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  “Yeah.”

  Silence.

  “I’m heading home,” Bess said. Gay. Why did he have to be gay? How could he be gay? Why was every cute boy around here gay? “I rode my bike.”

  “That’s hot,” said Nick with another grin. “What do you ride? A Harley?”

  Her thoughts weren’t normally so slow, but somehow lust and disappointment had made syrup of her brain. “What? Oh…no. Ten-speed.”

  He laughed. Bess watched his throat work. She wanted to lick him, and had actually moved forward a tiny bit before she stopped herself, embarrassed. Nick didn’t seem to notice.

  “Where do you live?”

  She hesitated before telling him, not wanting to admit she lived in one of the beachfront homes.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not a serial killer,” Nick said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  She felt really stupid then. “Oh. No, it’s not that. I’m staying in my grandparents’ house on Maplewood Street.”

  There was only the barest pause before he nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  His gaze traveled over her, up and down, and Bess suddenly wished she’d borrowed some of Missy’s clothes. Put on some makeup. Except what did it matter, when he didn’t like girls, anyway?

  “Nice meeting you,” she said. It sounded lame, even to her. The sort of thing you said at a cocktail party, not an impromptu kegger in a trailer park.

  “You work at Sugarland, right? I’ve seen you there.” Nick thrust his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans.

  “Yes.” Bess looked for her bike, still chained to the hitch of Missy’s trailer.

  “With Brian, right?”

  Bess gave an inward sigh. Of course he would know Brian. “Yeah.”

  “I work at the Surf Pro.” Nick walked with her to the bike and watched as she unlinked the chain and wound it along the straddle bar.

  One of the few stores Bess had never been in. The bathing suits were too expensive there, and she didn’t surf. Or sail. She nudged up the kickstand with her foot, grasping the bike’s handles, and swung her leg over the seat.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Nick asked. “Your ankle’s okay and everything? You’re okay to…ride?”

  “I already told you, I’m not drunk.” Her answer came out a little more clipped than she’d intended, but it was late. She was tired. And she was trying very hard not to notice how nice his mouth looked when he smiled.

  “Okay, well, maybe I’ll see you around.” Nick gave her a nod and waved as she pushed off and rode away.

  “See you,” Bess called over her shoulder, with no intention of ever seeing him again.

  CHAPTER 03

  Now

  “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  At the sound of the voice in the doorway, Bess’s soap-slick hands twitched on the coffee mug she’d been rinsing. It slipped from her fingers and crashed to the kitchen’s tile floor. Hot water splashed her legs as she turned, gripping the counter to keep from sliding in the spill.

  He stood, backlit, for just a moment before moving forward. The same dark hair, same dark eyes. Same quirked smile.

  Everything the same.

  Bess couldn’t move. Last night she had dreamed… Oh, but it hadn’t been a dream. Had it? If not, surely she was dreaming now. She curved her fingers against the sink’s porcelain, finding no purchase. Nothing to grip.

  “Nick?”

  Now he looked uncertain. His hair dripped, and the hems of his jeans. His bare toes, coated with sand, gritted on the tile as he took a step toward her, hand outstretched but quickly pulling back when she shrank against the counter. “Bess…it’s me.”

  Her guts tumbled inside her, and she couldn’t breathe. She sipped at the air in uneven, hitching gasps. “I thought…I thought…”

  “Hey.” He soothed her, coming closer.

  She could smell him. Salt and water and sand and sun. The way he’d always smelled, back then. Bess found more air. Took a deeper breath. Nick didn’t touch her as she stared. His hand hovered an inch from her shoulder.

  “It’s really me,” he said.

  A low sob forced its way from her throat and she launched herself forward. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face to the damp fabric of his shirt. She breathed him in, deep and deeper.

  It took him a second to put his arms around her, but when he did, his embrace was firm. Warm. He rubbed her back, then slid up a hand to cup the base of her skull.

  Bess, eyes closed, shuddered against him. “I thought I was dreaming last night.”

