Read Unafraid (Beachwood Bay) for Free Online Page B

naked than when I was half-dressed.
    It’s too much. I try to turn my head away, but he gently takes hold of my chin and keeps my face steady in place, so I have no choice but to meet his eyes again and lose myself in that piercing blue stare.
    He sees right through me.
    I can’t fight it with a quip or a barbed comment. I can’t break away. His eyes demand everything from me, and I have no choice but to surrender. I feel naked, stripped bare, like all my fears and dreams and insecurities are right there for him to see. The worst of me, my darkest secrets.
    Still, he doesn’t look away.
    The moment stretches, nothing but the sound of his slow, steady breaths and my heartbeat, drumming faster in my ears as his fingertips continue their slow, agonizingly sweet discovery. My blood rises under his touch. Every movement, every whisper of sensation on my skin sends a new shiver through me, a ripple of something so fragile and tender I’ve never known before. I’m lost in the moment, everything around us falling away until my universe is nothing but the feel of his fingertips on my cheek and the endless blue of his eyes, and the heat of his breath whispering as he slowly, slowly closes the few tortured inches of space between us.
    His lips meet mine.
    Oh God.
    It’s the kiss I’ve been waiting three long years to taste again, but it’s like nothing I imagined. Sweet and soft, hot and slow. My eyes drift shut with bliss as his mouth dances softly over mine. He’s barely touching me, but the shudder of pleasure that rolls through me is enough to make my heart stop and my legs buckle. Hunter wraps an arm around my waist, holding me up, and I sway into him, lost in the darkness. I’m drowning, overcome by the sweet torment of his lips and the feel of his body, so solid and strong against me.
    Hunter pulls me closer and slips his tongue into my mouth, gently probing, teasing, tasting. I hear a sob rise in the back of my throat, a whimper of desire that sounds as if it’s from far away. My head is spinning, a dizzy sweetness rushing through my whole body, and with every new touch, it coils tighter, deep in the heart of me, aching for more.
    I need him.
    I arch against his body, lost in the slow stroke of his tongue on mine, but it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.
    More .
    I reach up, pulling him closer, hungry to feel the broad planes of his shoulders under my hands and the hot taste of his kiss, deeper, stronger—
    Hunter steps away.
    What ?
    I feel a shock of cold air where his body used to be. My eyes snap open and I gasp for breath, confused to find him standing just a few inches away. He’s watching me again with that inscrutable stare, so I reach for him, but he catches my hands, keeping me back at arm’s length.
    “Dinner, Monday.” Hunter says, and I marvel how he can seem so composed. That kiss has left me reeling, but he barely has a hair out of place. “I’ll call you.”
    He turns my hands over to plant a soft kiss on each palm and gives me a smile, crooked and laced with promise. Then he’s gone, leaving me to sag back against the shelves in wonder.
    What the hell was that?

 
     
    I couldn’t believe it, seeing her again.
    I should have known, coming back to Beachwood Bay, but somehow, I talked myself out of hoping she’d still be here. A girl like that, she wouldn’t stick around in a small town like this, not a moment more than she had to.
    A girl like that was born to be free.
    I liked to think of her sometimes, when I was stuck in class at Yale, listening to my boring professors ramble on about old, dead guys and their meaningless arguments. I’d gaze out the window, and imagine her off, hitch-hiking across the country, maybe, or working in a beach shack in California, or up in the mountains of Colorado. She could go anywhere. Do anything. But now here she is, looking as beautiful as the day I saw her last: still burning that angry fire in her dark eyes, still running away from me so fast