Running From Love (11 page)

His hand pressed down her side, to the curve of her waist. Her lips kissed his and soon his sex sprang upward, ready again to claim this woman. He would never grow tired of Poppy. Couldn’t tire of her. This heat, a sultry sort of confidence, came off of her always, plus an ungraspable presence, as though she were quicksilver at her essence and would slip through his fingers should he grasp her too tightly. He scooped her breast into his hand and leaned forward. He pulled that taut bud of a nipple deep into his mouth.

“Oh, Trevor.” Her moan nearly unraveled him. To hear her voice ripe with pleasure.

She rolled onto her back and he moved above her. His forearm pressed to the mattress beside her head as he suckled her breast. He released her nipple and moved to her other breast. His hand drifted down her skin to her curls and again his fingertips found her clit. Soft, wet, still engorged with desire. He circled and her hips thrust up.

“Trevor, please, oh my God, Trevor, I want you in me.”

He positioned himself over her and spread her thighs. The head of his cock nudged the tight ring of her entrance, smooth and warm and wet. He pressed forward. Heat gathered in the base of his spine. Desire to thrust in hard and fast, and to sheath his cock to its root, nearly overcame him. He pushed forward slowly into the smooth tightness of her sex.

“Yes, oh my God, yes.” She wrapped her legs around him, her feet pressing against the tight muscles of his ass. Her fingers clawing into the muscles of his back.

“Please, harder, oh my God, harder!”

He couldn’t fight the need. He thrust up and into her. The smooth silken heat of her body took him and melded her to him. Trevor pulled back and drove forward. Again she clung to him tight and close, and he stroked forward and back.

Her eyes were open. A window to the feelings she didn’t speak. Their gazes locked onto each other as he took her. Their bodies fused together. No end, no beginning, just one. A mass of pleasure and desire.

The sound of the ocean roared through the windows, sealing them together. Heat throbbed through Trevor, his balls tightening and drawing upward with each thrust. The base of his spine tightened. He pushed deeper, her body yielding to him. The heat in his balls searing within him. He pressed. He was losing his rhythm now, his control.

“Baby, Poppy, baby—”

“Oh my God, Trevor, you feel so good, please,” she whispered. “Please.”

The heat coursed through his balls and spurted inside her. He thrust forward, his body tensing a final time. Her sex tightened and tightened again, holding his cock deep inside her as the come shot out. Her arms clamped around his back. His gaze locked with Poppy’s and the roar in his mind ceased. Poppy. There was only Poppy. In this moment, in this world, in this universe it was only them, together as one.

*

Poppy slipped from Trevor’s arms and reached for a white T-shirt. Before putting it on, she pressed the cotton to her nose. A long deep breath. She inhaled the scent of Trevor, the man she loved. Lush and rich with hints of sunshine and salt air. She pulled his shirt over her head and walked toward the wall of windows. Just beyond the open sliding doors was a deck. She walked out and the cool night hair slid over her skin. The ocean rolled in and out, and the surf gently caressed the sand in the darkness of the night. Bright bits of starlight scattered across the blackened sky. The last time she’d slipped from Trevor’s bed they’d been in Tahiti and she’d thought that she was leaving him, perhaps never to see him again. She’d been running from her emotions for so long. Why? The first time she’d run, what had she been trying to escape? She’d been the only one left at home with her father, who didn’t seem to want her there. She’d landed at her brother Brian’s place, but had felt like a fifth wheel amongst his mates. Then she’d finished university and shown up at Mimi’s, but Mimi had already settled with Daniel. She’d run from Los Angeles, thinking that Mesquale would be the perfect fit. A life without commitment. No way of getting caught in emotional entanglements. 

A deep breath. Now what? Now she was madly in love and quite likely wanted to settle with Trevor. Yet she’d run from him too, dodging his love to flee to Los Angeles.

Her chest tightened. The desire to run again surged through her body. Trevor loved her and she loved him, so what was her problem? She pulled her hand through her hair. Really? Was she so messed up that she’d run away from a man who loved her? A good man who wanted her and made her entire body quiver with pleasure?

