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  "Hey, I've got tomorrow off. Why don't we rent one of those crummy little cottages at Seaside Cove? We could drive there tonight." He stretched his muscular arms up and placed his hands behind his head. The dark pits of hair only added to the overall sensual look.

  "That'd be fun." I tilted my head to get a good look at him shirtless. His long hair draped over a pair of shoulders and arms that were a lot bigger than I remembered. And he'd added some tattoos to his chest and arms. But everything else about him was familiar. He was still Joshua.

  "Why does this feel so natural?" I asked. "I haven't seen you in a few years, but I feel like we've been together all this time."

  "I feel the same way."

  Then I let my mind travel to that gray zone, that place where it would be too easy, as Joshua warned, to over think this. I switched to a new topic. "Guess what my dad did? He bought a vineyard in Portugal. He's getting out of the international trade business. He made some good money these past few years, and he decided to invest in a vineyard. He's going to be a winemaker. Can you believe it? My dad is suddenly a big time, adventure loving risk taker."

  "Shit, that sounds cool."

  "I'll show you a picture." I walked over to my purse to pull out my phone, well aware of the heated gaze on my back.

  "Did your dad ever remarry?"

  "Heck no." I turned around and leaned against the counter to scroll through the pictures on my phone. "I think that's why he's having so much fun now. He gets to make his own decisions. He said two marriages were enough. Look. It's overlooking a river." I stood in front of him and showed him the phone. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?"

  Joshua paused. "Never," he said in a husky tone, "and the vineyard is nice too."

  He took the phone from my hand and put it down on the table. He took hold of my hips and spread his knees so he could pull me closer. He pressed his mouth against my stomach, and I combed my fingers through his hair, holding his face against me. His fingers dragged down my panties and they dropped to my ankles.

  His mouth left a long, hot trail of kisses on my skin and then he kissed the mound of my pussy. Big strong hands wrapped around my ass and spread me wide as he coaxed me to climb onto his lap. The chair sounded like a hundred-year-old creaky door beneath us.

  Joshua's pale eyes lifted to my face. "Any way this chair can withstand both of us?"

  "Not a chance."

  "You need some better chairs." He stood up and led me back to the bed. He pushed off his underwear and sat back against the couch cushion headboard. His cock swayed back and forth, shiny with moisture.

  He reached for my hand and tugged me forward. I knelt on the bed and straddled his lap. He smoothed his hands around my back, pushed my bra straps down and brought my breasts against his mouth. Once again, I tangled my fingers into his hair to hold him against me. His tongue flicked against my nipples, and he took each one gently between his teeth, teasing them to tight buds.

  His cock pushed urgently at my pussy, looking for the sweet spot. I reached down between my legs and took hold of him. His groan vibrated my breasts as I rubbed the slick tip against my pussy. I closed my eyes and played with him, stroking my clit with his hot wet erection. His natural lube mingled with mine, and his cock nearly slipped from my grasp as I rubbed it against my pussy.

  He growled and lifted his pale, heavy lidded gaze to me. "You're going to spend all the fun before we even get started."

  "Hmm, this feels awfully good," I sighed. "But I suppose you're right." Without another word, I settled down over his cock. His fingers dug into my hips as I took him in farther and farther.

  "Rebel, my hot beauty. I knew you would feel like this. I knew you'd feel like you belonged here, with me buried inside of you." He dropped his mouth to my breasts again as I lifted and lowered myself over him.

  His words and the extreme intimacy of the moment unleashed feelings I'd been holding tight, feelings that were waiting to be set free. I kept my eyes closed around the tears that filled them as I climaxed around Joshua, his cock penetrating me over and over again, his hands holding me firmly in his grasp and his face pressed against my breasts.

  "Fuck, baby," he groaned as he reached release along with me.

  I relaxed down and put my head against his strong shoulder. It had been a shoulder I leaned on more than once growing up. I stayed like that, straddling his lap, his cock still inside of me, as he stroked my back with his fingertips.

