A moment passed, and he realized he was holding his breath.
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
Neither of them moved. He should let her leave, because if she stayed for much longer, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from kissing her… and last time that had happened, she’d made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him. He needed to respect that.
“It’s late,” he said, leaning forward to open her car door. “You don’t want your aunt and uncle to worry.”
She cleared her throat. “Right, yes. I should go.”
She slid into the driver’s seat, fumbling with her keys as he leaned against the door. It took a minute, but she finally got them in the ignition and the engine roared to life. But she still didn’t move to leave.
“Will?” she said, turning to look up at him.
“Yes?”
“I lied.”
His brow furrowed. “About what?”
“I’m not really staying with my aunt and uncle. It’s just me.”
Will had already guessed as much, but the fact that she was offering him the truth stoked at something hot in his chest.
“That’s all right,” he replied. “I lied, too.”
“You did?”
He let a grin tease his lips. “I’m not really a gentleman.”
Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed just before he closed the car door.
Will took a step back and watched as she finally maneuvered her truck down the drive, her taillights slowly disappearing in the darkness. Then he returned to the house and walked straight upstairs.
He could hear his two remaining houseguests in the living room as he ascended, George’s serious voice followed by Emma’s light laugh. He knew they were talking about him, but he didn’t care, heneeded space. He needed sleep. He needed to stop thinking about whether Elizabeth Bennet would show up on his beach tomorrow.
In his room, he collapsed into bed, ignoring the thoughts that rolled through his brain. But sleep was evasive. Even when it arrived, it came with dreams of Lizzy’s red hair and husky laugh, of her moans and sighs, her bottom lip between his teeth.
He was licking along the column of her neck when his alarm went off at six. He lay there, staring up at the ceiling for a long minute. The house felt empty. George and Emma had left as promised. He was alone. As long as he lay there, the dreams stayed in his memory. The moment he stood up, the real world would invade again. One where last night could have been the end and he would have to live with that.
But he did get up. He shuffled to the bathroom and began brushing his teeth. And as he did, his eyes wandered to the window. Suddenly, all of the anxiety and worry and foreboding disappeared.
Lizzy’s truck was parked in the front drive.
CHAPTER 27
Lizzy slipped behind Will’s house before dawn, dodging the low tree branches and tiptoeing across the sprawling backyard past the surf shed. The wooden stairs creaked loudly as she made her way down to the beach, and she cursed under her breath, sure the entire eastern tip of Long Island would hear her. But then again, why should she care? Will had invited her to park there, to use his beach access. It wasn’t a big deal. She repeated it in her mind even as her pulse stumbled in her veins.
The sea was quieter today, with a light breeze and gentler breaks, but it was still better than anywhere else nearby. As she dove in, the crisp waters felt like ice cubes down her body. She paddled out past the crashing waves to open water, determined not to pass up the swells that started small but had the potential to become spectacular.
Between rides, Lizzy floated on the undulating water, her board bobbing with the current. It really did feel like the end of the world out here. The ocean before her looked vast and never-ending, and she focused on it, determined not to think about the house on the bluff above her or the man inside who was probably still fast asleep. Nope. Not her.
Eventually, she stopped obsessively checking for a tall surfer in a black wetsuit on the beach. And that’s right when he showed up, crashing through the surf toward the break just as she kicked out of a wave.
She straddled her board and watched him deftly maneuver his board over the icy crests, his wetsuit slick over his muscular body. He jerked his head sideways in an attempt to keep his blond locks from falling in front of his eyes. The movement was so small, so subtle, but her heart skipped a beat anyway. He looked like a fucking cover model for one of her dad’s old surf magazines. There was no way he didn’t realize how hot he was. He must.
She made a mental note to delete the memory of that body pressed up against hers at the bakery.
“You showed up,” she said as he finally paddled over.
