Some Kind of Wonderful Page 24

  “She didn’t tell me to stay away. She would never have done that. But she did tell me that she didn’t think someone like you would be able to open up.” She paused. “She was worried you wouldn’t be capable of intimacy. At the time we were finding ways to get naked on every available occasion so naturally I thought I had sufficient evidence to disprove her theory. I didn’t realize she was talking about emotional intimacy.”

  “So knowing all that, you’re still sitting here? How do you explain that, Dr. Forrest?”

  “I know a good thing when I see one.” She stood up, stripped off her clothes again and climbed onto his lap. Her hair slid forward, forming a dark frame around her wicked golden eyes. “We might be crap at marriage, Flynn, but we’re good at this.”

  “This” was her pushing him back on the bed, guiding him into her and taking him deep in a series of slow, lascivious movements of her hips.

  His body was devoured by smooth heat and the breath hissed through his teeth. She gave him a knowing smile as she moved slowly, running her hands over his chest and lower.

  “You have an incredible body. Have I told you that?” Some distant part of him knew he should be delivering another warning, but he’d lost the power of speech. His head spun as all the blood in his body rushed south to enjoy the party. The tight grip of her body created a delicious friction that blew his mind. He was drowning in sensation, and he tried to move, but she laughed and kept him still, the way he had her.

  “You’re not allowed to move until I say so. If you can torture me, then I can torture you right back.”

  And she did.

  Her hips moved in slow, sinuous movements and the full curve of her breasts filled his vision.

  He was so aroused he couldn’t form a coherent sentence.

  Usually, with sex, he was the one giving the master class but tonight he’d met his match.

  And right through the whole intense, erotic experience she watched him, as he had watched her. And because he was watching he saw the moment her expression changed, saw her eyes darken and her tongue moisten her lips. Then she lowered her head to his and kissed him, the movement shifting the angle yet again.

  Excitement screamed through him and he tried to hold back, tried to find the control he usually accessed with casual ease but this time she had all the control. He slid his hands down the smooth skin of her back and cupped her bottom, trying to still her writhing hips, but she moved in a relentless rhythm that wound the excitement tighter and tighter until they both shattered.

  He felt her tighten around him like a silken fist and he emptied himself into her, his hand locked on the back of her head, his mouth consuming hers as they kissed like demons.

  Eventually she eased away from him, a satisfied smile on her face as she delivered a final lingering kiss.

  She said nothing.

  Asked for nothing.

  Zach wanted to warn her again that he was going to hurt her, but clouds of exhaustion rolled in, and when she curled into him like a sleepy kitten, he didn’t have the energy to push her away.

  Instead he closed his eyes and did what he rarely did.

  He slept.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  BRITTANY OPENED HER EYES as the first fingers of dawn stretched through the screened window and was instantly wide-awake.

  Her head and her heart felt heavy with the revelations of the night before. She knew that later she’d go back over what Zach had said and dissect it, word by word, but right now she had a decision to make.

  Go or stay?

  She knew they’d taken a huge step. She didn’t want him to feel suffocated or trapped, or as if he had to run from her. Whole nights were for serious relationships and this wasn’t—theirs wasn’t—

  Shit.

  She should definitely go.

  She slid out of bed, stumbled over his shoes that had been abandoned halfway across the floor and froze. A quick glance towards the bed told her Zach was still sleeping and she tiptoed across the room with exaggerated care, like a character from a cartoon. Her clothing had been strewn around the place during her striptease and she gathered it up and dressed quickly.

  Carrying her running shoes in her hand, she sneaked out of the door and closed it quietly behind her, but not before taking a last look at Zach. He was still sleeping, sprawled on his front with his eyes closed.

  Her insides softened and she felt a rush of emotion. He was sleeping. Really sleeping.

  And that was good, wasn’t it?

  That was progress.

  As she walked away from the cabin, salty sea air brushed over her face, chasing away sleep. The air smelled fresh after the rain and the ground was damp under her feet.

  She was grateful that Seagull’s Nest was out of sight of the camp and nowhere near the buzz of the harbor. If she’d had to do the walk of shame along Main Street at this time of the morning, she would never have heard the last of it.

  To reach Castaway Cottage from the camp, she had to choose between a long hike through the forest or a blowy walk around the cliffs.

  She chose the cliffs.

  The sea breeze tangled her hair and shimmered over her skin, blowing away the last cobwebs of sleep.

  It was cool, and she zipped her sweater on the second attempt and kicked up the pace.

  Her body felt deliciously used, but it wasn’t the sex that kept her mind occupied as she walked, it was the other things.

  He’d talked to her.

  Under the comforting blanket of darkness, he’d finally talked to her. And he’d said more to her in those few hours than he had in the months they’d spent together when she was eighteen.

  Remembering those revelations brought a stinging to her eyes and a pressure to her throat.

  It had been a tiny glimpse, that was all, but enough to make her realize just how blind and selfish she’d been back then.

