Running From Love (2 page)

“Don’t tell me you don’t love me too.” He slipped his fingers beneath her panties.

A gasp of air passed over her lips. 

“Because your body doesn’t lie.” He slid the tip of his finger over her sex to the nub already swollen with desire. Her body responded and her hips pressed forward. He pulsed one finger into her sex. His lips stroked down her neck. He could get her to say yes. He could convince her to stay. He could make her promise to wait three days and let him go with her to Hong Kong.

“Oh, Trevor.” Her voice, that soft luxurious voice, like velvet over his skin, killed him. He slid down the front of her and tugged her panties over her hips and past her knees. Here, in this hallway, he pressed his lips to her sex. So wet, so ready for him. Pleasure. He would give her so much pleasure that she had no choice but to surrender. To admit her love, to admit she needed him as much as he needed her. He parted the lips of her sex and slid his tongue along her cleft. Her breath came from her chest in tight bursts. Her fingers wove through his hair and pulled.

“Oh my God, Trevor. Oh my God.” Her hips moved forward and back. He clamped one hand to her hip and held her still. He pulled her clit into his mouth. His tongue took in the sweetness of her want and her desire. He circled with his tongue and sucked. Her movements caused his desire to ratchet into a frenzy.

“Trevor, baby, oh my God, Trev, I’m going to come.”

Tiny noises escaped her throat and he pressed forward and slid two fingers in and out of her as he sucked.

“Oh … yes … yes.” Her body tensed and tightened. Her sex clamped around his fingers. His tongue stroked her over the edge and her body throbbed with pleasure. She trembled and gasped and fell forward, both her hands on his shoulders. He stood before her and pressed his mouth to hers. The taste of her sex on his lips. The smell of Poppy surrounding him, the essence of this woman he loved pervading his every pore, his every need, his every desire. He pulled away from her and looked into her eyes.

“Please, Poppy,” he said. “Say that you’re mine.”

*

His eyes consumed her. Poppy’s heart burst open and in this moment, she was his. She would always be Trevor’s, but she couldn’t, she wouldn’t, depend on him. The human heart was too fragile a thing to trust to any person.

“Trevor, I love you,” she whispered to him. She did. She loved Trevor. She truly did love him and it was this love, her love for him, that forced her to know in her heart that she could not, would not be his. Not the way he wanted. Not the way he needed. He pulled her into his chest and wrapped his strong arms around her. She closed her eyes. Safety warmed her body. Trevor made her feel safe. In his arms she never doubted that there was love in this world.

“We need to get to Coquille,” she said, straightening her skirt. “Everyone will be waiting.”

Trevor’s gaze locked to hers. There was a smile on his lips. She could see he believed that he’d gotten all that he wanted. He thought her admission of love meant she’d stay and wait for him, and they’d travel together to Hong Kong.

But she wouldn’t.

She couldn’t.

Trevor wrapped an arm around her and they walked down the long quiet hallway to the door at the end of the hall. She pressed her lips together and dropped her gaze to the floor. Tears heated her eyes. Trevor was her one chance at love. The only man brave enough to breach the walls she’d built. He understood the feelings behind all her words. She’d never find another man like Trevor. She’d never let anyone this close before and with the pain searing through her heart, she would never do so again.

She closed her eyes. Trevor pushed open the door to the outside. The setting sun greeted them as they exited the building. A wash of pink and gold decorated the sky.

“Pop, I promise, I’m a great traveling companion. You’ll love Hong Kong, Trevor style.”

Poppy forced a smile to her face. She probably would. She loved everything about Trevor. Hong Kong would have been another memory to add to her list of memories. Unfortunately, she would never find out how brilliant Hong Kong Trevor style could be. Because Poppy couldn’t wait the three days for Trevor. Wouldn’t wait. Waiting would be to surrender her heart, and although love grew in her heart for Trevor, her heart was a piece of herself she was unwilling to give.

Coquille was rocking, because Poppy was a Mesquale staff favorite. Her sharp tongue and dry wit fooled no one. She wasn’t keeping anyone at arm’s length. The people she worked with six months of each year loved her. She’d been doing her six months on, six months off at Mesquale for more than half a decade. Her in-between time was usually unaccounted for, with vague mentions of Europe or Asia. She’d trained the reoccurring staff not to ask. Trevor knew better than to dig for details about Poppy’s life away from Mesquale. He’d learned to be satisfied with the factual crumbs she provided. The pieces of the Poppy-puzzle that he’d managed to form into a picture of her life. The one thing was, Poppy wasn’t a liar. You had to earn your way into her world, but once you did, she only told you the truth.

