Meant to Be (RightMatch.com Trilogy) (2 page)

Below them, the water was home to a long dock, a moored boat (it was called the
Elizabeth
, he knew) and a fifty-foot shoreline. On either side of the beach were rocky inlets. Right now, the water was calm as the sun set on its surface. They sat under one of the peach umbrellas at a table where she’d set brie and crusty bread. His stomach growled. “Hungry?” she asked.

He nodded. “I missed lunch.”

“Why? You work at home, don’t you?”

He hadn’t eaten his noon meal because Ellie had been having such a good time at the park, he couldn’t bear to bring her inside. But he didn’t give Beth his real excuse. “Sometimes I get so involved in things that I lose track of time.”

“Me, too.” She stared out at the lake. “Especially the business.”

“You said online you wanted to be less involved in the Inn and enjoy life more.”

“I do.” She arched a flirty brow at him. “That’s why I agreed to meet you.”

Reaching over, he took her hand. “Makes my day, darlin’.”

Tugging her hand out from under his, she curled it around his fingers and squeezed. “I’m glad, Cole. I want to get to know you in person.”

“Think we’ll remember all the things we talked about online? It was a pretty drawn-out courtship.”

Her laughter rang out into the setting sun, seemed to meld with it. “Is that what it was? A courtship?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Then let’s see what we remember.” Standing, she went inside but returned quickly.

He scowled at what she held. “A computer?” He rolled his eyes. “I spend my whole life on them.”

“Yep.”

“We’re together, Beth; we don’t need to communicate through that again.”

“This’ll be fun.” After setting the machine on the table facing her, she woke it from sleep and clicked some keys. “Okay, I’m into my own profile. Now I can see if you really know me. And if I know you. We’ll keep score.”

He loved games, particularly intellectual ones. “You’re on, babe.”

They started with easy questions, which was how the profile had been set up by the psychologist Cole had hired for RightMatch.com. Beth posed the first. “What’s my favorite color?”

He winked at her. “It should be peach. Your outfit’s terrific. But it’s green.” The way her eyes would turn, he bet, when she was aroused. “What’s mine?”

“Blue.” She stared at his eyes. “Slate.”

“Favorite clothing stores. Surely you don’t remember this.”

“Chico’s and Bergman’s. Does that mean you don’t remember mine?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Banana Republic.”

She cocked her head a bit. He wondered if the place was indicative of his age. Surely men over forty shopped there. She said, “Maybe that’s why you look so…youthful for forty.”

Or maybe not. “Good genes,” he said winking at her. “My brothers, too.”

“TV show?”

“You like
Grey’s Anatomy
,” Cole said right away. “I watch it sometimes with my sisters-in-law.”

“You’re close to them, aren’t you?”

“Are you kidding? I adore them. Especially Dana. She’s the one I told you about, in the wheelchair. She always helps me get my head on straight. Truthfully, I’d rather talk to her sometimes than Joey.”

“I think that’s sweet.”

“My show?” he asked.

“You didn’t name a particular one. Any police procedural that you and Joey can make fun of.”

He chuckled. They answered a few more easy ones, then got into the meaty questions.

“What’s one regret I have?” she asked.

“That you never got your college degree. You wanted to be a social worker, but you were busy raising kids and supporting Peter with his work.” Which had been architecture.

Sadness flitted across her face and she sighed. At the mention of her dead husband? Then she brightened. “Yours was that you didn’t spend more time with Joe and Spence when you guys were little. How come you didn’t?”

Because they’re so many years older than me.
“They were close before I came along. They didn’t let me in easily.”

Not a lie about them, but Cole wasn’t telling the truth about the question, either. His real regret was that Ellie didn’t have a normal nuclear family. Cole was her only parent.

Beth’s pretty eyes lowered as she scrolled down the screen; the tilt of her chin made a small dent in it noticeable. He wanted to kiss the dimple. “Here’s a good one. What’s one thing you’re glad you don’t have to do again?”

His brow furrowed. “Did we share that one?”

“Uh-huh. You said you didn’t want to go through high school again.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I was popular enough, but I couldn’t wait to get out and
do
things.” He frowned. “I don’t remember yours.”

