ADELAIDE
We step off the veranda back at North’s place, the night air soft with salt and the hush of the ocean just beyond the sand. The shack is only a few steps from the house, close enough that walking me here is ridiculous.
North does it anyway.
I stop at the door and turn, one hand still wrapped around the key he gave me earlier. “Well,” I say, because my pulse is already going wild and apparently I’ve decided that making it worse is the move. “This is me. Safe and sound.”
His mouth curves, slow and dangerous. “Yep,” he says, stepping in closer. “Looks like it.”
The wall meets my back before I fully register that I’ve moved. One second there’s air between us, and the next there’s hardly any at all. North braces one hand against the wall above my shoulder, his body close enough that I can feel the heat of him without him touching me anywhere else.
My breath speeds up.
This close, he smells even better, that dark, rich pull of him that gets into me and stays there. My heart is fluttering so hard it feels ridiculous, and the lower half of my body already made up its mind about him hours ago because my panties are drenched.
He stares at me for a long moment, not speaking, and the silence is worse than words, as it feels loaded.
“I had an amazing night,” I say softly.
His gaze drops to my mouth for half a second. “I’ll never forget it.”
That doesn’t help. “Me either,” I whisper. “Which is honestly inconvenient, because I’m already having a hard time thinking straight.”
That gets the faintest flicker of a smile out of him. North’s free hand lifts, slow enough to give me every chance to stop him. I don’t. He takes my hand and places it flat against his chest.
The heat of him goes straight through my palm. Hard muscle. Steady heartbeat. The rise and fall of his breath.
My own heartbeat stumbles so badly I’m amazed I stay standing.
“If you want,” he says, voice low enough to feel like a touch all by itself, “the night doesn’t have to be over.”
God. I swallow and keep my hand where he put it. “You have no idea how much I want that,” I admit, and the honesty of it leaves me feeling raw and dangerously exposed. “But I’m still going to say no.”
North leans in, not enough to kiss me, just enough that the air changes. If I tipped up onto my toes, I could do something reckless and probably unforgettable.
“I know,” he says. “And that’s the only reason I’m still behaving like a gentleman.”
Heat curls low in my belly.
“You’re going to destroy me,” I say.
His gaze flicks down my body and back up, slow and deliberate, and my panties are already damp enough that I feel almost angry at myself for it. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing to me?” he asks quietly. “Standing here looking like that, touching me and saying no like it costs you something.”
It costs me plenty. My fingers flex against his chest. “You’re not exactly making this easy.”
“I’m trying very hard,” he murmurs, “not to find out what you taste like when I kiss you.” There’s a rough honesty in his response that nearly undoes me.
My lips part. No answer. Not one useful, sane answer in sight.
North bends his head, not closing the distance, just letting me feel how close his mouth is to mine when he says, “Go inside, Adelaide.”
The words should feel like a dismissal. Instead, they feel like restraint and the only reason I’m not being kissed senseless against the wall of this shack is because he’s letting me keep the line I drew.
And somehow that makes it worse.
I slip out from under his arm before I lose the ability to do it at all, my breath shaky, my whole body hot and humming. My fingers fumble once on the key before I get it into the lock.
“Sleep well,” I say without looking back yet, because I know exactly how breathless I sound.
