Instead of elaborating, I shift closer, my hand sliding up to find the spot below her ear that always makes her shiver. I press my mouth there, feeling her breath catch, feeling the goosebumps rise beneath my lips. Her skin is warm from the sun, salt-touched, impossibly soft. I want to taste every inch of it.
"Patience," I murmur against her pulse point. "I promise it'll be worth the wait."
She lets it go for now, settling back against me and closing her eyes, though I feel the curiosity still humming beneath her skin even as she sinks into my arms. My hand stays on her waist, thumb tracing the line where her bikini meets bare flesh. The heat of her seeps into my palm, my fingertips, threading through my veins until my whole body feels tuned to the frequency of hers.
My fingers tighten on her hip. She opens her eyes, reads whatever's burning in my expression, and her lips part.
"Nick?"
“Come with me.” I stand, pulling her up with me in one smooth motion. Her head tilts as her feet find the sand and her hands splay on my chest. Her laugh is startled, delighted, breathless.
"Now?" She glances back at the beach bed, the water, the afternoon she's barely had a chance to enjoy. "I just got here."
"I’ll bring you back." I pull her hips against mine, letting her feel exactly how much of a problem she's created. "Afterward."
Her eyes drop to where our bodies are pressed together, then lift to my face. The laughter's still there, but it's softer now, heated with the recognition of what she does to me. She likes it. Hell, she revels in it.
She wets her lips, and all I can think about is having her mouth on me. Immediately. "Well, I suppose when you put it that way..."
She takes my offered hand and I lead her across the beach, back to our cottage. As soon as the door closes behind us, my fingers reach for the strings of her bikini top. The tiny scrap of fabric hits the floor in seconds, Avery’s breathless gasp warm against my ear.
“You certainly work fast, Mr. Baine.”
Her bottoms are gone in an instant. Then I press her down onto the bed and cover her with my body as I growl my answeragainst her throat. “Don’t worry. I’m going to take this next part nice and slow.”
“Mm, I like the sound of that.”
I kiss her like a starving man, then guide her onto the bed beneath me.
We have several days left in the Keys—including the most important one, and the surprise I’ve been planning for her. But for now, it’s just us alone in our cottage until I decide I’m ready to share her again with the rest of the resort.
These moments right now belong only to Avery and me.
I intend to make the most of every single one.
26
AVERY
I don't remember thelast time I felt this light.
Two days of sun and salt air and Nick’s hands on me whenever we're alone—sometimes even when we’re not—has been exactly what I needed. I’d forgotten what it felt like to wake up without the low hum of anxiety that's become so familiar over the past several weeks.
The knot I've carried in the pit of my stomach since the tabloid siege, since the paparazzi trapped me in my car outside our building, since the trip to the ER and the doctor’s voice sayingeliminate stressisn’t gone completely, but it has loosened its hold on me.
As night falls following the cookout gathering on the sand, I sink into my beach chair near the shoreline and simply take a moment to breathe. The resort’s guest families have drifted back to their cottages, carrying sleepy children and the quiet contentment that settles over people after a good day.
The beach empties slowly, because nothing here happens in a hurry. That's the point, after all. That's what Nick has built here.
I watched him all afternoon, feeling both warmed and amazed by him. He wasn’t the billionaire philanthropist making an appearance. Today, he was just Nick. Crouched beside a little boy at the grill, patiently explaining how to tell when a burger needs flipping. Laughing—actually laughing, head thrown back—when the kid sent a patty sailing into the sand. Then, later, sitting in the shade with a young mother whose haunted eyes held the exhaustion of someone rebuilding a life from wreckage, talking with her in that low voice he uses when he wants someone to feel heard.
It’s gratifying to see him like this, with his guard down and his armor removed. I know how much this place means to him. As with the Chelsea recreation center, Nick has poured himself into every facet of the resort. This place may mean even more to him than the rec center, considering it was built on the same land where Nick grew up. He’s constructed something good over the scars of his past. But I know he’s still healing, as much as anyone here.
I glance up and find him walking toward me over the moonlit sand.
“I brought you water and snacks,” he says, offering me the cup. Holding a plate of grilled chicken wings and roasted vegetables in his free hand, he takes the empty chair beside me.
“I don’t know if I have room for another bite.” I glance at the food, and even though I’ve been eating all afternoon, I can’t resist the aroma. “Serena’s going to have to let out my dress again if I keep eating like this.”