She laughed at herself. “I put down that I’m glad I don’t have to go through the babyhood of my children again. Both were colicky, Peter was working long hours establishing his firm and I was only nineteen and twenty when I had them.”

Cole stilled. Jesus, he
had
forgotten that. Thinking of Ellie, it didn’t take Einstein to figure out why.

o0o

“I won again!” Cole accompanied his declaration with a punch of his fist into the air. He grinned over at Beth, who sat next to him on the couch in the sunroom. God he was cute sometimes, and his demeanor contributed to that younger look he said was due to good genes.

Beth stared down at Bananagrams, a word game similar to Scrabble, but each person created her own board. Whoever used up all the letters in the common pile first won. She only had one tile left. It was the third time he’d beat her. “I can’t believe it. I never lose. With MJ, her husband, Ava and Rob.”

Online, they’d talked about what they did in their spare time and both had a fondness for board games, especially word and question games. After a dinner of cold shrimp, hot bread, salad, and dessert to come, Cole had suggested they play a game and picked out Bananagrams because he was so good at it.

“I don’t lose, either, sweetheart.” Pivoting on the couch to face her, he tipped her chin. “I claim my prize.”

Her brows furrowed. “Did we set a prize?”

“Of course. The winner got to pick it.” Staring into her eyes, he saw them deepen to green. “And I choose our first kiss.”

When she didn’t object, he lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers softly, sweetly, testing and teasing.

A low moan escaped Beth as he drew away. Her eyes opened, hazy with desire.

“Too much? Too soon?” he asked.

“No, not enough,” she whispered honestly.

“Oh, good.” He pulled her into his arms. Their chests nestled against each other and the feel of her curves, the scent of her made him hard.

This time, he took her mouth. The kiss was possessive. Hot. Consuming. Of their own volition, his arms banded around her and he tried to get closer. So did she. Her hand went to his hair, tangling in it. She opened her mouth to him, let him explore, did some searching of her own.

The embrace went on a long time. Finally he pulled back—and was shocked to see her blouse opened a few buttons. Her face blanked as she looked at him.

He said, “Wow!”

Covering her heart with her hand, she said, “Wow is right. I…” She pointed to his hair. “Did I do that?”

“I guess.” Reaching out, he ran a finger around the lacy peach bra he’d exposed. Touched the locket there. “And I got to see this.”

She looked down. Her face flushed, but he liked that she didn’t try to shield herself from him.

Leaning back into the cushions, he crossed his ankle over his knee and took in a deep breath. He remembered her emails well.

One night, on Peter’s birthday, it was late, and they’d been having a glass of wine at either end of the computers together…

I know you miss him.

I miss everything. The way he smiled, how kind he was. I also miss sex.

Um, nothing, since he died?

No. (Woman smiling here.) Not with anybody.

And later, when he’d convinced her to let him come down to the lake this weekend…

Don’t worry, honey, fix up a spare room. You’re calling the shots on how this relationship progresses. I’m grateful just to get to see you in person.

Thanks, Cole. I need to take things slowly.

No problem.

You are so sweet. Why hasn’t anybody scooped you up before?

The picture’s fake. I’m really ugly.

LOL!

Given that his heart was beating a wild tattoo for her, and his body was demanding more, he had to calm himself in order to say, “I should apologize. We said no sex this weekend; we agreed on it. I promised.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what happened.”

She stared at him, her face glowing with something he couldn’t identify. Then she shocked him by moving in closer. Even more so when she tucked her feet under her, knelt up and looped her arms around his neck. Her face close to his, she said, “I changed my mind.”

His eyes closed. “God, I hope you mean what I think you mean.”

A very female chuckle. “I do, probably.” She leaned in closer and her breasts swelled in the pushup bra she wore. “Tell me what you want, Cole.”

“You.” He brushed her lush breasts with his knuckles. “This. All of you.”

Her hand drifted to his crotch and pressed, none too gently. “Then take me.”

Chapter 2

“You’re sure?” he asked as he set her down in front of her suite of rooms, before they opened the door. He’d been so thrilled that she wanted to make love. Scooping her up, he took the stairs to the second floor two at a time, where she directed him toward her rooms.