  She remembered stumbling up the beach, peeling off her clothes, tumbling into bed without even bothering to dry her hair or brush the sand from her skin. She’d woken to find the pile of salty, sodden clothes staining the rug, and her bed a shambles. The passion of the night before had been replaced by a pounding head and slightly sick stomach.

  Nick’s hand rubbed a small, tight circle on her back, between the shoulder blades. “If you were dreaming, I was dreaming, too.”

  Bess held him tighter. “Maybe we’re both dreaming, because this can’t be real, Nick. It can’t be real.”

  He put his hands on her upper arms and pushed her back far enough to look into her face. She’d forgotten how small he could make her feel. How deceptively bigger he’d always been.

  “I’m real.”

  His fingers on her arms felt real. Solid. Strong. Her cheek was wet from where she’d pressed it to his shirt. Heat radiated from him as though she stood in front of a furnace, and the smell of him, that lost, welcome smell, filled her head until there was nothing else inside her. Tears blurred her vision and she blinked them away. Then she pushed herself out of his arms.

  Bess looked at him. Salt water had spiked his hair, but had ceased sliding down his cheeks. His clothes had started to dry, too. He took up as much space as he ever had. His touch was as warm. Time hadn’t changed him, hadn’t painted lines in the corners of his eyes and mouth or silver in his hair.

  Bess touched Nick’s cheek. “How can this be? Look at you. Look at me.”

  He put his hand over hers, then turned his face to press a kiss to the center of her palm. He closed her fingers over it, but said nothing.

  His smile broke her.

  “Oh, no,” Bess said. “Oh, no. No.”

  She pulled her hand from his. Neither of them moved, but the distance between them grew vast. Something flickered in Nick’s eyes, an emotion she couldn’t read.

  “How many people have a second chance?” he asked. “Don’t push me away, Bess. Please.”

  He’d never asked her for anything. Blinking, Bess turned back to the sink. She’d left the water running, and flicked the handle of the faucet down. Without the rush of water pouring from the spigot, the sound of the ocean outside filled the space between them and brought them together.

  “How?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “It should.”

  He smiled and sent the same old twist into her belly, and lower. “But does it? Really?”

  When he bent to kiss her, the taste of him chased away logic. All reason. And that, too, was the same as it had always been.

  “No,” Bess said, and opened her arms for him again.

  The bedroom she took him to wasn’t the ground-level, closet-size room next to the carport she’d used in the past. She’d claimed the master bedroom now, with its private deck and bathroom. Not that he’d have known the difference. She’d never brought him home before.

  Nick seemed to hesitate in the doorway until she took his hand and led him to the king-size bed. Bess had stripped the sheets first thing this morning, but only managed to get a fitted sheet back on the mattress before the promise of coffee and breakfast distracted her. Without the mountain of decorative pillows and coverlet embroidered with seashells, the bed looked bigger. The pristine white sheet, stretched tight, begged to be rumpled.

  At the foot of the bed Nick bent to kiss her, but Bess w
as already stretching on her tiptoes to reach his mouth. She pushed and he let her, and she was on top when they fell together onto the vast empty bed. She straddled him as they kissed, mouths opening and tongues stroking. His hands came around to grab her ass and press her to his damp, denim-covered crotch.

  Bess broke the kiss long enough to reach between them and tug open the button and zipper. She reached inside as Nick lifted his hips with a groan. She found more heat, and she cupped him for a moment before working to get the wet jeans down his thighs. They didn’t want to go, but she was determined. Once she got them to his knees it was easy, and she pulled his jeans off and tossed them to the floor as Nick sat up to pull off his T-shirt. He wore only a pair of thin cotton boxers, the front of which tented impressively.

  Bess paused, heart pounding. She reached to fill her palm with his erection, at first with the cotton barrier between them and then skin to skin when he helped her tug those down, too. Naked, Nick lay propped on one elbow on the bed, one leg bent at the knee and the other straight. Bess knelt beside him, the hem of her shortie nightgown brushing her at midthigh.

  She looked at him, then down at herself. Beneath the thin nylon gown she was bare. Her nipples had already poked out the front of the bodice. Lower, her thighs rubbed together, already slick with her arousal. She looked at him again and found the old familiarity of his body. The dip of his belly next to his hip bone and the pattern of hair leading to the thick, dark nest around his cock. She touched him again, curling her fingers around the root of it and stroking upward with a firm grasp that made him moan.

