Barefoot at Sunset (Barefoot Bay Timeless Book 1) Read online

  “What do you mean ‘how you live now’?”

  He took a second to gather his thoughts, then said, “The one thing I learned from my darkest days is that life is short, unpredictable, and only as good as what you make it during the time you’re given. As much as I wanted to roll around and feel sorry for myself and drink myself into a stupor after Julia died, I refused to.”

  “That’s why you took a chance on selling the company and spend your time jumping out of planes?” Emma asked.

  “It’s why I do everything wholeheartedly and with passion. I never doubt my ability to at least try. And I never, ever let a golden opportunity pass me by. And this? This is your golden opportunity.”

  A slow heat built in her belly, a combination of wanting to agree and just…wanting him. “You think so?”

  “I know so. You should pitch Lacey while you’re here. Talk to her, tell her who you are…”

  “Oh, that’d be a fun conversation.”

  “We’ll be straight and tell her everything,” he said. “She’ll understand why we’re pretending to be engaged. Why don’t we arrange a time for you to sit down and talk to her about the business and—”

  “Whoa.” She held up her hand. “I didn’t say I’d pitch her. I’m not ready to do that. And what’s this we business, anyway?”

  He gave her a teasing look. “Hey, I spied for you tonight. I’m invested in the outcome, okay?”

  “Okay.” She smiled, the thought of his investment—emotional, financial, even time—was like balm on a heart that had gotten surprisingly bruised today.

  “So talk to Lacey,” Mark said. “What can it hurt? I mean, if you don’t want to—”

  “I do,” she said. “The more I think about freelancing an account or even starting my own little shop, the more I love the idea.” Like, really love it.

  “Owning your own business and being your own boss is just like driving a Porsche,” he said with a smile. “You got power, control, speed, and it feels good.”

  “And it costs a fortune and could send you flying right over a bridge.”

  He laughed at that, shaking his head. “Carpe diem, Em.”

  For a long moment, all she could do was stare at him. This handsome silver devil who’d found her on a doorstep weeping such a short time ago and now believed in her so much, he actually made her think she could do this.

  “How did you do that?” she asked on a whisper.

  “How did I do what?”

  She searched his face, imagining a thirty-two-year-old man mourning the loss of his beloved wife. “When your wife died, you became better, not bitter. Of all the things you’ve done, that’s the one that I envy the most.”

  “It’s a choice you make.” He leaned back and took a drink of water. “So? What are you going to call your new agency?”

  And right then, under the pale moon with a man she barely knew, Emma felt her whole heart and soul slip, slide, and stumble toward something she’d never felt before.

  Mark believed in her, and because of that, she believed in herself.

  How was it she’d planned to marry a man who’d never made her feel like this…and she was going to walk away from this one, who did?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mark woke around three thirty in the morning with a crick in his neck from the only thing that wasn’t truly luxurious in the villa—the pullout sofa bed.

  Whose stupid idea was it to sleep on this thing?

  But the door to the villa’s only bedroom stayed firmly shut. Emma had spent the rest of the night chatting about the possibility of her own business, and while Mark had really enjoyed her growing enthusiasm, she’d ended the night with a warm hug and a platonic good night.

  What the hell had Plato been thinking with that bullshit, anyway?

  He pushed off the throw blanket and got up, trying to decide if he wanted a real drink or coffee. Since this hour didn’t really qualify for either one, he settled on an ice-cold bottle of water and took it out to the patio where the air was cool, salty, and inviting.

  Shirtless with nothing on but thin sleep pants, he stood at the railing and looked at the pinpoints of stars, the moon risen too far to leave much of a silver river on the bay. The sand was empty, the tide low, the surf too gentle to hear from this distance.

  He took a deep breath and waited for the inevitable. The kick of an old ache that never, ever failed to land its steel toe in his solar plexus during a contemplative moment. Grief. Loneliness. A black hole of hurt.

  But he didn’t feel it.

  Come on, he chided himself. It would be wrong to look at stars and feel the breeze and listen to distant surf and not think of Julia, right? She’d love this. She’d say…she’d say…

  What would she say?

  Good God, he couldn’t even conjure up the memory of her voice. What the hell?

  “Julia,” he whispered. “Where are you?”

  But nothing, not a sound, came to mind. Not her laugh, not her sighs, not a teasing joke or insightful comment.

  His chest felt numb and heavy. He’d forgotten her. How had that happened? Was it because he’d met—

  “Hey.”

  He turned at the sound of a different woman’s voice, this one soft and sweet and a little tentative. Emma stood in the French doors that led to the bedroom, a sleep shirt grazing the tops of her thighs, her long hair tangled and mussed.

  “What are you doing up?” he asked.

  “I can’t sleep. Same problem?”

  “Probably for different reasons.” He rubbed his neck. “Sleeping on a pullout is for college students, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, Mark.” She took a few steps closer, out of the shadows into the soft moonlight. “I’m sorry.”

  “The sleeping arrangements were my idea.”

  “Everything’s your idea,” she agreed, her bare feet padding on the pavers as she approached him. “Fake engagements, opening new businesses, competitive dancing.”

