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  “Hey.” He caught her arm as she pulled away. “Bess. Don’t. I’m sorry.”

  She let him draw her close, her face against his bare chest. She slid her hands down his back to fill her hands with the firm, smooth cheeks of his ass. He nuzzled her hair.

  “I just wonder,” he whispered. “If there’s anyone beside you who would remember who I am.”

  “Your family.”

  A minute tension built in his body, then relaxed. “Most of them didn’t know me back then. I doubt any of them would know me now.”

  The ocean tang had faded, replaced again by Nick’s special scent. Bess breathed him in. Between them, his cock stirred.

  “I know there are people in town who might remember you. But memory’s a funny thing, Nick. Unless they had a picture of you to compare it to, I’m not sure they’d believe you were you. They might think you looked familiar, but who’d believe you hadn’t changed at all in twenty years?”

  “Maybe they’d think I’m my own son.”

  She tipped her head to look up at him. “Maybe they would. If they thought about it at all.”

  Emotion flickered across his face before fading. “This is fucking complicated. I keep waiting for it to turn out to be a mistake.”

  Mistake.

  Bess shook her head at a sudden memory, gone wispy with time. “No, it’s not a mistake.”

  Nick slanted his mouth over hers, his tongue slowly probing inside. He lifted the hem of her shirt and took it off. He settled his hands on her bare skin and kissed her once more. His erection pressed heat to her belly.

  “I want to fuck you again.”

  The crudeness of his words made her arch back. His hand slid over her ribs to toy with the lace of her bra. The other reached around to grab her ass and pull her tighter. He ground himself slowly against her as his kiss left her breathless.

  “Tell me you want it, too,” he ordered. His eyes flashed when he pulled away.

  “I want you.” Bess licked her mouth, watching his eyes go to her lips, her tongue, before meeting hers again. “You know I do.”

  He took her there on the floor. She came, hard, with the nubbly rug biting into her shoulders and ass. Nick came moments later, shouting her name. When it was over he cradled her under the afghan, and though the floor was hard and uncomfortable, Bess was too boneless to immediately get up.

  “Don’t you want to know where I was?” he asked.

  “If you want to tell me.”

  “I went swimming,” Nick whispered.

  Bess tucked his arm tighter around her. “Weren’t you afraid?”

  “Of what? Drowning?” He linked their fingers together.

  Bess kissed his hand, joined with hers. She’d meant hadn’t he been afraid of being sent back to the gray, whatever that was. But she said nothing. Nick pulled her closer, her ass nestled into the cup of his groin. He kissed the back of her shoulder.

  “No matter how hard I swam,” he whispered, “I couldn’t get anywhere. I couldn’t get away from you.”

  “Did you want to?”

  “I just wanted to know if I could,” Nick said, which answered a question, but not the one she’d asked.

  CHAPTER 20

  Then

  There was a message she hadn’t noticed the night before pinned to the bulletin board by the phone when Bess got up the next morning: “Andy called,” written in her aunt’s rounded hand. Dishes piled high in the kitchen sink and the Monopoly game still laid out on the coffee table were the only other signs of occupation. Aunt Lori and Uncle Carl weren’t early risers on vacation. Bess wished she didn’t have to be.

  Her head throbbed with exhaustion as she poured a tall glass of water and took out a slice of pizza from the box in the fridge. Pineapple and ham weren’t her favorite toppings, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. One of the main benefits to sharing the house all summer with a revolving group of family members was that they all, by tacit agreement, fed her on occasion. The food knocked back the lurching in her stomach, but her head still ached. Pressure throbbed behind her eyes, but she took a long, hot shower without interruption, and that helped.

  Down in her tiny room, getting ready for work, she finally looked in the mirror. Her wet hair clung to her cheeks and neck, darker than when it was dry. Her freckles had come out across the bridge of her nose, brighter today against skin paled by weariness. Her mouth was what caught her attention, though.

  Her mouth. The lips Nick had kissed. She bared her teeth, viewed her tongue. The tongue that had been in his mouth.

  Bess had to sit. Fast. Dizziness swept over her and she put her face in her hands, her elbows resting on her knees, waiting to see if her pizza was going to come up.

  Her stomach, though jumpy, didn’t fly out her throat. Her eyes throbbed, but she didn’t want to cry. In fact, all she could do was grin, wide and wider.

  She’d kissed Nick Hamilton.

  He’d kissed her back. He’d touched her, and she’d touched him. Gasping laughter burbled out of her, and she stifled it behind her hand. Another look in the mirror showed the same sight. Her mouth, still swollen from Nick’s kisses.

  They hadn’t done more than make out. With so many people in his apartment there’d been no chance for privacy, and with an early shift for both of them in the morning, the night had already gotten too late. Bess had been the one to stop, to leave, though he’d followed her to her bike and kissed her breathless there, too.

  Shit. A glance at the clock told her she was going to be late. Bess tied up her hair, slipped into the white polo shirt and short khaki skirt she wore as a uniform, grabbed up her backpack and headed off to work. By the time she got there, the early morning air had whisked away her headache. She still couldn’t stop grinning.

  “Don’t look at me like that, you bitch.” Brian, head in his hands, moaned from the back step of the shop. “Fuck it all, I’m hungover. Why aren’t you?”

  “Because I’m not stupid enough to get drunk on a night before I work the early shift,” Bess said. She nudged him with her toe. “Up and at ’em, boy toy.”

  Brian shuddered, but rose. “It’s too fucking early. Why isn’t Tammy here?”

  “Because,” said Bess patiently, as she unlocked the door, “it’s you and me and Eddie today. Tammy’s got the late shift along with Ronnie.”

  “Of course.” Brian snorted. “The lovebirds.”

  Eddie strolled up the walk just as Bess got the door open. “M-morning.”

  Brian waved a hand. “Eddie, how’s about you take care of the counter today while I sit in the back and count slushy cups?”

  Eddie looked so alarmed Bess took pity on him. “Shut up, Brian. Drink some water, take some aspirin.”

  Eddie eyed Brian as they all went inside, and watched him disappear at once into the tiny bathroom. “What’s the matter with him?”

  “Hangover.” Her earlier headache seemed like a faraway dream, thank God, replaced by the memory of Nick’s taste. “He’ll be okay. We were at a party last night.”

  “Isn’t he always?”

  Today Eddie wore a polo shirt much like Bess’s, only his was navy blue. The collar hung down on one side and flipped up on the other. Without thinking too much about it, Bess smoothed them both down flat. Eddie froze at her touch, and she tried to pull away without making it seem as if she knew she’d freaked him out.

  “You were uneven,” she said. “Your collar.”

  “Thanks.” Eddie’s blush could’ve baked a pretzel. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  Bess knew how he felt, but being the one on the opposite side of the adoration made her feel awkward. “I’ll be out front.”

  They both nodded uncomfortably, and she left him. This early there wouldn’t be any customers, but there was a lot of prep work to be done. The store would open in an hour, and though Bess didn’t understand how anyone could stomach ice cream or popcorn before noon, once she switched the sign to Open there’d be a steady stream of customers all day long.