  He was silk and steel against her palm. She stroked again and twisted her hand around the top of his prick before sliding down again. Nick’s cock jerked under her touch, and her body pulsed in reply.

  Bess looked at him. His eyes shone and a faint flush had begun creeping up his chest and throat. His mouth parted. His tongue swept his lips. His head tipped back and he sank all the way onto his back when she added her other hand to his balls, cupping and stroking. He muttered what sounded like her name, and Bess smiled.

  She straddled him again, his cock trapped between the bare flesh of her thighs. She moved, teasing him with the brush of her pubic curls. Nick put his hands on her hips, his fingers bunching the material of her nightgown as he pushed upward.

  His cock rubbed her clit as he rocked against her, and Bess’s lips parted in a sigh. She licked her mouth just as he had moments before. The way Nick’s eyes glittered at the sight of her tongue sent shivers of pleasure dancing down her spine.

  “Nick.” She murmured his name, tasting it. She thought saying it might feel unfamiliar, but like the sight of his body, the sound of his name hadn’t changed.

  “I want you,” he said in voice as rough as the grit of sand on tile. His fingers tightened on her hips as he nudged his prick along the seam of her slick folds. “I want to be inside you.”

  Bess nodded, unable to speak. She shifted, lifted, and he moved to help her. She bent her head, waiting for her hair to fall and shield her face as she guided his cock to her entrance. She’d forgotten she’d pulled it up to keep it from getting tangled as it dried, and with her other hand she yanked off the clip. The heavy locks, longer and thicker than twenty years ago, tumbled around her shoulders and over her face.

  Nick hissed and thrust upward at the same time, and Bess didn’t know if his reaction was in response to the sight of her hair falling down or the sensation of easing into her wet tightness. It didn’t matter. She gave her own low cry as she settled onto him. Her thighs gripped his sides. They were connected now.

  She didn’t move right away. She looked up through the curtain of her hair, then pushed it off her eyes so she could really see him. Nick smiled. His grip on her hips eased, and he shifted. Bess put her hand on his chest to support herself as she leaned forward to brush his lips with hers. “If this is a dream, I don’t want it to end when we’re finished.”

  “It’s not a dream.” His voice was low and hoarse, but unmistakably his. “I told you that.”

  He lifted the hem of her nightgown to skim her thighs and belly. “Does this feel like a dream? I’m touching you.”

  He pushed upward. “I’m inside you.”

  Bess gave a half-strangled laugh. “You’ve been inside me before.”

  “Not like this.” He thrust harder and she gasped at the sweet pleasure-pain of him stabbing into her.

  He’d been inside her for the past twenty years, but no. Not like this, though she’d thought of it often enough. She didn’t have to think about it now, because now it was happening. Bess ducked her head again as her fingers curled against Nick’s chest. Beneath her palm she should have felt the thump-thump of his heart as it sped up. She took her hand away before she could notice if it was there or not. She gripped him again with her thighs and slid both her hands to the bottom edge of his ribs.

  She rode him, remembering how sometimes their rhythm had faltered. She knew her body better now, and when Nick’s pace began to stutter, Bess adjusted easily. She moved when he did, and when he thrust harder, biting his lip in the expression she’d never forgotten, she slowed him with a murmured word and a shift of her body. She slid a hand between them, her finger on her clit and circling just the way she needed it. She groaned at the touch and opened her eyes.

  Nick’s eyes flashed as he looked between them, to where her hand moved. He bit his lower lip. His grip tightened again on her hips and he ground her against him, harder and harder. Faster.

  Bess closed her eyes. Sensation filled her. This moment. His touch. The sound of her breathing and the skid of his fingertips along her sweat-damp skin. She stroked her clit slowly, then faster, in time with his quickening thrusts. Pleasure built until the hard, sharp shards of it shattered inside her the way her mug had shattered on the floor. She came with a gasping cry as her head tipped back. Her clit pulsed under her finger and she pressed it, urging another wave of climax to surge forth. Nick moaned and thrust once more, his body jerking.

