First Time in Forever Read online

  Those scars told her everything he hadn’t and filled in details he’d omitted in his sparse recounting of the incident that had killed his friend and left him severely injured.

  She wanted to ask him about it, but he’d already made it clear the subject was off-limits, so she stayed silent while he wiped his face and looped the towel around his neck. Leaning forward, he picked up a long float shaped like a fat piece of spaghetti and bent it in half.

  “We’re going to put this around your middle until you’re confident.”

  She was pretty sure that was going to be never, but she kept that thought to herself.

  “All right.”

  He strolled across to her. “You’re planning on swimming in a towel?”

  If it had been an option, then she would have taken it. He might be unselfconscious about his body, but she wasn’t. She wished now she’d just walked out of the changing room in the suit, instead of drawing attention to herself. Better still, she wished she’d picked out a suit herself. Surf and Swim in the harbor would probably have stocked at least ten swimsuits more suitable than this one. Something actually designed for swimming. This one looked as if she was trying to seduce him.

  Knowing that the longer she left it, the worse it would be, she let the towel fall.

  Face burning, she met his gaze. “You’re thinking I should have worn a more serious swimsuit, but I don’t really have the shape for any sort of suit, and Skylar bought me this one—” Her voice tailed off, and her cheeks grew redder by the second. “Do you want me in the water?” Oh, God, why had she phrased it that way? Now it sounded as if she were propositioning him.

  “That would help.” His voice was roughened and raw, and he flung the towel back on the bench and slid back into the water himself.

  Dying of embarrassment, Emily sat on the side and dangled her legs in the water. Staring down into the blue depths, embarrassment gave way to another emotion. A hollow pit of fear sat where her stomach was supposed to be.

  Through the spangled surface of the pool she could see the bottom, but sliding into water seemed like the most unnatural thing in the world.

  She probably would have sat there forever had Ryan not moved in front of her.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  No. “Yes.”

  “In that case, put your hands on my shoulders.” His firm command cut through her building panic.

  “You want me to slide in?”

  “Yes. You’re going to be fine.”

  “Lizzy had her first lesson with Rachel this morning. She can’t stop talking about it.”

  “Emily.” His voice softened a little. “Put your hands on my shoulders. I won’t let you fall, and I won’t let you go under the water.”

  Unable to postpone the moment any longer, she steeled herself and put her hands on his shoulders. Her palms made contact with hard, unyielding muscle.

  “I don’t want to hurt your shoulder.”

  “You’re not hurting me.”

  “You’re gritting your teeth.”

  “That’s not—” He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “Never mind. Just do this. Every moment you hesitate makes this harder.”

  Taking a deep breath, she slid into the water. It was deliciously cool against her heated skin, and that might have been a relief if it hadn’t been for the fact that the movement of sliding in brought her body in close contact with his.

  Her thigh brushed against the hardness of his, and she heard him curse softly.

  “Sorry—” Anxiety made her clumsy, and she gripped his shoulders with her hands, then realized she might be hurting him and forced herself to relax her grip.

  “You’re doing fine.” He put the float around her, demonstrating how it would support her weight, showing her how to move her limbs.

  “For now, get used to being in the water. You won’t go under the surface because you have the float and you have me. We’ll stay in the shallow end.”

  For a man whose defining characteristic was restless impatience, he was a remarkably patient teacher.

  An hour later she swam the width of the pool with just the float, and he complimented her on her style.

  Her confidence rose. “Can I try it without the float?”

  “I think you’ve done enough for one day.”

  “I think it would help my confidence to try.”

  “It won’t help your confidence if you go under and never want to get back in the water again.”

  “You could stay close by. Grab me if I look as if I’m going under.”

  If other people could swim without a float, then so could she.

  Determined to do this, she put her float on the edge of the pool.

  She pushed forward, and instantly her body felt heavy and strange. Without the float she no longer felt buoyant. Starting to sink, panic fluttered inside her, and then she felt his hand on her stomach, lifting her, giving her that extra support.

  “You’re doing fine.” His voice was calm. “It feels different without the float, but the movements are the same. Keep kicking. Keep using your arms. You won’t go under, I promise. I won’t let you.”

  And suddenly instead of thinking about drowning, she was thinking about that hand on her stomach. About how it would feel if he moved it a little lower. It made her feel safe from drowning but unsafe in every other way.

  She didn’t dare look at him, so she focused on the side of the pool instead, kicked and used her arms, and suddenly she was swimming, really swimming, not elegantly but staying afloat without help. She kept kicking and moving her arms, spurred on by his encouragement, until finally she reached the side and grabbed it.

  “Good job.” Ryan was right next to her, and at last, now that the possibility of drowning seemed to have passed, she allowed herself to look at him.

  His dark hair was slick, and droplets of water clung to the powerful muscles of his shoulders.

  He was the sexiest man she’d laid eyes on.

  And he wasn’t interested in her.

  She gave a bright smile. “Thank you. That was brilliant.”

  He didn’t smile back. Instead, he eyed the changing room door, as if judging how fast he could get out of here. “You did well. Do you always work that hard at things?”

