More Than Lovers (11 page)

Salty, but delicious nevertheless.

She licked him again, delicately, and almost purred as a shudder reverberated through his body. “Sam also smiled when I told him I disagreed with you. When I said
you
were the perfect guy for me, not him.” She latched her lips to his neck and sucked gently.

Charlie’s growl wasn’t repressed this time. It was low, and it was deep, and it echoed through her ears as he arched his neck to the side, giving her more freedom to taste him.

She nibbled her way up and nipped at his earlobe. “I love you, Charlie Hudson. Only you. I’m not interested in Sam or Henry or Myles or any other friends you may have tucked aside waiting for me to meet. I love
you
.”

“Sarah…”Charlie’s sigh was long and shaky. “Fuck.”

“Not now, Char. We can do that later, after I’ve said what I came here to say. After I’ve heard what I came here to hear.”

“What
are
you doing here?” he demanded, his voice no more steady than his sigh had been. “What were you doing in the water, wiping out on a surfboard you have no business being on?”

“Isn’t it obvious what I’m doing?” Sarah was surprised by how easily her voice came now. How the panic had abated altogether. How in Charlie’s arms she was safe and happy and alive. So very, very alive.

“Besides trying to drown yourself? Not in the least, no.”

It was Sarah’s turn to sigh, and she did so with as much patience as she could muster. “I’m trying to be more like you. Trying to fit into your world. Trying to understand the world of surfing better so I can help you further your surfing career.”

“What the fuck?”

“Isn’t that what you’re looking for? A woman like you? Someone who can stand by your side all the time. Someone with the same skills as you. Someone you can be proud of. Someone who speaks your language and can help you advance in the world of surfing.”

He finally let his hand drop and pulled away so he could look at her. “I have no idea what the hell you are talking about.” He looked as perplexed as he sounded.

“Well, isn’t that what you think I need? Someone like me. Someone who loves genetics and academia as much as I do. Someone who’ll understand me when I go off on a tangent about DNA and biochemistry. Someone who’ll further my career, someone who’ll help me advance academically, not hold me back. And I figure if that’s what I need, it’s what you need too. So if I learn to surf, I’ll be your equal—professionally speaking—and your career will take off and you’ll be happy.”

He was shaking his head, had been the minute she started explaining herself. “That’s bullshit. I won’t be a better surfer just because you learn to surf. The one has no bearing on the other.”

Sarah nodded. “
Of course
it doesn’t. Just like I won’t be a better geneticist if you got your PhD. The one has no bearing on the other. I’m perfectly capable of furthering my studies and my research regardless of your understanding of the field. And you’re perfectly capable of being the best surfer and surf instructor you can be, regardless of my ability to handle a board. I can’t handle a board. I don’t want to. Surfing is not and never has been my passion.”

“I never asked you to make it your passion.”

“And I never asked you to get your PhD. That’s not you. It’s not what you’re about. It’s not what
we’re
about.” Never mind the ocean, Sarah feared she might drown in the depths of Charlie’s gaze. He looked at her with such intensity it took the breath she’d only just managed to recover. “The thing is, I love you, Char. I fell in love with you, the irresistible surfer dude. I’m not interested in doctors or accountants or lawyers or degrees. I love you, and I think, regardless of my ability to surf or not, you love me too.”

“We’re about sex, Sar. That’s all. There’s nothing more between us than a good fuck whenever we feel like it.”

“No.” She denied his words fiercely. “That’s bullshit and you know it. We are about way more than sex. I know your favorite movies and your favorite color. I know about your family, present and future, and I know about your best friend. I know you love surfing more than anything in life and I know that catching the ultimate wave is your passion. I know the four items you’d save from a burning building, and more importantly, I know I’d be the first thing you came for, before anything else. You proved it today. You’d sacrifice everything to save me.” She looked at him in wonder. “God, how could I not love you?”

He shrugged. “Anyone would have done what I did today.”

“Anyone didn’t do what you did today. You were the one who grabbed me from the wave.”

“It wasn’t a big deal.”

“It was to me. And I know it was to you too because you’re still as white as a sheet.” He was. His tanned face was almost as pale as hers was naturally. “I mean something to you, Charlie Hudson. I’m more than a quick fuck on a quiet night, and I need to hear you say it.”

His shoulders stiffened. “What you need is someone like you.”

Sarah punched his arm out of sheer frustration and jumped up, out of his lap. Her legs might be shaky from the dumping, but adrenalin flooded her body, helping her stand firm. For the first time, she noticed he’d set her down right beside her towel and bag. Did that mean he’d known she was here all along? Had he seen her arrive?

“Where do you come up with that kind of crap?” she raged. “Didn’t you just hear me? Your profession has no bearing on mine. If I need support to reach my goals and become a professor, I have it. In spades. At work and with my parents. I don’t need that from you. I just need you to love me.” Why couldn’t he understand?

Charlie rubbed a hand over his eyes and looked up at her. “It’s not just me who believes it. It’s your parents as well.”

“What the…? What are you talking about?” He’d met her parents? When?

He pushed to his feet, pausing only to grab her towel and drape it around her shoulders before stepping away. “I overheard them one day. In the lobby of the building, talking about you. Your mother said you needed to find someone of your own intellectual standing, someone the department would approve of. Someone who would be an equal in every way and aid you in achieving all your goals.”