  She collapsed on him as she got her breath back. Her face found the perfect spot in the curve of his shoulder. She kissed his neck. Nick stroked his hands down the sides of her spine before he wrapped them around her and squeezed.

  “I missed you,” he whispered. His arms tightened and his mouth brushed her ear.

  Another spate of tears stung Bess’s eyes and this time, she didn’t blink them away. They mingled with the sweat on her lips and the salt tang of Nick’s skin.

  “You don’t have to miss me,” she said. “Not anymore.”

  CHAPTER 04

  Then

  Sugarland wasn’t the worst place Bess had ever worked. That honor would’ve gone without a second thought to the summer camp counselor position she’d held between her sophomore and junior years of high school. The trauma of that experience had been so severe she was still convinced she’d never have kids.

  Waiting on tourists wasn’t as difficult as keeping twenty third-graders interested in weaving lanyards, even when the tourists got pissy about waiting for their food. Bess reminded herself over and over that not everyone in the world had been raised by apes. It just seemed like it.

  “Where’s my damned waffle cone?” The red-faced man pounded the counter hard enough to make the napkin holder jump.

  He hardly needed any sort of cone, much less a waffle one, but Bess pasted on a bright smile for him, anyway. “Just another three minutes, sir. The machine broke down and we weren’t able to prebake the cones. But yours will be fresh.”

  The woman with him, who’d already been handed her cone, but hadn’t offered to share, stopped in midlick. “You mean, mine ain’t fresh?”

  Bess bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, but by that time it was too late. The woman wanted her money back on a cone she’d already eaten most of, and her husband was pounding the counter and demanding two new cones. It was quickly heading into chaos, and Bess’s co-worker, Eddie, wasn’t much help. Only a senior in high school,
he suffered from a god-awful case of acne that made him so self-conscious he never looked anyone in the eye. Plus he harbored a not-so-secret crush on Bess that rendered him nearly helpless in her presence.

  Brian had called in sick, and the other counter girl, Tammy, was even worse than Eddie. She couldn’t make change without a calculator, and wore her Sugarland T-shirts cut off so they’d show her tanned and taut tummy. She spent more time filing her nails and flirting with the lifeguards than anything else. If Tammy hadn’t been screwing the boss’s son, Ronnie, Bess would’ve fired her.

  “Are you listening to me?” the red-faced tourist-troll hollered, while slamming a meaty fist onto the countertop.

  Maybe being a camp counselor hadn’t been so bad, after all.

  So caught up in squaring away the greedy husband-and-wife team, who were finally mollified with two new, “fresh” waffle cones and a tub of caramel corn on the house, Bess didn’t notice who else had come into the shop. Missy wasn’t one to be ignored for long. She sidled up to the counter and flipped Bess a five, then pointed at the slushy machine.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Nick Hamilton was with her. Tonight instead of a ball cap he wore a red bandanna with tattered edges folded over his sleek dark hair and tied in the back. Among the cloying sweet odors of caramel and fudge, he smelled like fresh air and sunshine and sunscreen. His skin glistened with it, and his cheeks and the bridge of his nose bore a faint pinkish stripe. Proof of his day in the sun.

  “Blue,” said Missy. “Nicky, you want any?”

  He shook his head and smiled at Bess. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” She nodded, her gaze going back and forth before focusing on Missy. “What’re you up to?”

  Missy shrugged as she lolled against the counter. Her sly glance over her shoulder at Nick told Bess more than she wanted to know. “You know. Little of this, little of that.”

  A whole lot of that, was more like it. Bess forced away a frown but couldn’t stop herself from looking at Nick again. Missy was eyeing him like he was a big old bowl of ice cream and she wasn’t even going to wait for a spoon to eat him with. Jealousy, stupid and formless, stabbed into Bess’s stomach and tightened her throat. Nick wasn’t hers. From what Missy said, he wasn’t going to be hers, either. Unless, of course, Missy had lied. It all made sense. It wouldn’t be the first time Missy’d told Bess a story to get something she wanted, and Bess couldn’t believe she’d fallen for it.