  “Hey, the dancing was not my idea.” His laugh caught in his throat as she reached him and he could see her face. Damn, she was pretty. Her golden-brown eyes always had a light in them, and her lashes, even when she didn’t have makeup on, were long and reached up almost to the arch of her brow. And her skin was like whipped cream, with lips just pouty enough to make him think about kissing them every single time she wasn’t smiling. God, he couldn’t stop looking at her. There was something precious and feminine about her features, but arresting and sharp, too. She was damn beautiful.

  “It’s a pretty night, though,” she said, looking out to the blackness of the Gulf of Mexico. But his gaze stayed on her, dropping over the thin sleep shirt, impossible not to notice the sweet tips of her breasts, her nipples hard in the night air.

  His body tightened and reacted, blood instantly moving south.

  “You want to take a walk?” she asked.

  Yeah, right back to that bedroom. “Not particularly.”

  She sighed, joining him at the railing.

  “Drink?” he asked, holding out his water bottle.

  “Yeah, thanks.” She put her mouth against the open top and lifted the bottle, and he made no effort not to stare at the exposed throat and her half-closed eyes. When she finished, her lips were moist from the water and parted.

  He took the bottle and set it on the table. He needed his hands and mouth free…for her. He had to touch her. Kiss her.

  And he wasn’t going to stop there.

  “Emma.” He reached to her face, touching that sweet skin and moving his hand into her silky hair.

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide, her lips almost quivering as she drew in a slow breath. “Mark.”

  “You know, I gave you a big lecture tonight over dinner.”

  “Carpe diem?” she asked. “It worked. I’m seizing. Or at least thinking about seizing.”

  “So am I.” He inched closer, threading her hair around his fingers. “And what kind of man would I be if I told you that I never miss an opp
ortunity or skip a chance or refuse to try to get whatever I want…and let you slip out of my hands into that big bed alone?”

  She looked up at him, very slowly angling her head, like a kitten nestling into a petting hand. “So you seize the day and the night?”

  He didn’t answer for a long time, lost in her eyes and the sound of her voice. Emma’s voice. Not Julia’s.

  “I’ve been with women.”

  She laughed softly. “I bet you have.”

  “Not extraordinary numbers,” he said, not sure why that particular truth was important, but it was. “But enough.”

  “And your point is…”

  Being with a woman had never made him feel guilty before. Or at least it hadn’t made him feel like something inside him had changed. But Emma did. She made him feel like he was breaking the bond with his soul mate…the one whose voice he couldn’t even remember.

  “Mark, what is it?”

  He just shook his head, slowly pulling her into him and easing her head against his shoulder and chest. Just to feel her there. Just to feel her body press against his and give him…comfort.

  Why the hell did he need that? Why was she able to give it when no one else had? Because their connection, brief and new and crazy, was emotional and not just physical.

  Although, right this minute, it was all physical.

  He felt her warm breath on his bare skin and closed his eyes, not caring that the simple contact did exactly what a woman’s breath on a man’s chest should do…made him hard.

  The tiniest whimper of a response caught in her throat, but she didn’t move.

  “This could get complicated,” she whispered without looking up.

  “It could.” He stroked her hair and let his hand drag over her back, enjoying each curve and muscle, finally setting on the small indent right above her ass. He felt her inhale a steadying breath, the move pressing her breasts against him just enough to make him grow stiffer against her. “In fact, it already is,” he said. “Complicated.”

  She finally lifted her head and looked up at him, the tiniest smile pulling at her lips. “Is that what you call it?”

  “Complicated and, um, hard.”

  She laughed softly, but didn’t pull away. “You really can’t resist a good sex pun, can you?”

  “I’m sure you consider them the laziest form of verbal play.”

  “The worst.” Smiling, she arched enough for their bodies to rub in a way that shot a gallon of blood to his already aching lower half. “But you make it cute and, let’s be honest, we’re both thinking about it.”

  “Mmm. Constantly.” He punctuated that by lowering his head and taking the kiss he wanted so much. She lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck, one sure hand on the back of his head, digging into his hair, angling him where she wanted the kiss.

  And she wanted the kiss. Her mouth opened to his, inviting him in, taking his tongue for a playful thrust against hers. She tasted like mint and sweet woman, her lips so insanely soft, he let out a moan for how much he loved the feel of them.

  She moaned softly, too, breaking the kiss and lifting her face to let him press his lips on her jaw and throat. He turned so her back was against the railing, bracing them so he could add pressure and feel her woman’s body fit perfectly into his.

  He slid his hands up her sides, moving the shirt higher and letting his hands still at the sides of her breasts. He wanted to touch them so badly. He wanted to fill his hands with her body, strip the shirt off, and taste every inch of her.

  Fire shot through his veins and made him throb against her.

  “Mark,” she whispered as he dipped his head so he could kiss the skin exposed by the vee of her sleep shirt. “It’s still complicated.”

  “And getting harder.”

  She chuckled a little, but that slipped into a moan as she dropped her head back, eyes closed, surrender in every cell of her body.