  With the naivety of youth she’d thought the past was something that could be shrugged off or left behind, like a piece of clothing that no longer fit. She hadn’t had the maturity to understand how deeply Zach’s past had affected him or to understand how it would impact on his relationships.

  She’d thought she’d known him, but she hadn’t known the most important thing of all.

  At the time she’d been so damn proud of accepting him as he was. Except that she hadn’t, had she? She hadn’t truly known who he was. She’d allowed him his secrets, hadn’t tried to access those dark depths he guarded so carefully.

  The ache in her throat grew worse.

  How could she have been so selfish and unthinking?

  She’d wanted him, and she’d allowed the dizzy excitement of being with him to cloud her brain and obliterate her common sense.

  She’d treated him like a goal, something that could be obtained if she worked hard enough, like an A grade in English. And when her marriage had failed, she’d limped away, blaming him, whereas in actual fact, the blame lay firmly in her lap.

  Now, finally, she understood why he found it hard to sleep.

  He’d had to stay awake to protect himself.

  She imagined Zach, little and terrified, moving furniture against the door, afraid to drift into a deep, defenseless sleep. The thought made her nauseous.

  When she was growing up, she’d watched her parents argue and ultimately divorce. She’d lived with her grandmother and seen her father on his occasional flying visits to the island. She’d considered herself sophisticated and mature, knowledgeable about the world. It unnerved her to realize how deluded she’d been.

  She’d known nothing.

  Certainly she knew nothing about how it must have felt to be afraid for your own safety. She’d never been afraid to fall asleep. Never felt the need to stay awake to protect herself.

  Zach had told her he’d been removed from his home at the age of eight.

  She remembered being eight. On her eighth birthday her grandmother had arranged a picnic on Shell Bay and most of the island had turned up. Everyone had br
ought food and they’d spent the day playing ball games and scrambling over the rocks.

  It had been innocent fun, another happy childhood memory to add to the others, like creating a photo album in her brain. Zach had his own album, his own set of memories, and it made for ugly viewing.

  She rubbed at her chest, trying to relieve the ache.

  In her job, it took patience and long, painstaking hours to remove the layers and find the secrets of the past buried deep. And the secrets meant little when viewed in isolation, which was why archaeologists constantly clashed with treasure hunters who often removed a find from a site before it could be properly catalogued.

  Context.

  It was a word she’d used on an almost daily basis over the past few years. Context was essential to building a picture, for establishing a relationship between things. For finding and making connections. Discovering more about a person wasn’t so different. You uncovered the past. You made connections and looked for context.

  After that short, telling conversation during the night, she felt as if she’d been given a brief glimpse at the album in Zach’s head. She’d seen dark shapes and shadows but very little detail.

  Feeling tired and low, she clambered to the top of the bluff and sat down on the rocks. It was early, but already there were yachts cutting through the waves and she recognized the familiar lines of the Alice Rose, the schooner that had once belonged to Ryan’s father and was now run as part of his business at the Ocean Club.

  She was admiring the elegant lines of the boat and stewing in her own guilt, when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and saw Alec running up the path towards her. His T-shirt was damp and glued to his skin, his dark hair ruffled by the wind.

  Pirate, she thought and managed a smile. “Good morning, Shipwreck Hunter. You’re up early.”

  “I was going to say the same thing to you.” He came to a halt in front of her and she shrugged.

  “I’m an early riser. What’s your excuse? Running away from your fans? Emily told me a carload of women arrived last week with the express intention of tracking you down.”

  He took a slug of bottled water, a gleam in his eyes. “Should I move?”

  “No. You know the islanders. John told them he’d heard a rumor you’d moved somewhere else. How do the women know where you live?”

  “Some damn journalist decided it was romantic that I live on what he described as a ‘deserted island’ and chose to publicize the fact. I suppose I should be grateful he left off my zip code.”

  “Deserted?” Brittany lifted her eyebrows. “Makes you sound like Robinson Crusoe. Clearly he’s never visited the island in the summer.”

  “And let’s hope none of them do. I need to buy John a drink next time I bump into him. Are you all right?” He lowered his water, his eyes on her face. “You look pale. Wrist bothering you?”

  “No. It’s—” She felt an overwhelming need to talk to someone but she couldn’t do it without revealing Zach’s secrets and she wasn’t prepared to do that. “It’s nothing.”

  Alec sat down next to her. “Tell me.” His voice was kind and her eyes filled.

  “Don’t give me sympathy.”

  “I promise not to give you sympathy. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Have you ever totally messed something up because you thought you knew everything and then discovered you knew nothing?”

  “Hasn’t everyone?”

  “Maybe.” She shook her head, blinking rapidly, and felt his arm come around her shoulder.

  “I’m not sure whether we’re talking personal or professional,” he said slowly, “but whichever it is, the theory is the same. We make the best judgments we can at the time, Brit. We take the information we have and we use it. That’s all anyone can do.”

  “But what happens when you realize that you were missing the essential facts when you made your judgment? What happens when you realize you didn’t know anything at all and everything you thought and believed was totally wrong?”