  Evening had taken over day, and the shadows in my tiny apartment stretched thinner.

  I traced the edge of his shoulder tattoo, a Les Paul guitar, with my finger. "Can we just stay like this forever? In each other's arms?"

  "Yes and yes. Fuck yes." He tightened his arms around me and twirled me around and onto the mattress. We stretched out, facing each other. He pushed my hair back from my face. "Yes, Rebel, stay with me forever. You've already been with me all this time. Just stay with me."

  I snuggled closer to him rubbing my nose against his chest and breathing in the scent of him. His arms closed around me.

  I wriggled even closer, feeling every muscular ridge of his hard body. I released a long satisfied sigh. There was so much baggage with the notion of us being together that it hurt my head to think about it.

  "If only it were that easy, Josh."

  Chapter 20

  Joshua

  A musty, briny smell hit us as we opened the door.

  "Whoa, this place is even worse than I remember." I walked to the front window and slid it open to let in the fresh night air.

  Rebecca walked to the small refrigerator and put the beer and wine inside. "At least the fridge is cold. I used to go to school with the girl whose grandfather owned these cottages. I think after he died, the rest of the family wasn't interested in investing much time or money into the place." She walked around to the front window to breathe in the sea air with me.

  "This place could rake in big money if it was done up right."

  Rebecca smiled at me. "Oh my gosh, what an establishment kind of guy you are now. Thinking about big money and business. Kind of miss the disaffected, too-cool-for-school rock star."

  "Uh, I hate to break the bubble, but a lot of my rock star dreams had me driving million dollar cars and hanging out at the pool of my mansion. So that establishment guy was there. I just didn't show him much."

  Rebecca stared out at the cove. "It's so dark out there. I wonder if any of the other cottages are rented. Guess it's a little past prime season. Hey, let's pull the comforter off the bed and sit out on the beach."

  "Won't that make the bed kind of sandy?"

  She shrugged. "We could skip the comforter, but I was thinking we could strip naked under it."

  "I'll get the comforter. You lose the panties."

  The comforter billowed around us like an unstable tent as my tongue stroked Rebecca's clit. My hands pushed her ass higher so I could devour her and taste every inch of her. She gripped my hair tighter as I slipped my fingers through the slick moisture pooling between the folds and impaled her.

  Her cries ricocheted off the pillowed comforter as she came in shuddering waves against my mouth. I rose up and lowered myself over her, pumping my cock into her while the sensations were still fresh. She gripped my arms as I moved fast and furious inside of her. It didn't take long. Tasting her pussy had already brought me close to the edge. I groaned and stiffened, spilling my hot seed into her while she ran her hands over my shoulders and back.

  "I'm going to be sore as heck on Monday," she said with a sigh. "Delightfully sore."

  I laughed as I rolled off and stretched out next to her. I lifted up on my elbow and traced small circles on Rebecca's skin. She shivered as if it tickled, but it might have had more to do with the brisk night air hovering above the cold sand. She reached for the sweatshirt she'd worn out to the beach, but I stopped her from putting it on.

  "Wait, I'm still having fun looking at you with only the moonlight filtering through the comforter." I le
aned down and kissed the hollow between her breasts. "God, you are stunning, Rebel. In every damn form of light."

  I held the sweatshirt, and she sat up to let me help put it on. She'd walked out to the sand in just her panties and oversized sweatshirt. I tucked Rebecca firmly between my thighs. I pulled the corners of the comforter out from beneath the rocks, which I'd used like tent stakes, and brought it around my shoulders. Rebecca's bottom nestled back far enough to push against my cock. We'd just had sex, and I was ready again. I was never, ever going to have enough of her.

  I wrapped the blanket around us and kept her cocooned against me as we stared out at the cove. School had started already, and fall was closing in fast, which meant the cove would be mostly deserted for the next six months.

  The cove was too small for big boats, but beach visitors used it to kayak and paddleboard when the weather was nice. The dilapidated cottages, mostly dark and empty, circled around the south side of the cove. While jagged rocks lined the north end.

