On the Rocks (A Turtle Island Novel) (11 page)

Julie laughed and left his room, and he returned to his desk. He was glad he’d come home. Whether Julie needed him or not right now, he’d come to realize that he needed her. She’d made him smile.

He glanced out his window once again, saw that the sky was lightening, and he thought about Ginger.
She’d
almost made him smile. The other morning at her house. He’d wanted to. Simply because she’d smiled at him. Similar to how he’d wanted to lift her T-shirt over her head the day before in her kitchen for the sole sake of seeing what her hardened nipples looked like naked.

He thought about walking into her house and catching her talking about him on the phone. About “jumping his bones.”

She’d once had a crush on him, and he’d had no idea. What would he have done if he’d known? Anything? She’d been his friend. And he’d depended on her. That friendship had been the backbone of his life at the time. The same way, he realized, that he could come to depend on her today if he let himself. As it was with his sister, he felt better merely being around Ginger.

But did he want to go there? Open himself up in that way?

It was all too much thinking, he decided. What mattered at the moment was writing. Or the fact that he
should
be writing. He opened his laptop and realized that he’d written quite a bit of his impromptu scene while watching Ginger. He quickly scanned the page, jumping over the words until he landed on a particularly interesting phrase.

She straddled his legs, the vee of her crotch shadowed in the dim light, and paused before sliding over him.

Carter caught his breath.
Damn.

Her green eyes lit with the desire that both of them felt, and burnished copper hair trailed over her shoulders, hiding the light coating of freckles. And then she nodded. Slowly. And his body tensed in preparation for what was to come.

Her heat touched him, sucking the breath out of his body as surely as it swallowed the head of his dick. His chest vibrated from the groan that he held inside. He couldn’t let her think he was weak. He
wouldn’t
give her that kind of power.

But she was tight and hot, and she pushed down, covering him to the hilt. And she drained his fucking senses as surely as if she’d opened his head and removed his brain.

And all the time, through every move she made, she looked at him. Watched him with the kind of intensity that not only said that this was what she’d been waiting for all her life, but that she was keenly aware that it was what he’d been waiting on, too. And she finally got the groan he’d been trying so desperately to hold in.

Carter licked his lips. He wrote sex scenes in his books on occasion. That was nothing new. But he was pretty sure the scene in front of him was of him and Ginger. And that
wasn’t
his norm.

He kept reading.

Naked from the waist down—save for her green rubber boots—she rode him, her breasts bouncing under the loose cotton shirt, her nipples hard and reaching for him. So he reached back. He pulled both hands from their grip on her hips, and in a single move he had her shirt open, buttons flying. She wore no bra, and his dick surged inside her.

A moan slid from her parted lips, but he wanted more than an unintelligible sound. He wanted her calling his name. Knowing that it was
he
she was with.
He
she would return to.

That
he
was the man who would soon make her come.

He closed his mouth over a pink nipple, and he rose from his sitting position. He needed to be in control. Not her. And he needed to make sure she never looked at another man again.

With almost too much power, he slammed her against the wall.

“Carter!” Her voice rang out in heated passion.

He pumped harder, and she bit into his neck.

Her nails clawed at his back, begging for more. Faster. Now. So he gave her what she wanted.

He filled her, over and over, while her legs clamped tight around his body, her heels digging into his ass, spurring him on. She called his name. He called hers. Sweat slicked their bodies together with each powerful thrust.

And then they were at the precipice, and he didn’t give her a chance to catch her breath. He pushed harder, insisting she be right there with him. Shoving her over the edge. He savored her screams and thrilled at the feel of her nails slicing through his skin.

“You’re mine,” he ground out as the first spurt left him.

She nodded. Made an animalistic growl. Then she lost all ability to speak.

Carter beat her to the rock the next morning.

The sun was still fifteen minutes from coming up, but instead of sitting in his room, watching to see if Ginger would head out of the house again, he’d slipped out his own back door and walked over himself. It was either that or reread the sex scene he’d written about her. Again. Which had about driven him out of his mind the day before.

Of course, it would have helped if he hadn’t gone back to it time and again, editing and polishing the words. He’d told himself it was a writing exercise. He’d written for the first time in months. It was a positive thing. He was only helping himself by tweaking it.

Only, he’d gone to bed hard, and woken up the same way. For Ginger.

Which was better than waking up angry, he freely admitted. But it had also pulled him from the house this morning. He’d arrived in time to finish a cigarette before she caught him, and now he waited. And he hoped like hell that she showed up.

A bird squawked as it passed by, and he lifted his face to watch it. The morning was damp and slightly cool, and the briskness made him feel alive. It was as if something had awoken inside him.

The day before had been a turning point. He’d smiled in the morning, had dirty nasty thoughts about his friend and neighbor all day long,
and
he’d watched that very neighbor read on her deck late at night, once again pantless.

All in all, it had been a good twenty-four hours.

The remodel was coming along nicely, as well, and he and Gene had spent a couple of hours working through plans for Ginger’s house. Carter was anxious for the team to really get started out there. He wanted to see her home come alive.

He
wanted
to see her.

As if his wants could materialize, she was suddenly there. He hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes, but when he opened them, his face still tilted toward the sky, she was by his side, peering down at him, and he wondered if he’d ever told her how pretty she was.

Her hair was twisted to the top of her head, her face scrubbed clean, and a solemnness was painted across her features. It mixed in with the sprinkling of freckles dotting her nose.

