Ties (8 page)

“Let me be your hero. For someone who likes to savor a meal, you’re sure in a rush.” I finally pop the stubborn shell and hold the crab out.

She takes it and, after chewing thoughtfully, announces, “It’s freaking amazing.”

“Worth the wait?” I ask.

She nods. “So, tell me more about racing. Are you worried that doing something you’re so passionate about as a job can ruin it for you in the long run?”

I love the direct way she asks. I love the way tries to be all discreet about licking butter off her fingers even more. When I stretch my legs out under the table, her foot brushes against my calf. She swings it away, then, after a long few seconds, puts it back. The bare bottom of her foot presses on my leg, and she leaves it there.

The bottom of her foot on my calf is sexier than all the body rubs I ever got from the girls I met out at the bars.

“I don’t know. If that does happen, it’ll be collateral damage.” I finish the last foamy dregs of my beer. “I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

She presses her lips together.

“But this isn’t a sure thing, right? I don’t mean to be a downer, but there’s a chance you might not win. Do you still have a career if you’re not number one?”

Her insistence on getting right to the bloody, pulpy heart of things is refreshing...even if I’m hemorrhaging a little.

“Yeah. I mean, you have to be competitive, you have to come in ahead of your times. But there’s room for an okay segment of the racing population to make some money even if they don’t place first.”

I watch her watch me, and I’m searching her face for clues about how she interprets all this, but she’s stone-cold, just thinking.

I’m relieved as hell when Jovan comes over to clear the plates. Hattie turns down dessert, which I try to tell her is a huge mistake, but she says that there’s a line between enjoying your meal and gluttony, and she’s got to draw her line in the sand.

I leave Jovan a crazy tip and thank him. He presses the wine bottle into my hand.

“Bring that one back.” He nods down the hall, where Hattie’s disappeared to use the bathroom. “She’s exactly what you need.”

“I’ll be lucky if I can talk her into a second date. It was hard work getting her to come out this time,” I tell him.

Jovan leans close. “She’s worth the work.”

When Hattie comes down the hall, that sexy hair tied back in a smooth ponytail again, an amused smile on her face that makes me want to know what she’s laughing to herself about, I know I’m asking her out again. There’s no question. I have to know what she thinks about...everything. I’ve never been this interested in every facet of a girl before.

“Are you taking me home?” she asks, linking her arm around my elbow.

“Only if you insist. And by ‘insist,’ I mean have a throw down temper tantrum right here in this classy place. Otherwise, I plan on hanging out until you can’t take it anymore.”

She tilts her head back and looks up at me, her eyes wicked and sexy. “I have an amazing tolerance for pain. I think I can endure an evening with you.”

“Game. On.” I help her into the passenger seat and try really hard not to do any kind of embarrassing jigs on the way back to my side of the car. “Where to, m’lady?”

“The ocean,” she says without a moment’s hesitation. “I want to stay there until the sun sets.”

***

Forty minutes later we’re tucked into a little cove my brother and I discovered when we were intrepid young explorers. It’s too shady if you want to lay out, too rough for swimming, and too hard to maneuver down the rocks for anyone other than the most stalwart adventurers.

But the view of the sunset will rip the breath out of your lungs and bring tears to your eyes.

We grabbed a handful of miniature bottles of white wine and a bunch of red grapes at the first grocery store we passed, and Hattie is lying on a beach blanket, empty bottles around her head like a glass crown, her mouth open.

“Another grape?” I drop one into her waiting mouth and get a little tied up in the way she giggles and chews at the same time.

“I think I’m drunk,” she announces, her eyes closed tight.

“You might be. You polished off most of the bottle at the restaurant and the majority of the ones we bought at the store. Lush.”

“You bought
all
the varieties. I had to test them. And you kept saying they tasted like wine.” She frowns and shakes her head solemnly. “That’s
not
how you wine taste, Ryan.”

“I don’t think
anyone
wine tastes with six ounce bottles of twist cap wine,” I point out.

She opens her mouth and I drop another grape in. She catches it between her teeth, opens her eyes, wraps her lips around it, and blows it back at me, giggling harder than before.

“I’ve never gotten drunk like this during the day.”

“You’re only young once.”

I can’t take my eyes off of her, even though she’s not exactly being super sexy. Not in any obvious way, anyway. But there’s something unquestionably attractive about the fact that she’s lazing around, hair a mess, clothes covered in sand, relaxed, and not seeming to give a single shit what I think about how she looks or acts.

“People always pair young and stupid.” She stops giggling and her mouth dips on each side. “Not me. I’m
not
stupid. Just young. But smart.”

“You are smart. And smart people get drunk sometimes.” I move a few bottles out of the way before she rolls onto them.

“I want to kiss you,” she announces suddenly.

My fingers tighten around the glass in my hand so hard, I’m sure I’m going to break it.

“I think that’s a great idea,” I say evenly, like I’m not about go Incredible Hulk on this bottle, like my hormones aren’t singed from the friction of my racing blood, like I’m totally laid back and open to her suggestion.

Why is this blowing my mind? I’ve kissed more girls than I can count. Why does this feel so damn different?

“I think issa stupid idea. Maybe,” she says, her words slurring a little. “But, you know what? Today’s kinda been a big stupid idea day for me.”

She must make up her mind just like that, because she climbs on my lap without any more discussion. Sand falls off her hair and her dress. When I put my hands up to brace her shoulders, my fingers are covered in gritty sand. There’s even a little bit on her cheek, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

Her body is compact and hot. She tries to wrap her legs around me, but she’s too damn short to reach my mouth that way, so she rises up on her knees. Even then, her nose barely brushes my bottom lip. She runs her hands up my back, half-lifting my shirt and shaking tons of sand down the back of my shorts.