  “If it’s something important.”

  His gaze slid back to hers. “I think that’s enough for one day. I need to get back to work.”

  “Of course. Thank you for taking the time to teach me. I can do it by myself from now on.”

  He frowned. “You can’t do that.”

  “I’ll stay in the shallow end, but I need to practice.”

  “Tell me when you’re going to practice. I’ll make sure I’m here.”

  “You’re busy. You don’t want to—”

  “Damn it, Emily! The purpose of this exercise is to increase your confidence around water, and that’s not going to happen if you’re on your own, so just say yes.”

  “Yes. Tomorrow,” she murmured. “Same time. But you don’t seem very happy about it.”

  “I’m happy.”

  “Ryan, you’re speaking through your teeth, and you can’t wait to get out of this pool.”

  “Because you’re standing next to me in a swimsuit that looks like something from a porn movie.”

  She stared at him, her heart pounding. “You said—I thought—”

  “What did you think?”

  “That you weren’t interested. That this was all too complicated for you. That—” she hesitated “—that I’m not your type. I don’t know enough about sex. I—I’m not exciting enough.”

  There was a long pause.

  The only sound was the soft lap of water against the side of the pool and her own breathing.

  “If you were any more exciting I’d need medical attention.”

  Her stomach dropped, but this time the feeling had nothing to do with fear.

  The air was punctuated by a tension as unfamiliar and alien to her as th
e swimming.

  “I thought— Then why—”

  “Because you don’t want what I’m offering.”

  “How can you possibly know what I want when you haven’t asked me?”

  His gaze held hers, and in that single moment the world consisted of the two of them and nothing else.

  How could a single look be so arousing?

  How could he do this to her?

  “Emily—” He cradled the side of her face in his hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb as he looked down at her as if he was making a decision about something.

  She was terrified he was going to change his mind. Walk away as he had the night before.

  Instead, he lowered his head with a slow inevitability that made her wonder if anyone had ever died of anticipation.

  His mouth brushed over hers with unhurried, skilled deliberation, the gentleness at odds with the leashed strength of his body. His eyes looked darker than usual, almost drowsy, clouded with emotions she found impossible to read.

  And then the kiss altered. Instead of a lazy, exploratory brush of his mouth, it became hungry and urgent, and she felt the strength in his hands as he cupped her bottom and pulled her hard against him, the movement bold and blatantly sexual. She felt the hard, thick ridge of his erection through the thin fabric of her suit and the slick stroke of his tongue against hers as he slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her deeply.

  Her hands gripped the brutal swell of his biceps and then slid upward over his wide shoulders and into the thickness of his hair.

  He held her hard against him and kissed her with skill and purpose, the cool of the water contrasting with the heat of his mouth and the burning fire that blazed inside her. She was weightless in the water, slippery as a sea creature, and they kissed like demons, locked together and frantic.

  He made a sound deep in his throat and then buried his mouth in her neck, and she tipped her head back, eyes closed, shaken and aroused as sensation ripped through her.

  He backed her against the side of the pool and trapped her there. “I want you,” he growled the words against her mouth. “Can you feel how much I want you?”

  Yes, she could feel it. The hard, intimate pressure of his body against hers. The rough demands of his hands and mouth.

  She drove her fingers into his hair, her mouth colliding with his in a kiss that stripped away reservations and inhibitions. “I want you, too.” She felt his hand slide upward and cup the weight of her breast. Then his thumb made a slow slide over her nipple, teasing it into an aching peak until she squirmed against him, engulfed in exquisite sensation and delicious anticipation.

  Her mind shut down. All of her senses were focused on him, on his hands, his mouth, on the dangerous heat that burned through her body.

  She hadn’t known it was possible to want someone this much.

  They were doing everything except having sex, and just when she was hoping he’d cross that line sometime very soon, there was the sound of a door in the distance, and he released her.

  “We’ve got company.” His voice was husky and uneven, and he kept his hand on her waist until he was sure she was steady on her feet.

  Emily looked at him dizzily, thinking that it was a good thing her feet could touch the floor of the pool; otherwise she definitely would have drowned.

  Gradually it dawned on her that they were in a semi-public place.

  One of them needed to say something, and she decided that since he’d taken the lead on everything else, she’d do that part. “If I’d known swimming was this much fun, I would have done it years ago.”

  He made a sound that was half laugh, half groan and brought his mouth back to hers. “Leave Lizzy with Agnes tonight. We can watch the sunset from my bed.”

  She eased away, feeling the pull of regret. “I can’t.”

  “Why not? She’d be safe.”

  Lizzy would be, but what about her? Up until the past few weeks, she’d never thought of herself as particularly sexual. What if they got as far as bed and she disappointed him? This was a small island. She could be committing herself to a summer of awkward encounters.

  Her nerve fled. “I’ll get changed and we’ll forget it ever happened.”

  “Sure. That should work, as long as no one looks at the surveillance footage.”

  She glanced up and saw a camera focused on the pool. “There are cameras?”

  “Yeah, we just starred in our own private movie.”