He clasped her hand tighter. She was a diamond. A sharp-edged stone, multi-faceted and glittering. She could cut through any substance, no matter how hard. Rare and pure and with a blinding light that shot out around her. Admiration passed through his workmates as the two of them walked through the crowd. Everyone who had the night off from the resort was here, to say good-bye to Poppy for the next six months.

“Pop!” A familiar voice called through the crowd.

Poppy let go of Trevor’s hand and dashed across the room toward Charla. Poppy’s roommate during this tour at Mesquale, Charla had left Mesquale before her contract ended when she discovered that she been sleeping not with a bartender at the resort, as she thought, but actually the new billionaire owner of Mesquale, pretending to be a bartender.

Trevor’s gut tightened. What would Poppy say? What would Poppy do, if she knew about his family? Not that he was a billionaire … yet. Soon. Less than six months, more like three. The money. The responsibility. Damn, he didn’t want any of it. His gaze locked on the beautiful woman who stole his breath from his lungs. He only wanted Poppy. He angled his way toward the two women.

“Hey Trev!” Charla gave him a hug. She looked into his eyes. He could see her attempt to gauge how he was doing. Everyone would do that tonight. Poppy was meant to leave tomorrow, and his and Pop’s relationship over the last six months had provided fodder for plenty of gossip. Poppy didn’t couple up during her six-month stint as a server at Mesquale. Sure, in the past she had engaged in casual sex, as did most of the resort staff during their contracts. But Poppy didn’t really have repeats or relationships. At least not on contract. A week, maybe ten days with the same guy.

Hadn’t that been what she’d expected with Trevor? He grinned. Yes, it was exactly what Poppy had expected, but most definitely not what she’d gotten. He’d wooed her. Wooed her with his words. Poems. Weeks and weeks of poems. Romance and persistence and charm had won Poppy over.

“How’d it go today?” Trevor asked Charla.

Charla had only returned to the village of Parpetai on Mesquale to give a deposition for the upcoming trial of Mr. Orso, the former food and beverage director who had been accused of setting fire to the administrative offices at the resort.

“The entire interview, deposition, whatever it was, was weird. I told them what I knew and that was it.” Charla’s eyes skirted past Trevor. She lowered her voice and looked from Trevor to Poppy. “Ryan’s not coming tonight, is he?”

“To Coquille? “ Trevor shook his head. “Naw, he’s not coming here. Smarter than that. The big boss man here would cramp everyone’s style.”

Charla let out a slow sigh and even though she smiled, disappointment flickered in her eyes. Trevor was a writer; he knew what people felt. That was a big part of the job, watching and knowing what people were saying about their feelings without using words.

“What about you? Did you manage to get all of your and Poppy’s stuff into that storage unit you two are sharing?” Charla took a long drink of some fruity concoction that smelled too sweet to Trevor.

“Sharing? Ha!” Trevor looked at Poppy, who stood a couple feet away chatting to three other members of the food and beverage staff about Hong Kong and how long she intended to stay there before she headed to New Zealand.

“Poppy acts like she’s got nothing but a backpack and a toothbrush that she hauls around the world. But that’s a dirty lie. I got like three inches of space and her stuff took up the rest.”

Charla smiled. “Of course her stuff took up most of the room.” She swirled her straw through her drink. “Wonder how many of those storage units she’s got stashed around the world?”

Trevor’s chest tightened. How many storage units she had stashed around the world? His gaze clung to Poppy, who’d thrown back her head to laugh at a joke that Liam, the new head of the food and beverage division, had told her.

Wow. Like a punch to the gut, the realization that he didn’t know Poppy socked him hard. He loved her. He knew that she loved him. But who was Poppy Martin? She didn’t share her thoughts, she didn’t share her past, she really didn’t tell him much of anything. He waved to the bartender. 

“You okay?” Charla asked. Her head tilted to the side. She was Poppy’s best friend during
this
tour. The bartender, knowing Trevor’s usual, lined up a shot of Jack Daniels. He pressed his fingertips to the cool surface of the shot glass, then threw the liquor back into his throat. A hard slow burn. He turned to Charla. “What do you know about Poppy?”