  He looked at her like that, studying the lines of her face, her throat, and…he had to touch her.

  He moved his hand over her breast, both of them hissing in a breath when his palm covered her budded nipple. He thumbed it, the flimsy fabric like a shield from what he really wanted—her skin.

  “This would probably be a good time to tell you another one of my fears.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Except who knows what you’d make me do three times.”

  Oh, he knew. “We can stop anytime you want.” Except he continued to caress her breast, which was round and tender and perfect.

  She let out a little whimper of uncertainty and pleasure. “I don’t want to stop, but…I was engaged to another man two weeks ago.”

  And the bastard went on a ski trip with Rachel.

  The reminder that he hadn’t told her everything made him pull back an inch and move his hand.

  “And that’s enough to make you stop,” she surmised.

  “I don’t want to stop,” he told her. “I think you can feel that I don’t want to stop.”

  Her breath already tight from lust, she bit her lip and considered that. “I just…I didn’t think I’d be with someone so soon,” she said.

  “I didn’t think I would be with someone here, this week. God knows, it was the last thing I expected. And we can stop at any point.”

  “Oh, Mark.” She reached up and put her hands on his face, pressing his cheeks. “You are an amazing and awesome man.”

  Amazing and awesome? Wouldn’t an amazing and awesome man tell her the truth? This woman whom he’d promised he’d be honest with in this villa?

  But what good would it do her to know that her ex had cheated on her? She’d just—

  “You’re thinking too hard,” she said, a tease in her voice as she added pressure to her touch. “And I don’t know why, but you’re not entirely sure about this, either. I mean, this isn’t sure.” She tapped his temples. “The rest of you feels quite certain.”

  And once again, she nailed it.

  “Em, I’m damn near fifty years old. I know how this goes and what’s involved. And with that maturity comes discipline and self-control. And the sense of when the time is right and when it’s not.”

  “You know, that’s pretty sexy, too.”

  He lowered his head and placed a light kiss on her lips. “We have the rest of the week. Let’s take it slow.”

  She sighed in agreement, a mix of relief and disappointment. “But I am not sleeping in that comfy bed tonight.”

  “You’re not?”

  She slipped away from the railing, taking his hand and pulling him with her. “You are. There’s no reason why I can’t take the couch, at least every other night.”

  “No, I wouldn’t hear of that.”

  She tugged him toward the French doors. “You are going in there. Alone.” She didn’t sound exactly happy about that, but maybe a little relieved. “And I’m sleeping in the living room. No arguments.”

  She had him through the doors now, onto the cool marble floor. The bed was unmade and inviting, draped with sheer fabric that screamed sex.

  “Sleep with me,” he said gruffly, pulling her into him. “Just sleep, I swear.”

  She snorted softly. “Yeah, right.”

  “We can try.”

  “We would fail.”

  He wrapped his arms around her for one last kiss. She complied, kissing hard and with her whole self, wrecking him when she stepped back.

  “I totally get the whole self-control and discipline thing,” she said, her voice breathless and rough. “But I’ll be on the other side of that door if yours crumbles.”

  “Same.”

  She blew him a kiss and slipped away, going through the French doors to the patio, closing them behind her.

  How long could he last? The night?

  Maybe. Long enough to be completely sure he knew what he was doing, because this didn’t feel…standard. If it had, they’d be on that bed right now. But it didn’t.

  He climbed into her bed, which already felt a million
and a half times better than the one he’d been on, stretching out on her sheets, inhaling the faint floral scent of her all over the bed.

  Which did nothing to get rid of his raging hard-on.

  He closed his eyes and rolled over, wishing like hell she was there and he didn’t have so much freaking self-control.

  His breathing evened out and his body settled down, and he tried one more time to remember Julia’s voice, but the only thing he heard was the sound of Emma’s sweet sighs.

  And for the first time in sixteen years, he fell asleep wanting a different woman in his arms—someone who wasn’t Julia.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Everything was different. Everything.

  From the moment Emma woke just after dawn, an hour she rarely saw by choice, she sensed the change in her world. Not only did the sky seem brighter and bluer, and the coffee taste richer and better, but her whole attitude felt…fiery.

  Was it the new idea for her career that had taken hold of her heart?

  Or the man who’d kissed away her cynicism and bitterness, promising more and making her…optimistic?

  She wasn’t certain if she was just hopeful they’d have a great session at the dance studio or that there would be a lot more of what they started last night, but she felt like someone had taken a foggy layer of plastic off her world and the new view was beautiful.

  That’s the power of…love.

  The music thrummed through the studio. “Twirl right now, Emma!” Jasper called out. “On the pow of power! Try it again.”

  Before they could breathe, he’d started the segment of music again, and Huey Lewis belted out his anthem while Jasper clapped. “Five, six, seven, eight.”

  Without even blinking, Mark reached out and took her hand, following the admittedly simple steps Jasper had taught them. They moved left, right, one, two, repeated it several times, then added the twirl on the pow, ending with her body right smack up against his.

  The studio door popped open, and another dance instructor stuck her head in.

  “Jasp! Need help for a second.”