  "My dad used to take me here in the summer, but I think I like this place better in the fall. It feels almost like a deserted island."

  "I have to agree." Rebecca pushed her hair back and looked over at the outcropping. "Emily and I used to love to spend time on those rocks. The tide always left behind all kinds of critters." Her body softened in my grasp, and she grew quiet, closing the blanket tighter around her. "I don't think I've even said her name out loud in a long time. I say it all the time in my head but . . ."

  "I know what you mean."

  I could feel her drawing in on herself, trying to feel smaller in my arms. "Rebel, we can figure this out. I'm not sure how yet, but I think it's worth trying."

  She nodded and rested more against me. "I remember when Dad and I moved in with Michelle and Emily."

  "And Dylan," I added unnecessarily.

  "Yes, but he was always in and out of the house, so I never really thought much about him. At first, things were a little awkward between all of us. But we kind of got in a groove. Emily seemed to understand that I had it harder than her. Sure, we were both adjusting to the new life, but I’d had to leave my home and my old friends. So I was starting from scratch. Without Emily's support, that would have been much harder. And then . . ." She shook her head. "Never mind. I'm getting tired, and when I get tired, I ramble."

  "You're not rambling. It's nice to hear this stuff about Emily. At the end, we were having so many problems. It seemed like we were both slowly finding out that the school age romance was more fantasy than real. We were so different. Too different. And it frustrated Em that she couldn't mold me more to what she wanted. Now I just feel shitty that I couldn't make her happy. I was hanging on to that rock and roll dream way too hard. I might as well have been dreaming about becoming an astronaut."

  Rebecca shifted sideways some and looked at me. "Not true. That dream was within reach. Just too many things got in the way."

  I pushed her hair back behind her ear and ran my finger around the tiny diamond stud in her ear. "You were always my most supportive fan, Rebel."

  She smiled faintly. "And you were the one person who I considered my truest friend. I think I would have had an easier time of things if I'd been able to at least stay near my closest friend. But things got tense fast between my dad and Michelle. I had a hard time not blaming myself for it. It seemed Michelle just couldn't bear to look at me, knowing her own daughter was never coming home." She turned again so she was facing the water. With no one else out on the sand and the cove basically deserted, even of the usual wildlife that crept about and hovered over it during the day, the scene was a little like a painting. Just slim white caps on the water and the still shadows of night giving the surrounding rocks an eerie silhouette.

  "After Dad and I left, my whole life felt fragile and unstable, as if everything I knew and everyone I cared about had vanished into some fictional chapters in my life. I could walk on the sidewalk but never feel like I was being held there by gravity. Nothing about my life was solid anymore. And being whisked off to a place that was so far removed from my old life and so far away from everything I ever knew, made me feel even more lost." She shuffled closer and grew quiet as if she was considering whether or not to continue. Her soft voice floated up and mingled with the constant rush of the water. "Just a year after the accident, I was in England with my dad, I stepped off a curb. A bus was torpedoing toward me, but some guy, just a man on a street in a white shirt and black slacks, yanked me back. I pretended that I'd looked the wrong direction. You know, silly Americans with their backward driving lanes. The man and the onlookers looked terrified, but they laughed nervously about it and told me I wasn't the first to make that mistake." Her shoulders lifted and fell with a deep breath. "But it wasn't a mistake. I did it on purpose. I just thought it seemed like a fast way out. I actually went to a psychologist for awhile, when I was in Europe. My dad didn't know. I'm learning to deal with things now."

  I kissed her shoulder. "Thank God for the man in black slacks." I thought back to some of my lowest moments after the accident. The bottle of pain pills was supposed to last me a month, but many times I thought about taking them all at once. That way all the pain would be gone. Not just the pain in my hand. I'd been the person behind the wheel. I'd been the person to rage at Trent. I'd been the one to hurt Emily, to break her heart.

