Summer with a Star (Second Chances Book 1) (10 page)

Chapter Seven

Spence awoke from the deep sleep of satisfaction to the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below Sand Dollar Point. The rain was gone, but the ocean was still boiling with energy, crashing against the rocks that formed the base of the cliff where the house stood. He, however, was as tranquil as a pond. He awoke rested and relaxed beyond description. Best of all, he awoke to the soft tickle of Tasha’s breath against his shoulder.

Doing a puzzle. Best idea ever.

He drew in a deep breath, shifted and stretched. He was still naked, and so was Tasha, thank God, but at some point in their satiated, post-coital haze, they had found their way between the sheets, old quilt tossed aside. Tasha must have orchestrated getting them into this position—him on his back with a fat feather pillow under his head, her wrapped around him from the side, resting her head on the pillow with him. She wasn’t crowding or smothering him, and best of all, she hadn’t left.

The last time he’d been with a woman, she’d rolled out from under him as soon as they were done and swiped her keys off the table in his trailer behind the set where he’d been filming. She was an extra in a scene that had taken two weeks to shoot. He’d liked her, and he thought she’d liked him—thought they were getting somewhere beyond appearances. He never should have invited her back to his trailer, and he certainly shouldn’t have let her stay when she started undressing. Turned out he wasn’t getting to know her like he thought he was. She got what she wanted and left. Left him feeling used and sordid.

Not Tasha.

She hummed as he stretched a kink out of his back, and pressed a smile into the flesh of his shoulder. That simple move was as good as turning the key in his ignition to start the motor.

“You’re awake,” she said.

He rolled to his side and pulled her close, belly flush against his.

“I’m not so sure of that,” he confessed. She was in his arms, drowsy and warm, eyelids half closed—none of the souped-up energy of a fan who had gotten lucky. He was dreaming.

A lazy smile spread across her pink lips, a giggle bubbling up behind it. “I can’t believe we did that,” she said.

“No?” She was beautiful, charming, real. She was sexy as hell. “Want me to do it again to prove we did?”

Her giggling turned into an all-out laugh and she blushed. None of the coquettish posing or raw aggression of the types who usually flung themselves at him. Tasha was unstudied. She was pure. He could lose himself in a woman like her. In fact, judging by how hot she made him with just one bashful look and how hard his heart was slamming against his chest, he already had.

He could live with that.

She didn’t answer his teasing question, so he rolled into her, kissing her with a thoroughness that came from the center of his soul. He didn’t kiss extras like that. He didn’t kiss the women who looked good walking a red carpet beside him like that either. Only Tasha.

“I don’t know what to say when you kiss me,” she laughed, breathless, when he paused to shift himself above her.

“Say you want me,” he murmured, dipping down to kiss her flushed cheeks. “Say you like me.” Another kiss. “Say you want to spend your summer wrapped in my arms.” Each kiss closed the vise tighter around his heart.

With the tightness came fear. Love me. Love
me
. Not Spencer Ellis. Don’t walk away from
me
.

That little knife of fear cut through the lazy heat building in him, leaving him cold and empty. He put his professional skills to work pretending nothing was wrong and shifted to lay by her side.

She hummed and rolled with him, draping an arm and a leg over his side. “I think at least some of that can be arranged,” she said.

Keep going. One step at a time. Don’t admit defeat, and don’t let fear in. Nothing was going to change overnight.

“How about dinner?” he asked. Dinner was the best way to keep her close, but not so close she saw into his fear.

“Do we have anything in the kitchen?” she asked. “I haven’t been shopping since I arrived.”

“Let’s go out.” He loved and dreaded the idea at the same time.

She must have seen it in his eyes. Her brow rose high. “Now you want to go out?”

“Yes.”

“In spite of the threat of cameras and gossips?” She sounded uncertain.

He tensed. She had to have felt it. Instead of ribbing him for it or pushing away, she stroked a hand down his side. It was enough to give him courage

“I think we could hold our heads up fairly high out there in the heart of Summerbury,” he said. As long as he was with Tasha, he could have something to focus on besides the gnawing worry that the next covertly snapped picture could end up on the cover of a magazine.

“If you can’t hold your head up,” she said, “then no one can.” She surged into him for a quick, decisive kiss. “But first, a shower.”

“Probably a good idea.”

The spell of being with her broke up inch by inch under the weight of practicality. They pried themselves apart, and he stood, stretching to loosen the muscles in his back that had started to bunch with anxiety. There was nothing to worry about. With Tasha he was who he was meant to be. The fact that she was staring at him and biting her lip as she crawled out of her side of the bed only underscored the point.

“I was always told men were the ones who liked to look,” he teased her with a wink.

Her blush darkened, which sent his blood pumping to places that would only improve her view.

“Women like to look too, when there’s something to look at,” she replied, flickering her eyebrow.

“Oh? You know it’s not fair that you’re holding the pillow like it’s a life preserver?” he asked nodding to the pillow that she hugged to her chest to hide her body.

“Fair has nothing to do with it. Not all of us have a perfect Hollywood physique.” She edged her way around the bed.

Her comment was like a pebble hitting his windshield. No harm done, but still, he didn’t like to be reminded of what he owed his image to. He wasn’t about to let her know that, though.

“Who says that perfect is best?” he said, sidestepping to intercept her as she came around the bed and started for the door.

“Webster’s dictionary?” she offered.

He grinned. Her self-consciousness was an absolute turn-on.

“What does Webster know?” He swiped at her pillow.

“A lot of stuff,” she giggled, shifting her weight from foot to foot and clutching the pillow tight. She looked for a way around him.

“Not from where I’m standing,” he said.

