Page 31 of Embraced at Seaside
“Oh my gosh, Hunter. You’re not a jerk.” Is that what he thought she thought of him?
“Yeah, I can be.” He tried to pull his hand from hers, but she held on tight.
“Maybe we both can, but I don’t think of you as one.” She crooked her finger, and he leaned in closer, eyes on their hands. “To be honest, I like the person you are.” She waited for him to lift his eyes, then said, “A lot.”
That earned her a heart-melting smile.
“I like this, too,” she assured him. “But you don’t have to be someone else to try to impress me.” Did that sound self-centered? Like he thought he had to impress her? She quickly added, “Not that I think you’re trying to—”
He lifted his finger to her lips, gently silencing her. “I’m glad about all of that, but I like this. It feels good to treat you like the beautiful woman you are.”
His eyes dropped for a moment, and when he met her gaze again, the wicked glint that she knew oh so well was back. “It feels almost as good as when we’re not on a proper date and I get to ravage you.”
He leaned back, and she tried to remember how to breathe.
THEY SHARED AN appetizer of steamed mussels and enjoyed their dinners and a few glasses of wine. Hunter had wanted to kiss Jana at least a hundred times as they talked, but he fought the urge, wanting this date to be different from what they usually did. But while conversation came easily with Jana, he caught himself getting lost in her smile, or the joy in her eyes as she talked about a musical she was in two summers earlier, before they’d even met.
“I wish I could have seen you perform.” He imagined her up onstage and knew that she’d outshine everyone. If she could act and sing half as well as she danced, she’d blow anyone away.
Hunter paid the bill, and they headed outside into the cool night air.
“Did you know that this restaurant used to be located on Billingsgate Island?” Billingsgate Island was an island off of Cape Cod. A storm had divided the island in half in 1855, and the island had continued to erode away in the following years, until it was lost to coastal erosion in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He settled his hand on her lower back as they walked across the parking lot.
“No, but that’s fascinating.”
“This and many of the houses from Billingsgate were floated across the harbor to Wellfleet on rafts. Can you imagine how different everything must have looked back then? How different it was without the Internet, without cell phones, without everything at our fingertips?”
“Without midnight FaceTime sex?”
They both laughed. The lower Cape was less technology driven, but Wellfleet in particular was a sleepy little town that relied more on family outings than online entertainment. It was one of the things Hunter enjoyed most about the area. Although, as he gazed into Jana’s eyes, he had to admit that he loved his iPhone now more than ever.
“I for one am very glad for technology.” He couldn’t help pulling her in tight against his side as they came to the truck.
“Thank you for dinner, Hunter. This was so nice.” Jana put her hand on her stomach. “I’m so full, though. I don’t think I can go dancing.”
Hunter wasn’t ready for the night to end, but he wondered if she was blowing him off. Maybe while he was falling for her one sentence at a time, she was wishing she were somewhere else. The thought killed him.
“Do you want me to take you home?” He tried to hide his disappointment by sounding casual, but he couldn’t deny the tension in his voice.
“No.” She wrinkled her brow. “Oh, wait. Do youwantto take me home? Because if you do, then—”
He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her with all the adoration he’d been holding back over dinner. The kiss started so differently from the firestorm they usually battled. It was a kiss of confirmation, of their two worlds colliding. He couldn’t resist deepening the kiss. She went up on her toes, hands fisted in his shirt. As he drew away to catch his breath, she tried to get nearer.
He’d promised himself that he was not, under any circumstances, going to land in bed with Jana tonight. After talking with Grayson, he realized that he already felt possessive of Jana in ways that made it feel like she was his even though she clearly wasn’t. And by the time he’d picked her up for their date, he’d realized not only how much he wanted to make herhis—but how badly he wanted to behers. The thought should have made him run, but he’d had the opposite reaction. He wanted to try harder, to make her feel so special that she couldn’t possibly want any other man.
Once he’d made up his mind, letting go of the tension he wore like armor had been surprisingly easy. Like he’d just been waiting for the okay from his stubborn brain to strip away the shield and bring Jana into his world.
Now he battled the desires coursing through him, the urge to take her home and show her how much he wanted her.
“Jana.” He touched his forehead to hers, trying to regain control. “The last thing I want is for our date to end.”
“Me either.”
Her words shot straight to his heart, reminding him that taking her home was not his endgame. He had bigger hopes.
“How about a walk?” he suggested.
She nodded, and he reached for her hand, then thought better of it and tucked an arm around her waist, wanting to feel her close to him. He might not take her to bed, but being near Jana was becoming not only familiar, but something he craved.
