But this is what life without fear looks like. Easy. Unhurried. People moving through an evening without scanning for threats or checking sightlines. Kids who ran around all afternoon without a single security professional hovering at the edges.
A beautiful night like this, in fact, all of the past two days, makes me wish we never have to leave.
The steel drum shifts into something slower, and the guitarist follows, the rhythm softening into a sway. Nick and I stand there for a while, watching as our little group begins to drift toward an open patch of beach in front of the musicians. Linda pulls Franklin out with her. Rusty grabs one of the female instructors and they begin swaying to the beat and singing along. Others soon follow, laughter and voices bright against the music.
Nick's hand slides from my back to my hip. “Dance with me.”
I nod, smiling. But instead of taking me to the sand where the rest of the group is, he gathers me close right where we’re standing. His chest is against mine, his thigh sliding between my legs. With one hand splayed across my lower back, the other finds the curve of my waist. I feel surrounded by him. The heat of his body seeps through the thin layers of clothing between us until I'm not sure where the warmth of the night ends and the warmth of him begins.
We move together. Not really dancing but swaying, finding a rhythm that has nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the way we've learned to fit against each other. His hand slides down, settles at the base of my spine, fingertips just brushing the curve of my ass. A claiming touch. A promise.
I loop my arms around his neck, and his eyes darken at the press of my breasts against his chest. My nipples tighten at the contact, even through fabric. My hips roll forward, seeking his friction, seeking him.
"You're beautiful tonight." His mouth brushes my ear, his breath warm against my skin. "You're beautiful every night. But right now, with the firelight on your skin and my baby in your belly—" He stops. Swallows. His hand presses harder against my lower back. "I keep thinking about getting you back to that cottage. About what I want to do to you once we're alone."
The words send heat pooling between my thighs. His hips shift against mine, and I feel him—hard and thick and ready. "I've been turned on all afternoon watching you. Watching the way you move. The way you smile. Remembering what you sound like when I make you come."
My breath has gone shallow. The music keeps playing. People keep dancing on the beach around us. And all I can think about is his mouth on my ear and his cock pressed against my belly and the growing ache between my legs.
"We could leave now."
His mouth curves, sinful and dark. "Soon. But not yet." His thumb traces circles at the base of my spine, slow and maddening. "I'm not done dancing with you."
Nick’s idea of dancing should be illegal. He moves against me in a slow grind, a vertical foreplay. His body presses into mine while the steel drum plays and the fire crackles and the rest of the world falls away. His hand drifts lower, cupping my ass through my dress, pulling me tighter against his erection. I let my head fall to his shoulder and breathe him in, the intoxicating blend of sea salt and woodsmoke and the clean scent underneath that's just Nick.
The song ends. Another begins, softer, and the heat between us eases into something just as intimate but less urgent. His hand stills on my hip. My breathing slows. We keep swaying, both of us sinking into the experience of simply being here, together, in this uncomplicated moment.
No one watching us, no obligations pulling us in opposite directions.
As I relax into his arms, the thought that surfaced earlier returns, clearer now. I've been waiting for the right moment, but maybe there's no perfect moment. This one feels close enough. Nick relaxed, open, the concerns waiting for us back home in the city nowhere to be found.
I pull back just enough to see his face. Firelight catches one side, shadow claiming the other. "Can we talk about something?"
His brow furrows slightly, but he doesn't tense. “Anything.”
"When we go back to New York... I want to talk about the security situation."
A furrow knots his brows. "What about it?"
I take a breath, then let it out slowly. "I don't want a team following me everywhere. Kelsey and Vaughn, they're good people. I know they're just doing their jobs, but I don't want that to be our life."
He's quiet for a moment. Still moving with me, but his rhythm has stiffened. When he speaks, his voice is measured. Controlled. "The press situation—"
"Will pass eventually,” I finish for him. I pull back enough to look at his face. “You’ve called off your legal attack. They’ve already pulled the story. It’s over.”
His scowl deepens. “It wasn’t only the tabloid article. What about the vultures who came at you in our own damn building garage? I was fifteen minutes away, Avery. Fifteen minutes where anything could have happened and I wouldn't have been there."
"But you were there. You came. You and Gabe have made sure it won’t happen again." I pull back enough to meet his eyes. "And it hasn’t. The press will eventually move on. We're not interesting anymore."
"You'll always be interesting to someone who wants to hurt me."
“It was one bad week, Nick. It doesn't have to define how we live."
He scoffs. "One bad week that ended with you in the hospital."
I hear what's underneath his words. The fear he carries, the weight of responsibility he's placed on his own shoulders. I hear the dread, the barely held violence toward anyone who might try to harm me or take me from him.
I hear the emotional weight of it in his voice too. All that vigilance, all that waiting for another shoe to drop. I reach up to touch his tense jaw, feeling the muscle jump beneath my fingertips.
