Spring Secrets: Pine Point, Book 3 (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

“We’re gonna get caught,” he said as Sienna backed through the heavy gilt door.

“Maybe. Maybe not. All those animal lovers are probably in the ballroom right now outbidding each other to see who gets to take home the Springer Fitness gym membership.” She took a quick survey of the restroom. Three stalls, three sinks, and a large sitting area with a fancy red loveseat and paintings hanging on the wall above it. She’d never done anything like this before, but she didn’t want to wait any longer to touch him. Mike turned her on simply by grinning at her from across the room. She’d almost come in his arms on the dance floor.

She pulled his mouth to his and whispered, “While I get to take home Mr. Springer himself.”

At that, he lifted her in his arms like she weighed nothing. Sienna wrapped her legs around his waist and felt every inch of his lean, hard body meet hers. She hadn’t slept with a guy in almost six months. She hadn’t seriously dated anyone in over a year. Yet a few short weeks back in Pine Point, and the tiny, tightly constructed wall inside her had started to crack. He kissed her, and she stopped thinking about everything else. His tongue moved inside her mouth, slow and deliberate. His hands cupped her ass as he braced her against the ledge of sinks. Everything inside her went hot, and she threaded her fingers through his hair, wanting him closer. He moved his lips to her neck and closed over the spot where her pulse jumped.

“You drive me crazy,” he murmured.

She nodded, unable to form a coherent response.

He slid his hand down her arm, but when he reached her scar, he stopped. He brushed his thumb over her skin, tracing the white line. He looked at her without speaking.

“Sophomore year of college,” she said, her voice rough. “Low point in my life.”

He raised her wrist to his mouth and kissed the scar so sweetly she wanted to cry. “I’ve had a few of those low points,” he whispered. “Glad it’s just a scar now.”

“Me too.”

He slipped his palm beneath her sweater, and when he touched the bare skin of her belly, she jumped. The automatic faucet behind her turned on with the motion, and suddenly a spray of cold drenched her from behind.

“Oh, shit.” She jumped. They wriggled away from the sinks.

“Hell, Sienna, I’m sorry. Let me see.” He turned her around and ran the flat of his palm down her back. “You’re pretty wet.”

“Yeah,” she managed to say. She braced both hands on the sink and savored the feel of his hand on her back, running from the damp hair at her neck to the curve of her hips. He did it again, then a third time, slower. By the time he slipped her sweater down her shoulder to kiss it, she’d almost come undone.

He began to move against her, one hand holding her hip, the other moving back around to tease beneath her sweater and cup one breast.
Oh dear God.
The rough lace pressed into her sensitive skin at his touch, and he squeezed just enough that she melted. Her eyes closed. He pulsed against her, and somehow it didn’t matter that they were fully clothed, that he’d barely touched anything at all. The beginnings of an orgasm hummed through her, and the sensation both startled and scared her. She rarely came with a man. She rarely let down her guard that far. Messed up, maybe, but becoming vulnerable in the moment of release meant she trusted the guy. And she didn’t trust. She couldn’t. Too many people had hurt her in the past.

“Open your eyes,” he said, his voice guttural with want.

She couldn’t. She’d lose this moment, this feeling of perfect rhythm.

He tightened his hands. “Sienna. I want you to watch us.”

With effort, she opened her eyes and stared into the mirror. She’d never done anything like this before, but the effect was nothing short of astounding. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth slightly open. He panted with every thrust against her, and the sound and sight of them together, of them wanting each other, pushed her over the edge. Her hips pressed into the counter’s sharp edge, her head dropped back, and everything inside her exploded. Her legs shook. Her arms shook. A whimper left her lips, and if someone had walked into the restroom at that moment, she couldn’t have done anything except continue riding this wave.

When she opened her eyes again, Mike was watching her in the mirror. He brushed his lips against her cheek. “Now that’s what I call foreplay.”

She laughed, the sound breathless and echoey in the high-ceilinged room. It felt as though she’d walked a high wire all the way to the other side. Terrifying. Giddy.
You’ve crossed a line
, she told herself.
No going back now.

Mike pressed a kiss to her temple. “What do you say we go back to my place and try that with clothes off next time?”

