Seaside Secrets by Melissa Foster Page B

tomorrow, and I don’t blame you.”
    His heart threatened to burst through his chest as he tightened his grip in her silky hair and whispered, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t do this. It will only muddy the waters, but, Amy…I can’t wait a second longer.”
    He sealed his lips over hers, and years of want and lust came crashing like a wave, holding him spellbound as she opened her mouth to him and slid her tongue over his. A storm of emotions rocked through him: greed, lust, disbelief, and a swell of love that seemed as endless as the sea. She tasted sweet and ripe, like she’d been waiting her whole life for this moment. Her body molded to his effortlessly, naturally, as he lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedroom, feeling the tension and excitement as real as when he entered the barrel of a wave, knowing it had the ability to drown him and needing it too badly to turn away.
    He lowered her to the bed and followed her down. She circled his neck with her arms and arched up with a needy moan when he tried to reluctantly draw away from her. He moved beside her on the bed, finally pulling back from her delicious mouth and their mind-numbing kiss. He brushed her hair from her forehead and kissed the corners of her mouth, feeling her hot breath against his cheeks, spurring him to take more than he intended. He kissed her forehead, the soft indentation beside her eye, her jaw, and God help him for being weak, he allowed himself a luscious taste of her collarbone. She was his drug, even after all these years.
    She arched her neck and fisted her hands in his hair, jolting him back to reality.
    “Yes.” Her needy whisper cut him to his core.
    He needed more of her. All of her. He didn’t want to leave. He wasn’t ready. Would he ever be? He sealed his lips over hers, probing, memorizing, claiming her mouth as his. She met him stroke for eager stroke. His hand slid down her rib cage to the hem of his T-shirt she was wearing and met her bare hip bone. Well, fuck him. What was he doing? One slide of his hand and he’d feel just how ready she was for him. How wet, how eager.
    He could only imagine.
    He forced himself to tear his lips from hers and pulled back with a gasp for air.
    “We have to stop.”
    “No.” She pulled him toward her again.
    He smiled at her determination, so reminiscent of that incredible—and treacherous—summer.
    “Tony, please.”
    He was quickly careening toward giving himself up to her. To be one hundred percent utterly and completely hers once again was everything he wanted. He was weakening again. She needed strong.
    He needed to stop.
    Now.
    “Babe,” he panted out. “We have to stop.”
    “Noooooo.” She buried her face in his chest and clutched his arms for dear life.
    “I’ll never forgive myself if we do this, Amy. Not now.”
    Not until I know we can deal with the past and move forward without regret. Not until I’m sure you won’t send me away again. He couldn’t say either of those things; all he could do was frame it in a way that hopefully wouldn’t scare her off.
    “Not until I can prove to myself, and to you, that I can be the man you deserve and the only man you’ll ever need.”  

Chapter Eight
    THE NEXT MORNING Amy sat on Bella’s deck wearing Tony’s T-shirt from last night and her sleeping shorts, with four sets of eyes on her. Four , not three. Four . Apparently Sky had had a nagging intuition that something big was going on at Seaside and she didn’t want to miss out. Sky had grown up on the Cape. She’d come back to help run their father’s hardware store when their father went into rehab two summers ago, and she’d fallen back in love with the area and was here to stay. She’d also quickly become another Seaside bestie. At the moment she had her feet tucked beneath her legs, her long cotton skirt tangled around her knees, and her tie-dyed tank top slipping off one shoulder while Jenna painted her fingernails a deep shade of