She gripped the deck rail with her hands and leaned back. Her eyes met the moon. The cold orb that hung high above her in the sky, keeping company with the stars. Trevor deserved a woman who would commit to him. A woman who wouldn’t run away from him simply because of the tightness in her chest. Could she be that woman? Could she embrace all that he had to offer with her entire heart? Fear over who she was, based on what her parents had been, filled Poppy. Would she continue to run away from love? Would she fold like a house of cards at the first sign of trouble or inconvenience?

“It’s cold, why are you out here?”

Poppy’s skin shivered with the caress of Trevor’s rough voice. He wrapped his arms around her and she dropped her head back against his chest. His arms, thick with muscle, pulled her close and warmed her body. She could stand here in these arms for a lifetime if she’d only surrender to the love in her heart. If only she could banish her fears …

“I couldn’t sleep and the view is beautiful.”

“There’s nothing more beautiful than you.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “But the stars and the moon
are
pretty spectacular.” He turned Poppy in his arms and his piercing blue eyes locked onto her. “Don’t run away this time, okay?”

She nodded. He deserved better than an empty bed with nothing but a three-line note. Lucky for her, he hadn’t believed the cavalier words she’d written before her Mesquale disappearing act. 

“I love you.”

His face split into a smile at her words. “Why do you think I followed you halfway around the world?” He pulled Poppy closer. “I love you too, Poppy. You know that, right?”

She nodded. His love tickled her heart but caused her gut to tumble with fear. The devil on her shoulder screamed:
Run
! She loved Trevor. She trusted Trevor. She just couldn’t believe in the idea that love lasted.

He pulled her closer. “Let’s go to bed. We’ll talk in the morning.” His gaze searched her face. The desire for her happiness evident on his face, in his arms, the way his eyebrow hitched upward.

Poppy nodded. They needed to talk in the morning. They’d had six months of intimacy and yet had resisted building a relationship. What other secrets did he have to disclose? At Mesquale the two of them had great sex, but also a host of half-truths and omissions. Time for truth telling now, and hope that once they’d finished, Poppy would no longer need to run.

“This is your mom and dad?” Poppy pointed to a picture on a table behind the couch.

Trevor turned away from the stove. He held a spatula in his left hand. “That’s them. The little guy beside them is me.”

“Trevor! You’ve always been adorable.”

“Ha! I’m guessing Mom might not agree. I think there was a period of about five years she refused to take me to the grocery store because of all the fits I threw.”

Poppy walked back to the kitchen table and sipped her mug of coffee. The ocean view wasn’t just a part of this house, it defined it. The entire west wall was glass from floor to ceiling. She stood between the kitchen and the deck with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Looks like some weather today.” Trevor flipped the eggs onto two plates.

Not the usual bright-blue So Cal day. Instead gray clouds hung low over the Pacific, turning the water an angry dark grayish-blue. Steep, white-peaked waves churned against the shoreline.

“Inside or out?”

“I vote in,” Poppy said. “Too windy.”

“Agreed.” Trevor set down the plates and pulled the sliders shut. “Hungry?”

“Starved.”

“Good to see you have an appetite.” 

He brushed his lips against the top of her head and a flush of heat lit up her neck. Yes, she did like to eat, especially after a night of good sex. A fact he already knew from their six months together. He sat across from her and topped off each of their cups of coffee.

“So,” he said before taking a large bite of his eggs, “this silence feels awkward, doesn’t it?”

“I have a brother Brian and he’s coming to L.A. tomorrow.”

“From Malaysia?”

Poppy looked up from her plate and her eyebrow lifted.

“There was a lot of information that came back when I was searching for your address.”

Her hands grew clammy. Trevor knew more than she’d told him. Her throat tightened. “How much information?”

Trevor’s eyes flicked from his coffee cup to Poppy’s face. “Probably more than you’d like. But Poppy, I think you’d feel best if I knew nothing at all about you.” He flashed her a wicked smile. “Other than that you have a scar just above your beautiful ass.”

“Stop!” She returned his smile. “Okay, fine. You’re right, I do feel vulnerable when people know details about my life. I just need to digest that you know everything about me? Right? I mean, you know about Mimi and the girls and Brian and I suppose about my father. I’m guessing you even know about Therese.”