* * * * *

Mike couldn’t keep his hands or eyes or anything else off Sienna. Their clothes landed in piles across his floor. He didn’t turn on a single light. As soon as he’d pulled into the driveway, they’d rushed upstairs without words, felt their way to his bedroom, and fallen onto the bed with arms and legs entwined. Fragments of sentences started and stopped in the silence, like
Oh, God I…
And
I love when you…
But he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to taste her, to feel her, to forget everything else except the pure pleasure of having Sienna in his bed. The faint moonlight through his window fell on her skin, dimpled with gooseflesh as she moved above him. She dropped kisses on his mouth, his jaw, his naked chest, then worked her way down until all he felt was her hair across his belly.

Mike groaned. So damn good. So damn long since he’d touched the skin of a woman’s back. God, he loved the softest spots, the places that made her flinch when he stroked them, so he did it again. And again. He tried to keep track of how many times she came as he roamed his fingers and tongue over her body, but he couldn’t. Only after he finally climaxed deep inside her did she stretch out beside him with a satisfied smile.

“Oh, honey,” she said after a long moment. “That was amazing.”

Still hard, still wet with sweat, with the covers tangled around one foot, he nodded. She crawled into the crook of his arm and lay there.
I’ve never had this
. Hot sex, yes. Hot, sober sex? Not in a long time. And never with someone like Sienna, a near-perfect package, and not because of her brains or killer body, but because in addition to all that, the scar tissue built up around her heart meant she’d struggled through life the same way he had.

He couldn’t tell her about L.A. Of course not. But she might understand his reluctance. She might understand that his shit from the past needed to stay there.

As if reading his mind, she ran one hand down his bare chest. Her fingers tickled him, and he caught her hand in his. He pressed her fingers to his lips. “Want to stay?”

“Yes.” She raised herself onto one elbow, still naked. “I guess that friends thing wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

“I don’t know.” He traced the bottom curve of her breast. “We are still friends, aren’t we?”

She smiled. “Of course. Just with some added benefits.” She pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “Tell me about you.”

Mike shifted and stuck one arm behind his head. Shadows played on the ceiling as clouds drifted over the moon. “What do you want to know?”

She traced the outline of a red and black dragon that began on his shoulder and twisted down to his elbow. “When did you get this one?”

“I was twenty-one. And, no, it doesn’t mean much except I liked the design.” He stretched out his arm and turned it in the moonlight.

“Dragons are supposed to be powerful,” she said.

He flexed, and the body of the dragon seemed to grow on his biceps. “Then that’s why I got it.” He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose.

“What about that one?” She pointed to his other arm. A sunburst covered his shoulder. Small black footsteps walked away from it, down to his wrist.

“Twenty-three.” He refused to entertain the memory of Edie picking it out. “It’s a reminder to keep the sun at my back. Keep looking ahead, shit like that.”

Sienna nodded. He could feel her gaze moving over the others. Before she could ask the meaning behind
Never Again
, he laced his fingers through hers. “No tattoos for you?”

She shook her head.

“Ever think about it?”

A curl fell over her nose, and she blew it out of the way. “Not really. They’re too permanent. I think I’d choose the wrong one, and five or ten years later, I wouldn’t like it anymore.”

“There’s always that possibility.”

She put one bare leg over his, and desire stirred in him again. “What happened out in L.A.? If you don’t mind my asking.”

He minded. He minded so much it hurt, because if he told her the truth, she’d be halfway out the door before he could finish. He rubbed his nose. He watched the pattern of the light on the ceiling. “I made some bad decisions,” he finally said.

“How long were you there?”

“Almost eight years. I left right after high school with the older buddy of a friend of mine. He had a lead on a construction job, said it would pay really well.”

She dropped his hand and sat all the way up, cross-legged. Her eyes lit with curiosity. “So how’d you like California?”

“It was hot.” He chuckled. “And crowded, at least where we mostly worked, in Anaheim.”

“Eight years is a long time. I bet your mom was glad when you came back.”

“She was.”

“She ever go out and visit you?”

Once, the month after he went to prison. He did his best not to think about her drawn, white face looking at him under the supervision of an armed guard. “Nope. She’s not really a traveler.” He sat up and rolled Sienna so she lay on her back beneath him. Propped on his elbows, he ran his cheek along hers. She touched the small of his back and laughed.

