“You’re sitting here with me,” Taylor said softly, letting the flirtation edge her words without pushing too hard. “And I have to say, it’s making me question how anyone could ever let someone as stunning as you slip away”
Charlotte’s eyes met hers then, and the air seemed to compress. The magnetism hit like a physical force, pulling their bodies fractionally closer on the rock.
Charlotte’s pupils had dilated slightly, turning those gray-blue irises darker, more inviting. Her lips parted, just barely, as if tasting the possibility between them. Taylor’s own mouth went dry, her focus narrowing to those lips.
The moment stretched, slow as the incoming tide. Taylor’s heart hammered against her ribs, each beat echoing the crash of waves. She saw it then—the way Charlotte’s gaze flickered down to her mouth before returning to her eyes. The subtle lean forward that mirrored her own unconscious movement. Taylor thought about the lack of surprise when she’d approached.
Realization bloomed warm in Taylor’s chest. Charlotte had been at the gay bar. She’d turned down another person, presumably a woman, because their interaction hadn’t ignited what this unexpected meeting on the beach clearly had.
Their faces hovered inches apart now.
The air between them thinned until it barely existed. Taylor’s pulse beat hard behind her ears. Her stomach pulled tight, a low ache that traveled down the backs of her thighs and made her toes curl into the cool sand. Charlotte’s face was so close Taylor could see the faint tremble at the corner of her mouth. Heat crawled up Taylor’s neck. Her lips felt too dry, too aware of how near Charlotte’s were.
She breathed in and caught the faint trace of gin on Charlotte’s exhale. It slipped past her own parted lips and settled low in her chest, heavy and sweet. Her fingers dug into the rough surface of the rock. The muscle in her forearm burned with the effort of staying still. One shift forward and their mouths would meet.
She could already feel the soft give of Charlotte’s lower lip, the warmth, the small surprised sound that might slip out of her.
Taylor’s heart thudded so loudly she was sure Charlotte could hear it. The thought made her cheeks burn. She wanted to taste the salt on Charlotte’s skin, wanted to know if that elegant neck would tilt just enough to let her in. The want sat sharp under her ribs, almost painful.
Charlotte’s breath hitched. The sound went straight through Taylor, loosening something deep in her belly. Their nosesbrushed. Taylor’s eyes fluttered half-closed. She felt the faint brush of Charlotte’s hair against her cheek, the faint warmth radiating from her body, the way the silk of her blouse moved with each shallow inhale.
Just a little more. Just?—
Charlotte jerked back. The sudden absence punched through Taylor’s chest.
One moment there was heat and the promise of Charlotte’s mouth, the next nothing but cool night air rushing in where her face had been.
Taylor’s stomach lurched hard, a sick drop that left her lungs empty. She stayed frozen, lips still parted, heart slamming against her ribs while every nerve kept firing, confused and starved.
Charlotte blinked, the spell breaking as swiftly as it had woven itself around them. Her eyes darted away, and a soft, rueful laugh slipped out as if acknowledging the absurdity of nearly losing herself to a stranger on a moonlit beach.
“Why don’t we go for a walk?” Her fingers combed through her hair, leaving it slightly mussed. She stood, slipping into the elegance of her blazer, the fabric molding to her frame in a way that underscored the fine line between Diane and retreat.
Taylor’s heart sagged with disappointment, but she schooled her features into something safer, more neutral. “Sure,” she said, her voice steady, betraying none of the regret that pooled thick in her chest.
If she’d been braver, she might have closed that last sliver of space, but hesitation lingered like salt on an open wound. It’d been over a year since she’d felt a pull like that, since another blond’s lips had pressed promises she dared not believe. That woman had been married, although Taylor hadn’t known it at that time, when they’d shared what she still considered the best first kiss she’d ever experienced.
Taylor shook the memory off as she picked up her flip-flops.
3
The Pacific rolled in several yards away, its steady hush following Charlotte as she walked along the damp edge of the beach. Sand shifted beneath her bare feet. She carried her heels in one hand while her purse hung from the other, the leather strap pressing into her palm. A breeze moved through her silk blouse and slipped beneath her blazer, lifting strands of hair against her neck.
What the hell was she doing?
The question circled her thoughts like the foam circling her ankles. Twenty minutes ago she’d been sitting alone on that rock, nursing the last threads of gin-soaked loneliness, and now she was walking beside a woman who couldn’t be older than twenty-five. Maybe younger.
A knot tightened in Charlotte’s stomach.
She glanced sideways at Taylor, who moved with an easy grace beside her, flip-flops dangling from her fingers. Even in the moonlight, Charlotte could make out the smooth line of her jaw, the way her hair lifted in the breeze. Beautiful didn’t begin to cover it. And that voice—Christ, that voice had stopped Charlotte’s world mid-rotation. She’d heard talented singersbefore, plenty of them, but there’d been something so raw and honest in Taylor’s performance.
Talent didn’t erase twenty years, though.
The sand dragged at her steps. When Taylor had been in high school, she had been building her career, establishing herself, becoming the woman who didn’t do things like this.
The woman who didn’t lean into strangers on moonlit beaches.
But she had. The memory of Taylor’s face inches from hers sent heat flushing up her neck despite the ocean breeze. For one terrifying, electric moment she had felt gravity rewrite itself. Taylor’s lips had been right there, close enough that she had tasted the salt air between them, and every rational thought had simply vanished.
