“Wait.” I twirl her around in the sand, and when she spins back towards me, her eyes are shining brightly. “Dance with me?”
“To the music of the ocean?” she teases, lifting an eyebrow.
“We could, or…”
I pull my phone from my pocket, bring up a playlist, and turn it on. Soft country music starts to play, perfect for slow dancing to. Dropping my phone to the blanket, I turn her once more and then step into her, my arm snaking around her waist to haul her close to me. It’s not like the night on the dance floor in the club. There are no proper hand placements, no space between us. This is intimate familiarity. Connection.
She melts against me, her hand gliding up my arm and around my neck while she lays her head against my chest. The touch of her fingertips along my nape has my cock stirring in my jeans as we sway. I will him to settle, not wanting a repeat of earlier when she hardly touched me besides a little dry humping and that damn massage. God, her fingers felt incredible. I was lost to them in a matter of moments, and before I knew it, there was my load. Blown.
“There’s a spot on top of those cliffs up there,” she murmurs, and I feel the vibration of her voice through my black t-shirt. “It overlooks the spot Brody likes to surf. I’ll have to show you one day. I think it’s one of the prettiest places in all of Santa Rosé.”
My eyes travel in the direction she points with our hands still clasped together. From our spot on the beach, it’s nearly straight up a bunch of jagged rocks. There’s a road up there, I know, because I drove along it when I was scouting this place out a few days ago.
“I go there sometimes when I need to think. Or not think,” she continues, and I feel her release a big sigh. “Between the waves and surfers, there’s always something to watch that gets me out of my mind.”
Dropping my head, I press a kiss to the top of hers, letting her know I’m listening. “What kind of things do you not thinkabout up there?”
There’s a pause as she contemplates the question. “Depends. Sometimes something someone has said to me. Sometimes a creep at work. Sometimes my parents. Lots of the time my Gran.” The last part she whispers, and I almost don’t catch it over the sound of the waves and music.
My instinct tells me to ask about the creeps at work, a growl rumbling deep inside of me threatening to come up, but I force it down. I have the sense that isn’t the biggest thing on this list.
“Do you remember the first night we met when I came out of the restroom?” she asks.
Though she isn’t looking at me, I nod. “Yeah. You were different when you came out.”
Bryn pulls back, surprise lighting up her eyes. “I wondered if you noticed.”
“I notice a lot of things, beautiful,” I tell her, bringing our linked hands to my lips so I can place a kiss on the back of hers. “You forced a smile and I wasn’t sure I’d get a single dance from you.”
She chuckles at the memory. “Well, that worked out for you.”
I press a kiss to her forehead. “I’m the luckiest man out there. You had me sweatin’ bullets. You were the most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen, and all I could think about was dancing with you.”
Her fingers stop stroking my neck for a moment, her eyes twinkling up at me like the brightest stars I’ve ever seen. Considering I’m from the country, that’s mighty bright, but so is the woman in my arms.
“I’m glad I didn’t leave then, because I wanted to.” Snuggling back into my chest, she blows out a breath that I can hear over the lapping waves. “Jordan made a flippant comment that triggered me, and when that happens, it can send me into a tailspin.”
Slipping her hand that’s in mine up and around my neck, Ienvelop her in both my arms, my lips moving against her hair as I ask, “What kind of trigger?”
“Thinking I’m hopeless.”
My movement stops, my feet sinking deeper into the sand. She said that in the bar to me when we were dancing. I didn’t think much of it then—an off-the-cuff comment about her dancing. Then she said it after my massage, and I wondered about it. If it was a coincidence.
It wasn’t.
Easing back, I duck my head to see her better as her gaze finds mine. “Someone told you you were hopeless?”
“My parents are lovely people,” she says, but her eyes tell a different story. Sadness fills them, her smile nowhere within reach. “But they didn’t know how to nurture a child. They knew I was pretty. Knew I was like a doll. Knew they could parade me around to all their friends and find all the praise and attention they sought.”
She pulls back from me, and I frown as she takes a few steps backward, then a few more. On reflex, I move forward but she holds up a hand. As though I’m watching a different person take over Bryn’s body, her shoulders straighten, her chin lifts, and she walks towards me in measured, deliberate steps, her hips swishing from side to side.
The smile she wears is the worst of it all. It’s not the one she uses to mask what’s going on inside, but something completely different. Fake, sure, but only because I know her and know what to look for. This is something she’s mastered over a long period of time, and it’s convincing. Except it looks painted on, like that of a doll.
“The first pageant they put me in was when I was seven,” she tells me when she stops directly in front of me again. “The firsttime I heard I was hopeless? My very first day with my pageant coach a week later. She said it so often to me that my parents picked it up and never let me forget. My mom was the worst, constantly reminding me every time my posture slipped or my smile faltered, but my dad learned the behavior too.”
“Bryn—”
“It’s okay.” She holds up her hand, her shoulders losing the stiffness, the smile finally falling off her face. “I don’t talk to them much anymore. For more reasons than just that, but I still hear them in my head sometimes. Different things will trigger different memories.”