“Tell me about you.” he said. He lowered himself until he lay beside her. One hand rested on the gentle curve of her belly.

“What do you want to know?”

If she might change her mind about staying in Pine Point. If she thought about him half as much as he thought about her. “What’s it like going to school for so long?” he asked instead.

She laughed, and her diaphragm rippled under his hand. “Sometimes it’s exhausting. But it’s also… I don’t know. Exciting. I love school. Always did.” She made a face. “Classes and my teachers, anyway. The other kids, not so much.”

“No? School was the only place I sorta felt like I fit in.”

“That’s because you had tons of friends and a different girlfriend every other week.”

He moved his hand north until it touched the underside of her breast. “Not tons. And not every other week. You used to eat in the library,” he said with a smile. “I do remember that.”

“You knew where the library was?” she teased.

He took her hand in his and drew her arm around his naked back. “I fantasized about having sex in that library,” he whispered into her ear.

She leaned back to look at him. “You did not.”

“Up against the book shelves.” He moved his hand down her spine, curving around her belly until his fingers tickled the spots already turning wet again.

Yes, he’d had a good time in high school. Nothing mattered too much, and no one ever stabbed him in the back.

She wriggled closer. “I didn’t feel like I fit in until I went to college,” she went on. “I got my bachelor’s degree in Exceptional Education and taught special ed for a year, but that wasn’t really my thing. So I went back and took more classes.”

“Tell me again what you’re studying?”

“The psychology of personality development. It’s a fancy way of studying how and why people develop the personalities they do. Kind of like the nature-versus-nurture debate.”

“And you came back to Pine Point to do that.” Mike withdrew his hand.

“Well, yes, but—” She rolled onto her side to face him. “What’s wrong? Why does that bother you?”

He cleared his throat. “Are you studying me?”

She touched his face and didn’t answer.

“Is that’s what’s going on here?” His voice grew gruff. Shit, he’d misread a situation yet again. He went to get up, but she took his arm.

“Mike. No.” She squared her gaze on his. “I’m not here with you for any other reason except that I want to be.”

He pulled in a breath. He wanted to believe her.

She dropped her hand to his thigh. “I want you.” She crooked a smile. “I want this.”

His eyes closed in pleasure. They didn’t talk after that. He moved above her, taking it slow, making her cry out for his touch, and when it was over, they fell asleep in each other’s arms. It was the first time he slept straight through to morning in over a year.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sienna woke in stages, first with awareness of the arm around her, then of the sun streaming through the window above her head, and finally, the sensation of coziness under a blanket of just the right weight and softness. She’d stayed the night. She hadn’t woken up once. Unbelievable. And scary as hell.

“Good morning,” Mike murmured into her ear.

She turned over and smiled. “Good morning.”

He ran one hand over her messy hair and down her bare shoulder. “You want some coffee?”

“I don’t want anything.” She snuggled closer to him and closed her eyes.

“I have to go to work,” he said after a few minutes. “You could have breakfast with my mom if you want.”

At that, she sat straight up. “You’re kidding, right?”

He grinned. “Yeah. She’d love to see you though. I doubt she’d care you spent the night.”

“Maybe next time.” Was there going to be a next time? She bit her bottom lip and hoped she hadn’t sounded presumptuous. Without looking at his expression, she climbed out of bed and gathered her clothes from around the apartment. Good Lord, how had her bra ended up in the kitchen? And she could only see one boot from the bed. He didn’t bother to dress, and the naked view of him walking into the kitchen turned her on all over again. This wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she’d returned to Pine Point for research, but…
damn.

The smell of coffee filled the apartment a few minutes later, and then Sienna heard the shower run. For a long moment, she sat on the edge of the bed looking at her scar.
He asked me about it. And then he kissed it.
Most other guys she’d dated had avoided even looking at it. Wasn’t hard to know that a scar like that came from drawing a razor blade deep into the skin, watching the blood flow and hoping for a quick release from the pain. But Mike had only looked at and then moved on, as if it meant nothing more than the color of her eyes or the shape of her chin. Her heart fluttered, and she put one hand to her bare chest.
I’m in a whole lot of trouble if I fall for him.