She stared at him as if unsure why he was there. If she should stay or go.

And she took his breath away.

She didn’t need makeup and dresses. She just needed to be herself.

“I’m divorced,” he blurted out. Pressure immediately eased from his chest. Maybe she’d been right. Talking about it could help. “It was final three weeks ago.”

She blinked, swallowed, then nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Divorce sucks.”

Her head angled slightly, as if asking if she could sit down, and he nodded. She lowered to sit beside him, and they both turned to face the ocean. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

He considered it. Truly considered whether he wanted to talk about what had happened. It was a question he’d never allowed before. But, no. Not today. Not yet.

“No,” he said.

She nodded once again. “Then we’ll just watch the sunrise.”

They sat side by side, silent for the next ten minutes as the bright globe inched its way into the sky. The morning wasn’t as colorful as some he’d seen, and there were no clouds. The day seemed to simply appear. One moment it was gray, with daylight hovering just beyond the edge of the water, and the next, an explosion of sunlight was everywhere. And as he’d done the day before, he pulled in a deep breath.

“I have countertop samples for you,” he told her after he blew out the lungful of air. “They’re in my car.”

“I’ll come over before I go to work and take a look.”

The oddest pinch tightened inside him as he thought about her coming over, with Gregg and Ian—and the rest of the guys—being there. They were fascinated with her; he’d heard them talking. And she seemed as taken with them. He’d watched from a distance as she chatted one or another up on her multiple trips home during the days, and he’d wondered if she always came home that much during a workday. Or was she doing it simply to flirt?

Not that it was any of his business. He’d warned her about them. He’d done his part.

Maybe I do just want to get laid.

The words irritated him more today than they had two mornings ago. She deserved more than just getting laid.

“Another bad date last night?” he asked now. He’d seen a car drop her off before she’d gone in the front door fully dressed in a skirt, heels, and a shirt, and come out the back in only the shirt.

“Not a date.” She propped her hands behind her on the rock and dropped her head back. “Though not from a lack of trying. One of the local bars has a monthly speed-dating thing. I went with a friend. We both left empty-handed.”

“Too bad for them.”

She turned her head to look at him, her gaze quietly studying, and he hoped like hell she couldn’t see his thoughts. Which revolved fifty percent around the words he’d written the day before. And the other half still wondering about the color of her nipples.

“Do you remember that we used to sit out here and share our dreams?” she asked.

Relief filled him. She had no clue that she was being coveted by her neighbor. “I do. You wanted to be a kindergarten teacher.”

The corners of her mouth turned up. “You remember that?”

He nodded. He remembered a lot about her. And about their time spent out here. Like the fact that they used to sketch out the dream homes they’d each planned to build. Their ideas had been very similar. So much so that they’d eventually tossed their separate plans and worked from one sketch. He wondered how many of those same ideas had made it into her house.

Then again, he wondered how many had made it into his own. Was that why so much of hers was similar to his? It was interesting that they’d both hit that point of their lives at the same time.

“You wanted to be an author,” she said.

Her words surprised him. “I did.” He’d never talked about that a lot. It was one of those dreams that had been more personal than the rest. The kind people would doubt.

She went back to watching the water, seemingly lost in her own thoughts, and he returned to his. Of her. He was intrigued with the color of her hair when the sun touched it. There was blonde in there. He hadn’t realized that. Thin streaks of gold, as well as darker reds, mixed in with the copper. Looking at it, he wanted to touch it. Let it slide through his fingers the same way the sun slid over its surface.

“Do you still dream, Carter?”

He shook his head when she glanced at him.

“I do,” she said wistfully. “But sometimes I wish I didn’t.”

Was she talking about her dream of having a family?

“What kept you here?” he asked. His voice croaked out, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “I mean, I know your dad passed away, and that brought you home before you graduated college. But why stay? Why not
be
that kindergarten teacher?” Maybe she
could
have had her dreams. “Did you not want to go back to school?”

“I considered it. In fact, I’d planned on it. But I found that I like running the company. And I’m good at it.
And
it means a lot to me that it was Dad’s business.” She plucked a piece of grass from the ground and twirled it between two fingers. “I think the kindergarten thing was more my idea of fitting me into the picture I’d painted. You know . . . the husband, four kids, giant house.”

He knew. He’d wanted the same, only his picture had been with him sitting in his home office, the ocean outside his window, while he wrote bestsellers.

“You’d make a great teacher. I could totally see you in the middle of a roomful of kids.”

She smiled lazily. “Thanks. But the reality is, I probably wouldn’t have been great at it. I prefer the freedom to be on the water when I want to be. To not have to look ‘presentable’ all the time.”

He studied her, thinking about her reading on her deck. He had to agree with her there. She was a woman born to not wear pants.

Something surprising happened then. He smiled. And he couldn’t
stop
smiling.

Ginger sat up straighter at the change in him, but she didn’t say anything. She simply stared.

“You prefer to be outdoors without pants,” he teased.

There was a brief pause as confusion passed across her face, before a blush bloomed on her cheeks. He loved how easily she blushed.

“You’ve seen that?” She sounded horrified. “Me on the deck?”

He let the smile reach his eyes.

She covered her face with her hands. “
Ohmygod.
I’m so embarrassed. It’s always dark. I didn’t think anyone could see.”