He made a grab for the pillow. Tasha yelped and laughed and squeezed it tight as she attempted to dodge around him. He made a show of trying to catch her, all the while letting her slip to the side. She dodged past and dashed into the hall, her laughter echoing off the walls, as he finally yanked the pillow away. The bathroom door slammed shut, but he could still hear her giggling. He hugged the pillow to his chest, breathing in to see if he could catch her scent. Life hadn’t felt this good in a long time.

It took a fair amount of time for both of them to clean up and get themselves organized enough to head into town to find dinner. Twilight bathed the crossroads of downtown Summerbury in post-storm shades of orange and pink by the time they got there. Spence had never felt so good about having a woman on his arm. Tasha’s blush hadn’t gone away. When he reached for her hand as they left the car in a public parking lot to walk down Main Street, she was bright pink, grinning like a middle school girl on her first date, made even more beautiful by sunset light.

“What’s that look for?” he chuckled as they rounded the corner and joined the throng of summer tourists browsing shops or looking for a place to eat.

“What look?” Her grin deepened. She squeezed his hand and leaned toward him as they walked.

“I think you know, Miss Pike,” he told her. He wanted to slide an arm around her waist and kiss her nose, or do something else that would let every man on the street know that she was his. They’d already drawn too much attention just by walking down the street, though. As long as he didn’t acknowledge it, there was a chance people would only do a double-take and move on. If he did anything obvious, all bets were off. And he did not want his bets to be off.

She side-stepped his question by asking, “Where do you want to eat? It looks like there’s going to be a wait just about everywhere tonight.”

He’d let her win for now. “Well, as it turns out, while you were drying your hair, I called and made a reservation.”

“You did?” She brightened, a soft sort of emotion in her eyes, as though no one had ever thought to make a reservation for dinner for her. Judging by everything he’d heard so far about her ex, maybe no one ever had.

“How do you feel about Windbreakers?” he asked.

Tasha’s jaw dropped. “Windbreakers? That’s a gold-star restaurant. It gets written up in the Boston papers all the time.”

“So it’s good, then,” he teased.

She nudged him with her elbow. He could only dodge so far with the sidewalks as crowded as they were. And people were still peeking at them. At least Windbreakers was close.

“Yes, it’s good,” she said. “And expensive. I’ve never been able to afford to eat there.”

A thrill of victory pulsed through him. He was showing her something new, treating her. “If you’d prefer to grab another lobster roll,” he said, shrugging.

“No, no,” she said, as pink and shining as ever. “Windbreakers will be fine. But you know,” she stole a sideways look at him, “you don’t have to take me to the fanciest restaurant in town to impress me. I’m far humbler than that. And you impressed me plenty this afternoon.” Her smile turned downright wicked.

God, she didn’t know how tempting she was. She was as refreshing as the storm-cleared air blowing in from the shore. He squeezed her hand, never wanting to let go.

“Personally, I think I can do better,” he sniffed, stealing a glance at her.

She wore a look of disbelief that reflected the rapture he’d see in her eyes as she came. Maybe dinner was an unnecessary delay to everything else they could be doing.

“If you can do better than that, I’m in big trouble,” she said.

“I don’t know. I think I’m the one in trouble,” he said as they reached the door to Windbreakers. More like he was finally out of trouble, finally in the right.

Windbreakers lived up to its reputation. Outside, Main Street Summerbury was as quaint and tidy as any New England seaside town. Inside, Windbreakers had the quiet elegance of a big city hotspot. It was decorated in an ocean motif, like everything else in town, but more stylized, with clean lines and steel blended with blues and blacks. Spence liked it right away, especially when Tasha’s eyes filled with excitement as she glanced around.

“Do you have a reservation?” the hostess asked as they approached the sleek, black podium inside the door. As soon as she recognized Spence, her expression shifted from haughty elegance to wide-eyed wonder. The people of Summerbury could pretend to have big city manners, but underneath they were as down-to-earth as their fisherman brethren. “Oh my gosh, Spencer Ellis. I heard a rumor you were in town.”

“Thanks. It’s nice to meet you—”

“Anne. My name is Anne.” She held out a hand as though they were being introduced at a barbecue instead of on opposite ends of dinner reservations.

“Nice to meet you, Anne. Do you now Tasha Pike? She’s been coming here for years.”

Tasha swatted his thigh, but put on a charming smile when the hostess turned to her, face pinched as she tried to recognize her.

“I don’t think—oh!” Anne glanced down at the list on her podium. “There’s a reservation for Pike here. Is that you?”

“It is,” Tasha said. She arched an eyebrow at Spence. He shrugged.

“Let me just see if your table is ready,” Anne said and zipped off around the corner. She didn’t go far enough for them to miss her whispered, “Spencer Ellis is here,” to someone out of sight.

“Are they going to put us at the best table by the window now?” Tasha leaned close to ask him.

He grabbed the opportunity and swayed toward her, their arms brushing. “Probably. Perk of the job.”

“I’m not going to complain,” she said.

He felt her hand close to his hip. A few more inches and it would be on his backside. Fancy restaurants were all well and good, but he found himself wishing she would slip her hand in his back pocket and give him a squeeze.

The thought left him buzzing with suppressed laughter and lust. Whichever table they were given, he hoped it had a long tablecloth to hide what Tasha did to him by just being Tasha.

She was definitely living someone else’s story. Her body still ached in tiny twinges in important areas from their activities that afternoon. She couldn’t even think about it in more graphic terms, she was so amazed it had happened. And Spence hadn’t run off to do something else or downplay what they’d done. No, he’d taken her to the fanciest restaurant in town. Wasn’t that backwards from the way things usually were? Dinner first and then the thank you afterwards?