She dressed, poured herself a cup of coffee, and then sneaked into the bathroom. With one finger, she pulled back the shower curtain.

He had his head under the spray, so he didn’t see her at first. The water ran down his body, every inch of it muscle and nearly half of it covered in tattoos. He didn’t have any scars that she could see, but then again, all the artwork would do a good job of hiding them. Her insides went warm all over again at the sight of his nakedness, and part of her wanted to strip and jump under the water with him.

“Hey, you.” He flicked some water at her.

“Hey, yourself.” She let the curtain drop back into place and walked into the living room. Cute place, if small, and distinctly a bachelor pad. A few fitness magazines, a laptop, an Xbox, and a huge flat-screen television hanging across from a well-worn recliner. She refilled her coffee and pulled open the refrigerator to see a jug of unsweetened iced tea and two containers of leftovers.

He came up behind her a few minutes later and slipped his arms around her waist. “Sure I can’t interest you in some breakfast downstairs? Ma makes a mean French toast.”

She flinched at the thought. Delicious sex with a bodybuilder? Yes, please. Domestic conversation with his mother the morning after? She already felt herself losing control around him, sliding down a slippery slope that involved emotions she hadn’t felt in a long time. She set down her mug. “I think I’ll take a raincheck.”

One corner of his mouth curled. “Don’t worry. I was kidding.”

He’s not rushing into anything,
she reminded herself as she found her other boot by the door. Good. Because the last thing she needed was to get attached to anyone or anything in Pine Point.
Been there, done that.
She’d left this town a shattered shell of a person eleven years ago. She had no intention of it happening again.

* * * * *

“I’ll call you later,” Mike said as he dropped her off at her apartment a half hour later. Sienna nodded and blew him a kiss. Upstairs, she showered and debated taking a nap, but her stomach growled and argued otherwise. She pulled on an old pair of jeans and her favorite UNC sweatshirt, grabbed a fresh yellow notepad, and headed downstairs to Zeb’s instead.

“Hi, there,” said the middle-aged waitress at the counter. “Coffee?”

“Yes, please.” She looked around. “Josie’s not working?”

“Nah. Never on Sundays.” The woman poured a cup of coffee and pushed it across the counter. It sloshed over onto the saucer, and she sighed and handed Sienna a stack of napkins. “Sorry.”

Sienna looked around. Two gray-haired men she didn’t recognize sat at the opposite end of the counter. A mother and two toddlers with wild hair and Kool-Aid stains on their faces sat in a booth by the window. Other than that, the place was empty.

“I’ll have the breakfast special,” she said with a glance at the handwritten sheet inside the menu.

The waitress nodded and tromped off to the kitchen. Sienna bent over her notepad. She already had a nice collection of observations on the town, complete with a couple of affairs and sordid marriage secrets. Her gaze moved over the counter to the cash register and the stack of blank order slips beside it.

Diner waitress writes love poetry
, she’d written last week. What was Josie’s story? Unrequited love? Jilted at the altar? Sheer boredom? The waitress returned and plopped salt and pepper shakers in front of Sienna.

“Ah, Carol?” she asked, with a look at the woman’s name tag.

“Yeah?”

“How long have you worked here?”

“’Bout two years. Used to work over at the Ponderosa, but that shithead of a boss cut my hours in half after I messed up my knee, so I left there.” She shoved a stray lock of graying hair behind one ear. “Why?”

“I wondered how well you knew Josie.”

Carol shrugged. “’Bout as well as anyone, I guess. She grew up here, course. I didn’t.” She said it with a certain amount of pride, as if Pine Point and Zeb’s Diner were beneath her, and she was just biding her time until an offer to wait tables at the Waldorf Astoria came along.

“Oh, no?”

“Nope. I’m from jus’ the other side of Albany. Small town called Troy. It’s pretty famous. Got a girls’ college there and everything.”

“So how’d you end up here?”

Carol narrowed her gaze. “Got a lotta questions for a Sunday morning, don’t you?”

Sienna resisted the urge to ask if her questions would be better taken on a Monday afternoon or Friday night. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

Carol brightened again. “What d’ya want to know about Josie?”

Sienna put her notepad aside and tried to sound casual. “Just wondered what she does in her spare time. Seems like she’s here all the time.”