  He stroked her arm with the tips of his fingers. “It happens. New information comes to light all the time, both in history and in science. You know that. The same thing happens in life. You use the new information. You keep moving forward. That’s how we make progress.”

  Progress.

  Keep moving forward.

  But was there a future for her and Zach? Now that she knew a little about his past, she wanted to know more. She wanted him to share, not because she had a grisly interest in the grim details but because she understood that sharing required trust and more than anything she wanted him to trust her.

  She wanted him to know that she was a friend as well as a lover. Someone who would never let him down. Someone who wouldn’t walk away no matter what life threw in their path. Even if their relationship was never anything more than a mix of friendship and sex, she wanted him to know it was something he could rely on.

  But she was terrified he was going to wake up and decide that telling her had been a mistake.

  Terrified he’d withdraw from her.

  Aware that Alec was still by her side, she managed a smile. “I don’t want to hold you up. You need to nurture that fit body for your adoring fans.”

  He didn’t budge.

  Instead, he stared out to sea.

  “Can you imagine navigating these waters without GPS and radar? No wonder so many ships hit the rocks. Those poor sailors wouldn’t have had a clue what was hidden beneath the surface.” He kept his arm around her. “You stayed at Zach’s last night.”

  Tears blinded her and she gave a choked laugh. “Who needs GPS and radar when we have the Puffin Island spy network.”

  “I’m observant. I ran past your cottage and you weren’t there. Which means you walked here from a different direction and that direction happens to come straight from Seagull’s Nest.”

  Brittany wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “I thought you were a historian, not a detective.”

  “There’s an overlap. I’m assuming Zach is the reason you’re looking as if your pet has died.” He offered her his water and she shook her head.

  They’d known each other for years, since Alec had arrived on the island to write his first book on naval warfare. Introduced by Ryan, they’d discovered a surprising number of overlapping interests. Since then Alec’s career had soared, thanks to his on-screen charisma and talent for presenting complex information in a way that fascinated the general population.

  He’d slotted naturally into their friendship group, although in reality, between her travels and his, they spent very little time together.

  “Basically I’m crap at relationships,” Brittany muttered and he gave a short laugh.

  “Then I’m going to be very short on good advice because I’m crap at relationships, too. There are some things man never seems to get better at, despite studying.”

  “And woman.” She sniffed and leaned her head on his shoulder. “You studied it? Seriously?”

  “I read a few books.”

  Of course he had. Studying was Alec’s answer to everything. “But it didn’t help? How are things for you?”

  “If by ‘things’ you mean my ex-wife, I can tell you that things have never been better between us.”

  Knowing how scarred Alec was following an acrimonious divorce, Brittany was surprised. “You’ve reached an understanding?”

  “We have.” He spoke in the smooth British accent that had American audiences swooning. “She doesn’t contact me, and I don’t contact her. It’s the happiest we’ve ever been.”

  Brittany gave a choked laugh and shook her head in apology. “I’m sorry. I’m not really laughing.”

  “Laughter is healthy.”

  “Someone needs to invent a GPS that helps navigate relationships. They’d make a fortune. Do you ever think about your marriage?”

  “I try not to.”

  “Well, for the record, I think your ex-wife is crazy.” Brittany gave him an affectionate nudge with her
shoulder. “Does she know there are a million women out there who dream about being married to you? You are the original Action Man.”

  “That was part of the problem. The outdoors was something she liked to admire from the other side of a double-glazed window. If it was something that was going to mess up her hair, she wasn’t interested. I can only stay indoors for so long before I want to break out. I’m like a caged tiger. That’s why the balance of writing the books along with the TV shows is perfect.”

  “Do you ever think about what went wrong?” She did. Since coming home, she thought about it constantly. She’d been so upset, it had stopped her from taking a long hard look at her own actions. It had been easier to blame Zach for everything.

  “I know what went wrong. Our problem was that we didn’t like each other. We had nothing in common outside the bedroom and sex is never enough to sustain a relationship.” He glanced towards her and frowned when he saw the tears on her cheeks. “Never seen you cry before. Do you want me to call Emily? Ryan?”

  She shook her head, touched by the offer. “I’ll be fine, but thanks.”

  “I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you don’t look fine, angel.” His kindness was the final straw.

  She stood up and pulled herself together. “I will be after a few strong cups of coffee. How about you? Are you going back to England anytime soon?”

  “December.” He stood up, too. “I have a meeting with my publisher and I’m giving a talk at the Maritime Museum in Greenwich.”

  “You’ll be over there at the same time as Sky. You should give her a call. You could go to her exhibition. Have dinner or something.”

  Alec gave a faint smile. “I don’t think so. I’m doing a twelve-step program to give up my addiction to having dinner with beautiful, high-maintenance women.”

  “Sky isn’t high maintenance. Far from it.” It frustrated her how many people took one glance at Sky’s blond good looks and made that same judgment.

  But what was the point in arguing with him? Sky was in an established relationship with Richard Everson and even if she weren’t, Brittany wouldn’t have put her optimistic, wildly creative friend with a hardened cynic like Alec Hunter.