She crinkled her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

Trevor waved to the bartender for another shot.

“I mean, what do we
really
know?”

“Let’s see.” Charla smiled, but an uncertain lilt inflected her voice and a question filtered through her eyes. “We know that her name is Poppy Martin.”

“Do we? Do we
really
?”

“Well, I’ve seen her passport, so unless she’s undercover CIA, Interpol, or Mossad, I’d say that one is pretty right on.”

Trevor threw back another shot of whiskey. “Fair enough.” He slid the back of his hand across his lips. “We know her name. We know she works at Mesquale six months out of every year and she’s done so for six years.”

“Seven,” Charla interrupted. “This contract was her seventh.”

Trevor squinted. “Really?”

Charla nodded. “Saw the contract, too.”

“Wow, you get a bunch of inside information when you live with the lady.” His gaze wandered toward Poppy. 

“I know she has one brother and one sister.”

Trevor nodded. “And a relative of some sort in Northern California.”

“That’s her mother.” Charla lowered her voice. “She doesn’t really talk about her mom. I think she might have recently moved to L.A. to be closer to Poppy’s sister, but Poppy lived with her dad for most of her childhood in Australia.”

“Her mother is in California?” Trevor asked. “I thought that was her aunt.”

“What are you two gossiping about?” Poppy took Trevor’s next shot from the bar and threw it back.

“We’re gossiping about you.” Heat from the booze and his desire and his fear and his anger and just odd feelings of not knowing much about the woman he loved swirled through his belly.

Poppy shot Charla a look and then fixed an ice-cold stare on Trevor. “Me?”

“Just how little we actually know about you, Pop,” Trevor continued. “How you like to keep your friends and lovers in the dark about your life.”

Time stood still.

Poppy froze. Her entire being went cold. For a sliver of time, the inner light that shot out like a beacon to all around was gone, replaced with ice. Frigid and hard. As though her coldness could wipe the sun from the sky.

“I think you’ve had enough to drink.” Poppy did not turn to Charla. She did not seek any kind of confirmation of her declaration. She merely gave her order to Trevor and was done.

“Do you?” Trevor waved at the bartender, indicating that he’d like another round. Actually, on second thought, he’d take three. He placed three fingers on the bar.

“Yes, I do.” Poppy shot a look at the bartender, who continued to pour anyway. Good man. He knew who was paying for this round and also knew Trevor, being a bartender himself, was a hell of a good tipper.

“So my assessment is unfair then.” Trevor was pushing too hard. He’d gotten the look and he’d been told how he might have his reprieve. End the booze now. But no, he was going for broke. Charla’s comment about storage units around the world had made Trevor aware of just how little he knew about the woman he loved. He’d given his heart to a stranger. A virtual stranger. Of course he knew every crevice, crook, mole, dimple, curve of Poppy’s body. He’d kissed and caressed every millimeter of her skin, but he didn’t know if he even knew her real name. Where she’d grown up. Hell, until two shots ago, he hadn’t even known her mother lived in California. 

Poppy’s six-month contract at Mesquale had ended today at noon. All Trevor knew, without a doubt, was that Poppy had a plane ticket to Hong Kong tomorrow morning at nine a.m. Was she going to wait for him? Did she want to? He couldn’t hold her hostage in his staff apartment.

Poppy’s face softened. Her eyes widened. “Trev, babe, it’s my good-bye party. Let’s not spend tonight arguing.” The bartender set the three shots down in a neat line across the bar.

Trevor’s heart careened in his chest. He had no willpower, no control where Poppy was concerned. Perhaps that was the attraction. Her effervescence, the ephemeral nature of her being, the unreal merged with the real, spoke to his poet’s soul. He nodded toward Charla and then to the three shot glasses. He lifted the first, Charla the second, and Poppy the third.

“To Poppy,” Trevor said. “The most ephemeral woman in the world.” He tossed back the liquor and swallowed. Bitter. Harsh. His gaze landed on Poppy. Sadness filled her eyes. She knocked back her shot and put the shot glass onto the bar.

His heart was heavy, but he snaked his arm around her waist. He pulled her closer to him. The scent of cinnamon and sun and sand with undertones of the ocean swirled around her. He pressed his face into her hair. He couldn’t bear to lose her. He’d tried for six months to prove to her that he was different, he was better, he was the man that she need not fear. He’d done his very best. What if his best wasn’t good enough?