“M-my mother said that?” She stared at him askance as she snuggled into the towel, grateful for its warmth. No way. It just wasn’t something her mother would say. Her mum would love her to find a man. Any man, so long as Sarah liked him. She’d even mentioned the good-looking young man who lived upstairs from Sarah as a possibility. Had told her umpteen times to take her head out of her books and make a social life for herself, something separate from her work and her studies. “I don’t believe that. Are you sure it was my mother? My father?”

“Are there any other Sarahs in the building? Because they mentioned you by name.”

“What? When?”

Charlie shrugged. “A year ago. Maybe a little more.”

She gaped, stunned, and then the penny dropped. “Thirteen months ago?”

“Yeah. About then.”

“Well, damn it. Thirteen months ago that would have made perfect sense. Because I
was
looking for someone just like that then.” Frustrated all over again, she curled her free hand into a fist, closing her fingers around sand and grit. “I was looking for a research assistant. Someone to help me with a project. And well, gee, funnily enough I was looking for someone academic and studious. Someone who would aid me in every inch of my research. Someone the uni would approve of, because otherwise I couldn’t have hired her or him. God!” She cursed out loud. “My parents weren’t talking about a romantic interest. They were talking about a work colleague.”

He stared at her, speechless.

“You pushed me away because of my parents? You took what they said to heart and tried to make it a reality for me?”

“It made sense. You’re so goal-oriented, Sar. So determined to be the best you can be. You want to be a professor so bad I can even taste it. I didn’t want to get in your way.”

Sarah shook her head, dumbfounded. Water and sand flew everywhere. She wasn’t sure whether to lay into him and smack him for being an idiot, to thank him for wanting what he perceived was best for her, to hug him for respecting her parents’ wishes so loyally—even if he had misunderstood those wishes, or to just jump him here on the beach because, damn it, she loved him so much it hurt. “You did it for me?”

“Uh-huh.”

She held out her hand in question. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” He took a step towards her.

“Uh-uh.” She shook a finger at him. “Don’t you turn the question around on me. Don’t do that. Just tell me why.”

“Because, Geek Girl, I did what I believed was best for you.”

“What if I believe you’re what’s best for me?” She took a step towards him.

“Achieving your dreams is what’s best for you.”

“
You’re
my dream, Surfer Dude.”

His eyes darkened. “Wet dream. There’s a difference.”

“You’re my wet dream too. But that’s not what I’m referring to now.”

“I’m your lover, Sar. A hook-up when we’re feeling horny. That’s it.”

“Correction. You
were
my lover. You put an end to that four nights ago.”

“For your own good.” Another step closer.

“You obviously have no idea what’s good for me.” She met his step with one of her own. “Which is a conundrum really, since you seem to know me better than anyone else in this world.”

“Sam’s good for you.”

“He is. Really good.” She took another step, closing the distance between them. “Sam was the one who let me in on your little secret.”

Charlie frowned. “What secret?”

“The one about you loving me.”

Charlie blinked. “He told you that?”

“He did, when I was blubbing like a baby on his shoulder—about you. But then I think he would have said anything to cheer me up.”

“So you realize it may not be true?”

She smiled confidently. “You’d save me from a burning building, Char. You pulled me out of the ocean. And you tried to live up to my parents’ wishes for me. Sam might have said it to cheer me up, but it’s true. Every last word of it. Besides, there isn’t another person alive who’d stop in the middle of a fire and let me take my doctorate off the wall.”

He shrugged. “I could never let you live without it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I only want what’s best for you. I only want you to be happy.”

“Why?”

Charlie gave a frustrated growl, grabbed her hand and yanked her into his arms. The towel fell to the sand behind her. “Because, Geek Girl, I fucking love you. And if you’re not happy, I can’t be happy.” And with that, he crushed his lips to hers, and kissed her as though there were no tomorrow. As though he’d almost lost the woman he loved and couldn’t quite believe he held her in his arms again. As though he’d never let her go.

And Sarah kissed him back, matching every bit of passion and longing she tasted on his tongue. Her heart tumbled in her chest, as though it had been caught in some mad whirlpool of its own making.

He kissed her for a very long time, until a wolf whistle and a catcall from somewhere down the beach made him pause and pull away.

She looked at him dreamily, loving how swollen his lips were, how unevenly his chest heaved against hers. “See?” she whispered. “A conundrum. Because I can’t be happy if you’re not in my life.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to fix this. I guess I’ll have to be in your life.”

Oh, thank God.
Thank God!
“I guess so. But…”

Charlie looked alarmed. “But?”

She bit her lower lip. “I’m not interested in booty calls or casual hook-ups anymore.”

His face fell. “You’re not?”

“No.”

“Then…?” His voice cracked, his expression so distraught he couldn’t finish his sentence.

Sarah rushed in to reassure him. “I want it all, Surfer Dude. I want the sex
and
the snuggles. I want the sleepovers and the breakfast the next morning. I want you to be the last thing I see before I fall asleep at night and the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.”

Charlie broke into a smile, a smile brighter than the sun that now shone in the sky behind him. “I can do that.”

She matched his smile with one of her own.

“But there’s something else I want too,” he warned.

“And that is?”

“A promise from you.”

“Anything.” She’d promise him the world if he asked.

“Promise me, please, that as long as you live, you will never, ever again touch another surfboard.”

Her smile turned into a grin. “I have to. Just one more time. To give it back to Sam.”

“Okay, just for the next five minutes, could you please stop mentioning the good doctor’s name?”

“Jealous?”

“Ridiculously so.”

Oh, the satisfaction. “You introduced us.”

“I was an idiot.”

“Huh!” She smacked him on his chest. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Could you do this idiot one favor?”

“Anything.”