Page 92 of Beach Cottage Kisses
For someone who’d spent her entire adult life living alone, Iris was pretty in tune with how to be a part of a shared life. He was about to tell her so, when she continued.
“Take you, for example…”
“What about me?” he asked, turning his head to look at her. Saw that she wasn’t smiling, but still wanted to hear what she thought about him.
“You aren’t the cheeriest fellow when you don’t feel good.”
Oh, that. He’d expected something more encompassing than a moment in time. “I’ve apologized for that…”
“And you didn’t need to, because I understood. I’m just saying…if your ex was in love with you, she’d have tried to understand, too. And if not that, then to at least meet you halfway. Instead, by the sounds of things, she lived her own life, waiting for you to join in, and when you didn’t, she left and lived it elsewhere. On your dime.”
“You’ve been talking to Sage.”
“She’s mentioned things a time or two in the past, but honestly I didn’t spend all that much time thinking about your failed marriage.”
Didn’t. Past tense. As in shewascurrently thinking about it?
“All I’m saying, Scott, is that I don’t think you should just automatically deny yourself a chance at something because you have a failed relationship in your past. You act as though the failure was all you. But the truth is, if your ex wasn’t in love with you, or was more in love with herself than she was with you, then it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d been home every night on time and were available to her every second she wanted you there. The relationship still would have eventually failed because you wouldn’t have really been a consideration in it. It would have been only about her.”
He’d married a debutante. His ex had been raised to pay attention to herself. So yeah, she’d been a little selfish. So had he.
They’d been a great couple. Two young people with every advantage, hooking up because of who they were, thinking they’d have a great life because they had the same goals. Wanted the same things.
Except that she’d wanted a life enjoying society. And he’d wanted to spend his time making it a better place to be.
“You might have a point,” he said, not sure that it made a difference. Not even sure why, when Iris talked to him about his ex, he heard it differently than when Sage had.
Because he’d grown up?
Grown wiser?
Or just because he wanted an excuse to keep Iris in his life?
* * *
Iris spent the night at Scott’s cottage. In the master suite with him. He’d moved back to his old room the night she’d been in Sacramento.
She was in bed first and didn’t wait for him to reach for her. Instead, she climbed on top of him, as she’d done that first night on her couch.She didn’t want kissing and foreplay. She needed him inside her. Filling her emptiness.
And when they were done, she lay beside him, ready to sleep. To escape for a while, knowing that he was beside her.
She’d drifted off, had been on the beach, trying to save Leigh from a wave that was chasing the little girl up and down the sand. It was getting closer to her and Sage couldn’t get to Leigh. Couldn’t save her, when suddenly Scott’s hand on her face was her only reality. “Iris.” She heard his voice then. Soft and sure.
Eyes open, she looked up at him, seeing enough in the darkness to catch the glint in his eye. The focus. As though he was as much or more a part of her as the nightmare had been.
She stared at him. Unable to get wholly out. Because her current life had been there with her. In the darkness.
She’d brought her past into the present. Sweet little Leigh had been the one that death had been chasing. And Iris hadn’t been able to stop it. Death was stronger than anything she could do to stop it from attacking. Any fight she could put up against it. And it always would be.
Scott was up on one elbow. His bare chest close enough that if she turned her head she could kiss it. She didn’t.
He leaned over her, his hand on her forehead, brushing hair back from her face. “You okay?”
She nodded. Smiled. He was there. Still sharing moments with her. Probably not for long. They’d known from the beginning that their liaison wasn’t permanent.
No expectations, they’d promised. And she had none that reached beyond the present.
But when Scott lowered his head and kissed her softly, she gave herself fully to that present. Kissing him so completely she lost her air and sucked his.He touched her everywhere, and she touched him back. Letting her fingertips learn every part of him. And when they came together, lying on their sides, their gazes joined and held, along with their bodies, until the waves had come and gone. Making memories that they could call up at some point in the future if they wanted to do so.