“I did get the facts about your life, but that isn’t really a life, is it? The facts just tell the scenario, but to know the story? You have to hear it from the person who lived it.” Trevor leaned closer to her. “The nuances tell you the truth about a person. I’ve got most of that language down for you, Poppy. I know your tones and your eye movements, I’ve just never seen any of that applied to the facts of your life.”

Her breath shortened. Naked. She suddenly felt absolutely naked and afraid sitting at Trevor’s kitchen table. My God, Trevor did know her. They’d developed the shorthand of a couple. She could communicate with him simply by a look or a raised eyebrow or the curve of her mouth. Now if he had the facts and saw how she reacted to these people … she could hide nothing. Oh my God. Her heart beat fast. How could she ever survive someone knowing her this well? How did anyone survive?

“I see I’ve managed to strike fear into your heart.”

She pulled her gaze away from Trevor’s eyes and looked out the window at the wind-whipped peaks in the ocean.

“You’re right. This is terrifying.”

“Yes,” Trevor said softly. “It is.” He stood and lifted both her plate and his and took them to the kitchen. He returned and sat beside her. “I seem to have the advantage, and as you know, I’m big on fairness. So why don’t I start? You haven’t had the benefit of a private investigator who happened so be on staff for your family since you were born.”

“You have security?”

Trevor nodded. “Silly, right? I mean, I am pretty tough.”

A laugh burst from Poppy’s lips. “Trevor, tough? You’re the biggest pushover.”

“Okay, well, maybe not.” He reached out and took her hand into his. “Let me live in denial. But really”—his azure blue eyes caught hers— “ask away. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know about your family and Up Side Burger and the idea of you running the company.”

Trevor told her. Spent the next hour explaining his family history with the restaurant to her. He laid out the requirements that he or a sibling run Up Side.

“And you don’t want to do it?” Poppy asked.

Trevor stood and walked toward the kitchen, where he poured two more cups of coffee. “Three days ago I didn’t want to do it.”

“And now?”

“And now I understand what Up Side Burger means to my family and my future.”

Poppy’s eyebrows crinkled. “What’s changed?

Trevor set the coffee on the table. He knelt before Poppy and grasped both her hands. “You, Poppy. You’ve changed it. Being here with you, I understand why my dad came back to Los Angeles, why he didn’t need to play his music in the same way anymore. I’m not saying that I won’t write for the rest of my life or even publish, but what I am saying is I’ve found something bigger than just me and my needs.” He reached out and brushed her curls back over her shoulder. “I want us, and as long as this thing between us is working and intact, then I’m okay. Doesn’t matter if I’m flipping burgers, making drinks, writing stories, or running a company. You. Us. Together. This makes everything worthwhile.”

Poppy’s heart spun. She took a deep breath. She felt the same way, but his words, the things that Trevor said, the tone of his voice, weren’t laced with the fear that flooded her body.

He grasped her hands. “I want us to be together. If you tell me that you can do that here, or if you can do that in Hong Kong, wherever, whatever, then I will make that work.  Do you get it? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“You’re freaking me out.”

“Of course I am.” Trevor ran his fingertips over her cheekbone. “I know this scares you. The idea of letting yourself love me enough to commit to forever.” A smile spread over Trevor’s face. “But here’s the thing, it’s too late, Poppy. For both of us. I’ve given you my heart and whether you wanted to or not, you’ve given your heart to me.” 

She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. She nodded and opened them again. “I just … I’ve seen what happens when love doesn’t work out. When people can’t stay, when they’re abandoned and alone, and the children, and what if our children—”

Trevor’s eyes widened.

She stopped.

Her eyes slid to the left, then closed. She’d said it. A deep breath pulled through her lungs. She’d spoken about a future with Trevor that contained children and a life and commitment and she’d meant it. She turned her gaze back to him. “If we ever had children, Trevor, I wouldn’t want them to go through what I went through.”

To his credit, he kept a giant grin from slipping onto his face. “I’ll do anything and everything to make certain any children we may or may not have never experience that kind of abandonment.” 

Trevor meant what he said. But hadn’t her father thought similar things when it came to his relationship with Therese?