well. The taste of it. The feel of it. And to know the man inside of it not even a little. At that moment I let the fact that I didn’t tell him about Hoyt be okay. Cowardly, yes. Awful, sure. But I let it. “I have a house in Charleston. You can stay—”
“No!”
“Why no?”
“Because I don’t know you! I’m not going to live with—”
“Slow down there, killer. I’m not asking you to live with me. I have a house where you can stay. If you’re going to be uptight about it you can pay me rent.”
“I don’t like cities.” My gut made me say that.
“What’s wrong with cities?”
“People.”
He laughed. “That I can understand. You don’t have to tell me right now; you can think about it. But I gotta say, it seems like a pretty easy call to me. Shitty trailer or a beach house in Charleston.”
“It’s a beach house?”
“Oh, that changes your mind?” He laughed.
“I’ve never been to the beach.”
“Not ever?”
“Not ever.”
“Jesus Christ, honey. Did you live in a box before you answered that phone?”
The smile died on my face and I ducked my head, rubbing my cheek against my shoulder. I did. I lived in that box. And I smashed it right open.
“Anything else you want to get off your chest?”
“What day is it?” I asked.
“Thursday. The twenty-fourth.”
“It’s my birthday.”
For a minute he gaped at me.
“Everyone has a birthday,” I said when it seemed his shock went on a bit too long.
“You’re twenty-five? Today?”
I nodded, back to nervously obliterating the sun on my pants, but then he smiled. Not one of his half smiles, or mocking grins. It was a smile that revealed a very real amount of happiness. Of joy, even.
It did not make him more handsome, he was already far too good-looking, but it made him very human. And again, that dangerous affection for this stranger curled through me.
He pushed off the car and…well, he prowled over toward me. Loose-hipped and gleaming, he came to me. To me. Annie McKay. And he bent down, one hand braced on the wall, the other on the railing.
His smile…I swear to God, it was beautiful. Beautiful because it was rare, because of those scarred lips, because it was all for me.
I couldn’t stop myself. I tipped my face up, like a plant toward the sun, and smiled right back.
Softly, sweetly, he kissed me. Again. And again. And again, again. A thousand small breaths across my face. His mouth was delicious and I was starving.
“What do you want for your birthday, baby?” he asked, so low, so quiet, I felt the words more than heard them.
“One more day.” The words came without thought. Without a plan. I wanted one more day in this magical house on the edge of the cliff. “One more day with you,” I said.
I reached up and touched the edge of a scar, a thick, white wrinkle on his neck. He had the Virgin Mary tattooed over his heart. I felt my own buckle in my chest.
And then it’s over. It has to be.
He nodded like he heard me.
“One more day,” he agreed, and those arms swept me up.
For a second I was awkward in his hold. All legs and arms caught up between our bodies. I jerked away and he gave me a quick jostle.
“You want me to drop you?”
“No…I’m just…This is awkward.”
“Relax.” Another kiss. Another jostle and my arms were out and around his neck and my legs were around his waist and suddenly, it was the most natural thing.
I could feel the skin of his waist against my legs, his neck on the inside of my elbows.
This electricity between us found new routes. The tops of my ears burned, the tips of my fingers. The back of my throat.
He carried me through his house, past my room, through the last door at the end of the hallway. It was his room and I barely noticed. I was too busy feeling his lower ribs vibrate as he breathed.
There was fine hair at the nape of his neck. Soft when I stroked it one way, like the bristle of a brush when I touched it the other way.
I could do that all day.
My twenty-four-hour birthday wish.
Something cold touched the back of my thighs, and he flipped on a light and I blinked into the reflected brightness in the mirrors. We were in his bathroom. A bathroom so big my trailer could fit in it.
His kiss lingered. His hands slid from my ass to my