  Emily gave an embarrassed laugh. “Well, hopefully no one will ever have reason to examine the footage.” She didn’t trust her arms to be able to haul herself out of the pool the way he did, so to avoid a potentially ungainly accident, she chose to use the steps. She could feel him watching her every step of the way from the pool to the changing room.

  “Emily—”

  She turned her head. “Yes?”

  “If you change your mind, you know where I live.”

  *

  AFTER THAT SWIMMING LESSON, everything changed.

  Or maybe the change had been happening gradually, and he hadn’t noticed it.

  Either way, Emily went from hiding away in Castaway Cottage to being a visible part of the Puffin Island community.

  She and Lizzy visited Agnes every morning to walk Cocoa, only now whenever Ryan called on his grandmother, he noticed small gifts on the kitchen table. Gifts that revealed exactly how Emily was spending her time with her niece. A bowl heaped with blueberries picked fresh from the bush. A plate of home-baked cookies and a picture of a boat bobbing on the waves painted by Lizzy.

  “I think that girl is enjoying doing things she’s never done before,” was all that Agnes would say when he questioned her about the gifts that kept appearing.

  “Lizzy?”

  “I meant Emily, but that statement is probably true of both of them.”

  Judging from the interesting shape of the cookies, Emily was as experienced a cook as she was a swimmer, but he wasn’t about to diminish her attempts to entertain the child and become part of the local island community at the same time.

  A week after the first swimming lesson, he walked in to find Agnes wearing a necklace of glittery pink beads.

  Recognizing Lizzy’s signature color, Ryan refrained from reaching for his sunglasses. “Nice necklace.”

  “Lizzy made this with Emily. The child has an eye for anything that sparkles. I guess she inherited that from her mother.”

  “Does she talk about her mother?”

  “A little, to Emily. They’ve made a scrapbook together, with pictures and news stories.” His grandmother gave a faint smile. “Positive ones.”

  Aware of the rumors that had surrounded Lana Fox’s colorful love life, Ryan wondered how long Emily had toiled to find material suitable for young eyes. He could imagine her, those green eyes serious as she’d searched for images to keep Lana’s memory alive for her daughter.

  “I came to see if any of your group need a ride to your book club meeting tonight, apart from Hilda.”

  “Emily is picking Hilda up. She offered to take me, too, but I didn’t want to stop giving you a reason to call by.”

  “I don’t need a reason to call by.” Ryan frowned. “Emily is making the trip specially?”

  “She’s a kind girl. She and Lizzy have baked a blueberry pie for our meeting. But, no, she isn’t making the trip just for that. Once she’s dropped Hilda off, she’s going around to Lisa’s to talk business. She’s put together a plan to save Summer Scoop.” Agnes said it as if it were a sure thing, and Ryan felt a flicker of unease.

  “She’s not a magician.”

  “No, she’s something better.” Agnes glanced at him over the top of her glasses. “She’s a management consultant. We’ve never had one of those on the island before.”

  Ryan refrained from pointing out there wasn’t much of a demand for management consultants on Puffin Island.

  Much as he admired Emily’s generosity in offering to help, he was more circumspect about her
chances of being able to do anything that would substantially boost the profits of a business that had been struggling from the outset.

  “I hope she comes up with a plan.”

  “She will.” His grandmother sounded sure. “Emily is a smart young woman, and she is determined to help make the business work. Lisa has a smile on her face for the first time in months. It broke my heart when I heard she’d bought the place, a widow with two young children. Summer Scoop has been struggling to survive since Doris Payne first opened it forty years ago. The whole community has been trying to find ways to help the girl, but there’s only so much ice cream a person can consume without their arteries exploding. If Emily can find a way to sell more of it to the summer crowd, then we’ll all be in her debt. How is the swimming going? That’s assuming ‘swimming’ is all you’re doing in that hour and a half you spend together every night.” She picked up her purse and her keys and took his arm as they walked to the car.

  Ryan kept his expression blank. “It’s all we’re doing.”

  “Shame.” His grandmother gave him a look. “She’s perfect for you.”

  “You’ve been talking to Kirsti.”

  “Rachel. And I have eyes. Don’t make that mistake of thinking age means I don’t see.”

  “You wear glasses.”

  “Which make my vision near perfect. That girl is longing for a family and a home.”

  “Maybe those glasses of yours need changing because she’s been running from both those things most of her life.”

  “Sometimes you run from the things you want most, because those are the things that scare you.” His grandmother looked at him pointedly, but Ryan chose not to engage in that particular conversation.

  He wasn’t scared. He just didn’t want that.

  After that first session in the pool, he’d made a point of not touching her, choosing instead to stay close enough to help if she found herself in trouble, but far enough away to ensure they focused on her swimming and not the sexual heat that underpinned every encounter.

  Having made the decision to conquer her fear of water, she refused to let anything stand in her way. Not her own nerves or even an incident when she’d slid on the side of the pool and plunged into the deep end. She’d come up spluttering, wild-eyed, but had rejected his offer of assistance and instead choked and splashed her way to the side of the pool without help.