Page 10 of Nights at Seaside
An undercurrent of sexual tension wrapped around them, drawing their bodies even closer together. His breath whispered into her mouth. “Sky…”
Her mind spun. When he slid a hand to the nape of her neck, still gazing into her eyes, silently asking for her approval, she answered him with a press of her lips to his. His lips were softer than any she’d ever kissed, pillowy and inviting. The first slide of their tongues was cold and deliciously sweet, sending shivers through her even as their kiss grew hotter. Their tongues tangled together, searching, tasting,taking. Despite her outward calm, her insides were racing, heating, getting all too stirred up for a first date.
She forced herself to pull back, and in the space of a second their lips came together in another tender kiss. It was sweet and languid, and too incredible to stop. The ice cream fell from her hands, and without breaking the kiss, she pressed her palms to his cheeks and deepened it. His mouth was demanding, his whiskers scratchy, and his lips—his gloriously soft lips—slowly slipped away.
No. Come back.
He pressed a kiss to her cheek, fisted his hand in the back of her hair, and drew her in closer again.
“Sorry,” he whispered against her lips. “I really didn’t intend to—”
“Uh-huh.” She couldn’t resist pressing her lips to his again, and just as quickly, she reluctantly retreated. “My fault,” she managed. She shouldn’t do this. She wasn’t used to moving so fast, and yet she felt powerless to resist him.
She physically scooted away, putting a few inches between them. “Space. We need…We should…Gosh, Sawyer. I never kiss like that on a first date.”
He grinned and said, “Lucky me,” without missing a beat.
“Yes, but…”I want to kiss you again and again. Would three weeks be too long of a kiss?
A car door slammed and a little boy ran up the stoop beside Sawyer. “Look, Mommy! She dropped her cone!” His mother gave an embarrassed smile as she shooed her son inside.
Sawyer and Sky both laughed as he cleaned up the discarded cone and tossed it into the trash. He reached for her hand and they walked back to the car.
Fifteen minutes—and a car ride full of furtive glances—later, as the sun dipped behind the trees and the temperature cooled, they arrived at Stony Brook and parked across the street from the gristmill. Sky had been to Stony Brook many times, as it was only a few minutes from where she’d grown up. It had always been one of her favorite places, with the old stone gristmill and the babbling brook. There were elaborate gardens with romantic walking paths surrounding Stony Brook Pond by the mill across the road and a wooden bridge that arched over the water. It was about as picturesque as anything could be, and with her heart still pinging around in her chest, she had to dig deep to stop thinking about their kisses and focus on why they were there.
“How do you know that C. J. Moon wrote about the brook?” Sky asked as they walked up the grassy incline on the property across the street from the mill, toward the babbling brook.
Sawyer’s eyes grew serious, as if he was wrestling with his answer.
“You don’t have to tell me if it’s some kind of secret.” She knew from her friend Kurt Remington, a bestselling thriller writer, that writers could be covetous of their privacy, and obviously C. J. Moon went to great lengths to keep his identity a secret. She was intrigued by how Sawyer knew anything more about Moon’s poems than what was online, but she was even more intrigued by his apparent conflict over sharing the hows and whys of his knowledge. She had to respect a man who honored his commitments—unless he was making the whole thing up, and this was one big farce to get into her pants.
“I knew Moon a long time ago, but the man I knew is…no longer around,” he finally said as they came to the crest of the hill. The brook snaked out before them, lined by pitch pines on one side and a rocky incline on the other. Grass ran between the rocks, making them look as if they were featured in the landscape.
Sky heard sadness in Sawyer’s voice and immediately disregarded her thought about his making up his friendship with C. J. Moon.
“I’m sorry. At least you had a chance to know him. He was such a talented man. He was a man, wasn’t he? Online they refer to the writer as a man, but I know that sometimes that isn’t the case with pen names.”
He nodded, and his eyes turned thoughtful as he led her down the hill toward the brook. The sounds of the water running over the rocks and the whispering of the leaves against the evening breeze filled the silence between them.
“Yes, he was definitely a man. A good, honest, and virile man.”
“I get the sense from his work that he was all those things, as well as sensitive. He wrote such lovely and powerful poems.”
“He was, Sky.” He took a giant step from the grass to a rock, then turned and set his hands on her hips, steadying her as he helped her down. His touch was gentle yet strong. He gazed into her eyes with a conflicted look she didn’t understand.
“Sky…Are you familiar with the poem, ‘Race of the Pebble’?”
“Her current changed beneath the light of the moon.” She’d read the poem so many times the words flowed without thought, bringing a smile to his lips. “Lighter, darker, narrow, shallow. Dancing in her depths. Swept up in her ecstasy.Tumbling, turning, out of control…It’s one of my favorites, because it holds true to so many things.”
“That’s exactly what he said when he wrote it. I was with him. I was only a kid, but I remember it like it was yesterday.”
“You were with him? I can’t imagine how great that must have been.”
Sawyer stood on a rock beside the brook, gazing at the water as it trickled by. “It meant a great deal to me. All of our time together has.” He paused, and when he met her gaze again, that conflicted look was back.
“Sky, C. J. Moon is my father.”
“Your father?” She watched as sadness and pride swept over his face in a look so troubled she reached for his hand. “I don’t understand. You said he was no longer around. Did he pass away?”
