JAY LIKED THE FEEL of Alyssein his arms and knew that he was winning her over not by doing anything but simply by showing her parts of himself that he usually kept closed off. He hadn’t wanted her to see the lost little boy he’d been, but he knew that this time he had to do things differently.
It occurred to him that they were finally alone. Exactly what he’d wanted all day. He pulled her closer, skimming his hands down her back until he could cup her buttocks. He wanted her.
He felt his cock stir and wished they were really alone. He scanned the area, hoping for an isolated place that would allow them to be all but invisible. He wanted to carry her away from here and make love to her and reinforce the bonds that were already there between them. His caring was the first step to winning her back.
“You okay?” she asked. “I didn’t think I’d ever feel...sympathetic toward you, but all of that has changed. I want to know more about your past and more about the person you really are. Want to walk for a while and talk?”
No, he wanted to slowly strip the wet suit from her bodyand kiss her until they both forgot their names and where they were.
“I don’t see why the past should have anything to do with you and me,” he said.
“Well, maybe you left me before I left you...maybe the little boy you?—”
“Stop. I don’t think that has anything to do with it. I don’t want to talk. I want to take you away from here and go someplace where we can make love and leave all the obvious differences behind us.”
“You’re running away again, Jay.”
He knew he was. He’d probably always run away from her. She made him uncomfortable in his own skin, but at the same time he couldn’t imagine not having her in his arms.
“I need more,” she stated.
“I know that,” he said. “Tell me about your upbringing. Where did you grow up?”
“Right here. Well, Oceanside, not San Clemente. My dad owned the local Chevy dealership and my mom did the books for him, even after they’d divorced. My brother and I got into the usual mischief but nothing too crazy. He went to UC Santa Barbara. I did one year at Berkeley before I flaked out and came home.”
“Berkeley? You must be pretty smart,” he said.
“Sort of. But I hated it. I came home and my dad said I’m not supporting you if you aren’t going to school and so I enrolled in cooking school. Found I really loved it.”
“Looks like you ended up where you needed to be,” he said. “What does your dad think of you now?”
“I imagine he’d be pretty proud of me,” she said. “He died of a heart attack before I graduated cooking school. It was a huge shock for us. He went out jogging one morning and that was it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jay said. “My dad died on the road.”
“How?”
“Drunk driver.” He didn’t like to think about that too much. It had happened during his first six months in the Corps and after that, Jay had nothing to come back home to.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
For the first time ever, Jay didn’t mind talking to someone about the past. There was something about Alysse that made some of the rougher parts of his life seem okay.
“Let’s go back and join your friends,” he said, taking her hand and leading her down the beach.
“Do they all know that we were married?” he asked, stopping before they got to the group. “I don’t want to have to do the whole thing I did with your brother with each of them.”
“Only Toby and his girlfriend, Molly, know,” she said. “Don’t worry, if this doesn’t work out, we can go back to my using you for sex—but not tonight.” She laughed.
“Why not tonight?”
“Because you’ll leave and I’ll stay here and paddleboard and pretend that I’m happy.”
His gaze narrowed on her. “Why pretend?”
“Because I think you need something from me that has absolutely nothing to do with making up for the past. And no matter how hard I try to be objective, I just can’t and that makes me just a little sad.”
He swallowed hard, listening to the honesty that came so easily to Alysse and that made him feel small and ashamed. He wanted her, and he wanted his life to be so much easier than it could be right now. He was at a crossroads, she wasn’t. So he could either be the man she needed him to be or he could move on.