Carol whistled. “She is. But let’s see now… I think she mostly goes to a quilt club over in Silver Valley. She’s a damn good quilter.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Oh, sure. She usually wins first prize at the holiday fair each year. D’ya know, last year over fifty people entered the contest. Josie won, of course.”

“Of course.” Sienna smiled. So the diner waitress was not only a secret poetess, but an award-winning quilter as well.
Ah, the things my research is turning up.
She sighed and drank her coffee.

Carol delivered Sienna’s order a few minutes later and then drifted back to the kitchen, where Sienna could hear her discussing her bad knee with one of the cooks. Sienna scanned Main Street as she ate. A few cars drove in both directions, but she didn’t see a single pedestrian until she’d almost finished her meal. Ella Ericksen emerged from the apartment stairs, dressed, as always, like she was heading for a New York City fashion show. Today, she wore her bright-blue ski jacket, black jeans, and stiletto boots. A white hat with a pom pom matched fuzzy white gloves with smaller pom poms, and she carried a bulky paper bag in one hand.

“I don’t know how those sisters ended up so different,” Carol said from over Sienna’s shoulder, echoing her own thoughts. “They’re like night and day.”

“They sure are.” Sienna watched as Ella got into her SUV and drove out of town. She wondered if Becca was still sleeping after last night’s fundraiser. Maybe she was soaking her feet after hours of wearing high heels.
Ella probably sleeps in them
, she thought with a grin. She paid the bill and walked back outside.

Down the street, St. Mary’s Church had just finished its service, and bells rang as people poured from the front door and hurried to their cars. Sienna had thought about going to a service or two to help her research, but something about that seemed a little seedy. Now she stood on the sidewalk and watched families and couples and a few singles drive away.
Wonder who goes every single week? Wonder who goes only when they have something to atone for?
Her mother had prayed nightly in front of the porcelain Virgin Mary statue in their living room, but Sienna had never stepped foot in a church. Until the funeral anyway. Her mother had worked most Sundays, picking up extra shifts whenever she could.

Tears pricked her eyes as she walked along the sidewalk, but she told herself it was the wind and nothing else. The temperature had climbed overnight, and without a sharp bite in the air, being outside was almost pleasant. Sienna decided to walk off her breakfast. She pulled up her hood and headed north, out of town.
Might as well check on those stray cats,
she thought as she neared Park Place Run. Mike had said Becca didn’t know about them, but someone did. Sienna slowed at Art’s Mini-Mart on the block between her apartment and Park Place Run. On impulse, she ducked inside and bought three cans of cat food.

She turned the corner onto Park Place Run, a virtual ghost town on a Sunday morning. Closed signs hung in every window. Even Marc’s Grille stated that it opened at five, for dinner only. She took a long inhale, savoring the air. One thing Pine Point had over Chapel Hill was the fresh evergreen scent that filled your lungs. No pollution here.

Halfway down the block, Sienna stopped. Looked as though she wasn’t the only person bringing food to Park Place Run’s resident strays this morning. She squinted into the morning sun. A few cars occupied private parking spots, designated for the second- and third-floor luxury apartments. An SUV sat in front of Divine Designs, the salon at the very end of the block.

An SUV Sienna knew well.

Her mouth dropped as Ella Ericksen climbed from the vehicle. She unrolled the paper bag she’d been carrying earlier, took out two cans of food, and spooned the contents into the bowls in front of the makeshift shelters. Then she returned to the SUV for blankets, got down on her hands and knees, and replaced the old ones in the plastic tubs. She sat back on her heels, pushed her hat back on her head, and whistled. To Sienna’s utter amazement, three cats appeared from the bushes. They skittered by Ella, giving her a long look before gulping in the food. Apparently satisfied, Ella got up, tossed the dirty blankets into the back seat of her SUV, and drove away.

Sienna ducked into a doorway as she passed, hoping she hadn’t been spied, but Ella looked straight ahead.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she said under her breath. It might not be research-worthy, but finding out Ella Ericksen had a soft spot for animals was a pretty nice secret to discover on a Sunday morning. Sienna pursed her lips. Funny, but for the first time, it occurred to her that not all secrets might be bad. Maybe the different sides to a person, the secrets and the scars and all the past stories, could add up to something more complex than she could ever judge from the start.