  "Rebecca, Emily loved you until the end. You had nothing to do with that awful day."

  She didn't respond, but I sensed there was something more, something eating her up from the inside. But it seemed she wasn't going to talk about it.

  "You and I—" I started and then realized the sentence could head in so many directions because even though I had been with Emily, there had always been Rebecca and me. Even when we were too young to even think about anything more than a good friendship, we were always connected to each other. "We never did anything behind Emily's back. I was a faithful boyfriend, and you were a loyal sister. Even though there was this unexpected and confusing energy between us, neither of us did anything wrong. We both loved her, and we both kept true to her."

  "Until that kiss." She scooted away from me and leaned down to watch her toes dig in the sand. "I was drunk and I was really upset by Gregory grabbing me. Then you hit him. Those were a wild few minutes, and they sort of kicked me out of my senses. But I still shouldn't have kissed you." She rested back against me. "I'm just glad Emily never found out about it."

  I stiffened and had to work hard to loosen up the breath that had jammed in my chest. Every detail of that horrific day constantly floated back to me in tiny, blurred scenes in my sleep and sometimes during my daydreams. But the one detail that came back every time, like a loud clanging bell, was the moment Emily looked at me and asked if I had kissed Rebecca. It was the hardest, most bitter moment of my life to swallow, and I still hadn't found a way to deal with it.

  Rebecca nudged me with her elbow. "Josh? Are you falling asleep back there?" She forced a lighter tone, but her voice wavered.

  My arms still felt heavy as I tightened them around her. "With you sitting in my arms? Never."

  She turned to look at me. "It's getting kind of cold. Maybe we should see if there are any good movies on that little television in the front room. And I think I could use some of that wine."

  Chapter 21

  Rebecca

  I pulled the red licorice vines out of the paper bag. "That was a brilliant idea of yours to buy candy to go with the wine and beer." I shoved the red candy in my mouth and yanked off a sweet leathery bite.

  Joshua was messing with the remote, trying to find some decent channels. "As I recall, the candy was your idea."

  "Then I was the brilliant one. I've never outgrown my sweet tooth." I walked out with the box of licorice and dropped it on the coffee table. Dust popped up from the couch cushions as I plopped down on it. I waved my hand to clear the air. The furniture and the cheesy decor hadn't changed in the years since we'd stayed in the cottages for a family trip. It ha
d been out of date and faded then, but now, the room decor was positively shabby. "It's as if the owners of these cottages aren't even trying anymore. Almost as if they wish a giant tsunami would just barrel in from the cove and wipe the place out."

  "Well, it looks like the old movie channel is the only thing that comes in clearly." Joshua took note of the decor too. "Guess ancient black and white movies sort of work for this place." He walked over and sat down. He'd pulled on shorts, but stayed shirtless, which was more than acceptable to me. I immediately wrapped my arm around his once he sat down.

  He plucked a red licorice rope from my fingers and chewed on it like an old cigar. "A hotel chain or real estate investor should buy it. They could offer them good money and take it over. With some serious cash flow, this place could be awesome. It has the best location on this stretch of the coast. Although, maybe the family doesn't want the place to go too commercial."

  Joshua leaned back and pulled his arm free of my grasp so he could drop it around my shoulder. We both stared absently at the movie credits as out of tune theme music played through the shoddy speakers. "I think this is one of those old horror flicks with the weird white makeup and creepy haunted house sets. A vampire thing or something."

  "Cool. Sometimes I like the old stuff better than the new. Especially because the new stuff is mostly just computer graphics." I rested my head against him. We had fallen so easily back into each other's lives.

  "So, tell me more about your job at the insurance company," Joshua said.

  "Ugh. There is nothing to tell. Horrid boss, boring work with the only bright spot being the muffin lady who brings through melt in your mouth banana nut muffins. I'm just there to keep a roof over my head until that big amazing job break falls out of the sky. I have to admit, I was making some pretty darn good tip money at the jerk's restaurant."