“I’m a grown woman, Cole. I know my mind, even if I did change it.” She scowled. “Aren’t you? Sure?”

“God, yes. I dreamed of this happening for months.”

She turned away slightly, opened the door and drew him inside. He took a minute to scan the interior—there was a lot of white, intermingled with sage green and splashes of peach. Wooden dressers, other stuff, too, that he ignored. His gaze locked on the bed and he stood staring at it for a long few moments. “Cole?”

He pivoted. “I want to do this, Beth. More than I can say. But I have to tell you something first.”

Her chin raised and she shook back her hair. Her blouse was still open, blinding him with desire. “No.”

Grasping her arms, he tugged her closer, knowing he couldn’t make love with her without coming clean about his lies. “You don’t understand. I have some baggage, some things you don’t know about.”

“I don’t care. Let’s pretend tonight that we’re two people without pasts, just meeting for the first time.”

“Baby, look…”

She placed her hand on his groin, and he hardened even more. “Just think about this.”

Fuck, he was only human. So he grabbed her fingers and kissed them. “All right.” He led her to the bed “Two strangers.”

“Hmm. Where are we? Tell me about your favorite place.”

“Ah. We’re in Jamaica. At a resort. I just came to the door. Close your eyes and help me play this out.”

Beth could see it all.…

“You’re a man I just met in the bar downstairs and invited up to my room.”

He began kissing her. First her lips, lightly. “What do I look like?”

 “Tall, muscular, in great shape for forty-two.” He stilled a moment. Then his lips went to her neck. “Longish hair.” She raised her hand to his nape, ran a hand through the locks. “Silky but thick. With a bit of wave. And no gray. Lucky you.”

He drew her closer, kept his face buried in her neck. “I’m inside the room now, kissing you. What do you feel?”

Her breath hitched when his hand cupped her breast. “Oh, God, good. I feel so good.”

Unclasping the front closure of her bra, he let her spill into his palms. Then he kneaded her. “What do you want, sweetheart?”

“I want you to touch me everywhere. Kiss me where your hands are.”

He obliged by taking a nipple into his mouth. When he drew back, the air off the lake through an open window grazed her. He whispered, “Feel that Jamaican breeze. Hear the waves, Beth. Smell the Caribbean.”

“Salt. Seaweed. There’s a scent of sunscreen on our bodies.”

Easing off her shirt, discarding her bra, he looked down at what he’d bared. “You are so beautiful.”

A real thought penetrated the fantasy. For the first time, she was shy. It had been six years since a man had seen her naked. What would Cole think? Would her forty-five years show in sags and stretch marks? He knew she’d had two babies, told her parenthood was the most sacred thing in the world.

“I think,” he whispered into her ear, “if I’ve ever seen anything so lovely before, I don’t remember it.”

“Th-thank you.” She went for his belt.

He stayed her hand. “Nope, not yet. Jamaican men like to undress their women first. It’s a turn on, with her naked in the moonlight and him still dressed.”

Desire, pure and raw, sparked inside Beth, so potently that she gasped. He chuckled, unsnapped her skirt and let it puddle at her feet. Then he knelt and slid off the peach panties she’d put on earlier. She wondered briefly if she’d unconsciously dressed for him.

Burying his face in her stomach, he ran a hand down one leg, up the other. His knuckles flirted with the spot she wanted him to touch so badly she was ready to beg.

He didn’t touch it for a long time. He kissed, caressed and teased around her core. Finally, he cupped her there. She ricocheted into him. “Cole, oh, God. Please.”

“Hmm,” was all he said before he closed his mouth over her. The pressure spiraled. A big burst of pleasure skyrocketed to every single nerve ending. He braced her with his shoulders as if he knew he’d made her too weak to stand on her own. With the soft Jamaican air cooling her skin, she thought afterward,
Oh, my God
.

o0o

Though his body was screaming for release, Cole basked in the pleasure he’d given Beth. After she came, he stood, and as she fell into him, he realized she couldn’t walk. Again, he picked her up and set her gently on the bed. She sank into the pillows, a sleepy, satisfied expression on her face.

“Undress for me,” she said in a voice as dark as sin.