It Happened One Summer (It Happened One Summer 1)

Despite the languidness of her muscles, she managed to sit up and fix her dress, blinking at the panties sitting in a wet heap on the floor, memories of the last half hour flooding in. Wow. She’d been so . . . present. Inside every second with him. When she’d been intimate in the past, she spent the whole time obsessing about her appearance, what the guy was thinking, if she was meeting expectations. None of those anxieties had taken hold with Brendan. None. Because . . . he liked her. Not her image. Her actual personality and opinions. With Brendan’s hands on her, she’d had no walls, no boundaries. Tonight had been all about boundaries, but instead of setting them, the line kept getting pushed further and further out.

She hopped off the table, landing on the heels she still wore, and gave him a flirty hip-check. “Maybe I’ll give you another taste when you get back.”

“Maybe, huh?” He caught her arm and spun her around, backing her up against the refrigerator, pinning her there with his rugged frame. Piper’s traitorous body melted immediately, eager to be supported by his superior strength, her head lolling back. Brendan’s hard mouth found hers with lips already opening, his tongue delving deep, carrying the light flavor of her climax, giving it to her with thorough strokes, a low growl of satisfaction simmering in his throat. When he pulled back, his silver-green eyes searched her face, one hand cradling her jaw. “Does that taste like ‘maybe’ to you?”

In other words, she’d be back for more.

“Somebody’s cocky all of a sudden,” Piper huffed.

“Not cocky, honey.” He kissed her mouth again, softly this time. “Determined.”

She sputtered. Determined to do what?

Oh man, she needed to get out of there.

“I have an early morning,” she blurted. “And so do you, right? So.”

“So.” He seemed to be fighting a smile, and it was galling. Still not wearing a shirt, he gathered Piper’s cardigan and helped her put it on, before handing over her purse. At the very last second, he threw on his own shirt and picked up his car keys. “I’m going to have mercy on you this time, Piper, and drive you home.” He threaded their fingers together and tugged her toward the door. “This just had to be the year crab season gets slotted early, didn’t it? Otherwise I’d spend about a week getting inside your head—”

“It would take longer than that.”

“But dammit.” He jerked open the front door. “It’ll have to wait until I’m back.”

Ha. No way. There would be no getting in anyone’s head. Two weeks was like, a million years. They wouldn’t even remember each other’s names by then. They’d pass each other on the street and vaguely recall a fish dinner and an oral-sex fest.

You’re lying to yourself.

And she kept right on doing it the whole ride home. Kept lying to reassure herself when Brendan walked her up the stairs to her apartment. But the pretense shattered at her feet when he kissed her like he’d never see her again, his mouth moving over hers with such tenderness, her knees turned to rubber and she had to hold on to his collar to stay upright.

“Here,” he said, exhaling shakily and pulling the keys out of his pocket. “I’m giving you a spare key to my place, all right? Just in case you and your sister need somewhere to go while I’m out of town.”

Piper stared at the object with dawning horror. “A key?”

“It’s going to get cooler in the next couple of weeks, and the heat in this place probably isn’t great.” He folded her hand around it, kissed her forehead. “Stop freaking out.”

She uttered a string of gibberish.

Did he think she would actually use this thing?

Because she wouldn’t.

He chuckled at her expression and turned to go—and she panicked. A different kind of panic than the variety she felt at being handed the key. She thought of the brass statue on the harbor and Opal emptying the contents of an envelope onto the table.

“Brendan!”

Slowing, he turned with a raised eyebrow.

“Please be careful,” she whispered.

Warmth fused into his eyes, and he checked her out, head to toe, before continuing on his way, the door downstairs closing behind him, followed by silence.

Much later, she realized what Brendan was really doing when he catalogued her features, her hands, her cocked hip.

Memorizing the sight of her.

Just in case?

Chapter Seventeen

The storm started thirteen days later.

Piper had fallen into a daily routine by then. Run along the harbor just after sunrise. Walk Abe to the maritime museum in the morning, visit Opal on her way home, often with Hannah in tow. Work on the bar until dinnertime, then collapse. They’d made a ton of progress on No Name and were going to start decorating next week, as soon as they installed the crisp white cornice and gave the concrete another coat of industrial paint.