We don’t fit, and then we do, and fuck the sand in my crack and the fact that she bashes my nose with her forehead trying to get closer to me, because,
holy shit
, this kiss is unbelievable.

She kisses like she argues. Her tongue is insistent, licking at places in my mouth I swear no one’s tongue has ever touched before, even though I’ve had my fair share of make-out experience.

She kisses like a good girl gone bad, her fingers fisted in my hair, her body crushed so hard to mine, I can feel the thud of her heart through our skin and clothes. Her lips press against mine with so much force, I know it’s going to bruise, and I want it.

“Damn, Hattie,” I say when I pull back. She’s panting and her cheek presses to my shoulder.

“More,” she demands, running her hands up and down my arms.

I roll her under me, careful not to crush her. I want to do so many things with her, and I feel like she might be game. But there were all those tiny bottles of wine, and her own declarations of self-stupidity. I’m not looking to rush things more than we already have, and I’m definitely not looking to be her regret.

She’s the kind of girl I expected to take it slow with. A few dates before the first kiss, a few more before it went beyond that. A long stretch before we took things to the next level. Basically, she is the polar opposite of the girls I strung along and was strung along by, so I want to navigate this differently than I did before.

I want a chance for something real with her.

But I’m finding it very hard to say ‘no’ when she asks for more.

On her back, she seems even smaller. I’m worried about weighing down over her, but she yanks me close by the hips, her thighs squeezed around my sides.

“Kiss me,” she whimpers.

I kiss her mouth, quick and a little rough, then pull back, watching her eyes darken. I kiss under her jaw, draw my tongue along the line of her neck, and she presses into my mouth.

“Like this?” I ask.

She nods, then shakes her head. I chuckle and kiss lightly right over the pulse in her neck, beating as fast as mine is.

“Like this?”

“I wish you’d stop talking and keep kissing me,” she says with a sigh.

I press my face in her neck and laugh. I kiss along her shoulder, burying my nose in the silky sweet smell of her hair. I pull the strap of her dress down, running my lips back and forth across her skin until her moans stutter into gasps. She reaches a hand back and unties the top of her bikini, and there is a wild temptation staring me in the face.

She tugs my wrists down.

“No.” It takes superhuman strength to say that single, traitorous word. “We can go slow.”

“I like it fast,” she objects. “I
want
it fast. Please?”

Instead of arguing, I put my hands on either side of her shoulders, kissing her on the lips, slowly. My tongue licks at the seam of her mouth, then deeper. I take my time, enjoying the taste of her, but drawing back whenever she gets too insistent.

She flips between frustration and sleepiness. More than once, I stop kissing her altogether, sure she’s dozed off, but she yanks at me again, ordering me to keep kissing. I do, gently, slowly, until I hear her deep, even breathing.

I cover her with the big beach towel I find in the back of my truck and squint out at the ocean.

Kissing her was great. I’m glad she wanted to. But it doesn’t stop the feeling that it wasn’t quite right. I’ve had my fill of doing things too fast with girls who don’t mean anything. I don’t want Hattie to think that’s where I want this to go.

Where
do
I want this to go?

I just met her, but I don’t like the idea of not seeing her again. I’ve been with enough girls to know the good ones are rare. I’m not about to let her slide through my fingers.

But I also know that doing things you think of as intimate can screw everything up big time. I’ve had hot, sweaty, crazy sex with girls, then walked away a minute after I rolled the condom off, not even knowing their names and not having any intention of hearing from them again.

I guess that’s supposed to be most guys’ dream.

It wasn’t mine.

And I kept thinking I must be crazy, but I slept with enough girls to know that it just doesn’t work that way for me.

I let her sleep until the sun starts to slide down into the ocean, a big orange disk in the purple sky. I brush her hair back and lean low.

“Hattie? Hattie, look at the sunset,” I coax.

She blinks slowly, and when she looks at me, her eyes go wide. She feels around, like she’s making sure she’s not naked, and I grimace, wondering how much of our make-out fest she even remembers. 

“You’re an exceptional kisser,” she says evenly. “But you need to learn when to up your game.”

“You need to look at this sunset.” I haul her up and put my arm around her narrow shoulders. “You’re pretty damn amazing yourself,” I say low against her ear.

She watches the sun ride low in the sky, her face rapt. “Not the worst way to spend an evening, I guess.”

She’s joking. That’s the way she talks, and I like it, I remind myself. But I also wonder how much of it is pure joke and how much is serious.

Even semi-serious

“Some crab, some good wine, some questionable wine, necking on the beach...it’s the stuff teenagers brag about around the campfire.” I rub my thumb in slow circles on her upper shoulder, and she shivers a little from the touch.

Strange how I had my tongue in her mouth, but touching her like this feels somehow more intimate.

“Ryan?” She leans her body close to mine.

“Yeah?” The bottom of the sun dips into the navy water.

“This could be, like, this one perfect day. This one solid day that was just beautiful in every way. This could be the kind of day we think about when we’re old people, rocking in our rockers.”

I feel like I drank liquid nitrogen, like everything in my body is frozen and brittle, and one more word from Hattie could shatter it all into a million fragmented shards.

“It could.” I keep my eyes on the sunset.

Fuck.

I guess having one amazing day is better than never getting to have an experience with a girl like her. Right?

Only that feels
wrong
. Because now that I’ve had one afternoon, I’m hungry for more. And I feel like I’ll always regret it if I don’t get to spend more time with her.