts inside your head forever.

Still. I have my doubts.

“It’s a beautiful idea,” I say. “But you know I’m a skeptic at heart. As simple as that lunch was, I worked my ass off on it. I also got lucky. Lucky that I had brunch with Mom and Alex yesterday, and that together we came up with the idea to make the tacos in the first place. I got lucky that I have a mom who just so happens to make the best tortillas, like, ever. And I got lucky that I had a chance to share them with you.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t work hard. But even if the universe isn’t trustworthy—even if life really does just come down to chance and luck—what’s wrong with believing that fate is a benevolent force?”

“What’s wrong with lying to yourself? Jesus, Ford. How very Heart of Darkness of you.”

One side of Ford’s mouth curls into a grin at the reference. “Hey. Just stay on the boat and you’ll be fine. I thought you felt very fine on my boat, no?”

Joseph Conrad’s famous novel, on which the infamous Apocalypse Now movie is based, was one of the books we read in the first English class Ford and I took together as sophomores. In the book, when characters stay on a boat cruising down a river, they stay sane, and stay alive. But when they get off the boat, shit hits the fan. It’s this elaborate metaphor Conrad uses to basically say we need to lie to ourselves—we need to stay on the boat—to survive, or else we’ll go crazy.