“I was lucky enough to see plenty of examples of good, solid relationships growing up. My parents, my aunts and uncles—I didn’t have your experience.”
“Aren’t you worried you might get hurt again?”
“If I’m hurt, I’ll handle it.” His gaze held hers. “Whatever the reason, I’m glad you decided to come this weekend.”
“So am I.” Frankie rested her chin on her palm and stared out across the ocean. “Would you ever move back here?”
“No. I don’t want to live in a place where someone holding hands with someone else is a major news story. And anyway, I love the city. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love visiting this place.” He glanced out at the bay, at the boats and buoys bobbing. “It has a lot of good memories for me. A lot of firsts happened here. First time sailing, first time surfing, first time kissing a girl.” That brought a smile to her face.
“Who was she?”
“That question I’m not answering.”
“You’re such a gentleman.”
“We’ll pretend that’s the reason, because then I won’t have to confess that it’s because I was embarrassingly clumsy and bad at it.”
“Can’t imagine that.”
“It was a while ago. I’ve learned a thing or two since then.” They’d spent time together before but now everything was infused with a new layer of awareness and meaning.
Frankie put her fork down. “Can we go?”
“Now? You don’t want dessert or coffee?”
“Yes, but I want other things more and it’s all about priorities.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth and Matt felt the intense heat of arousal rush through his body.
He stood up, reached for his wallet and dropped some bills on the table. “Let’s go.” He reached for her hand, clamped her by his side and walked through the restaurant as quickly as he could without knocking over tables.
At the bottom of the steps, he turned right instead of left.
“Where are we going?” Frankie kept pace with him. “The car is the other way.”
“We’re not going to the car. We’re going to the beach.”
“The beach?”
“You’ve never had sex in the cave. We’re going to fix that.”
“What? We can’t!” She gave a disbelieving laugh and dug her heels hard into the ground. “Matt, we’re not seventeen.”
“Be grateful for that. It took me five fumbly minutes to get a girl out of her bra when I was seventeen. My moves are much smoother now.” He pulled her in and lowered his mouth to hers. This time there was no resistance, no hesitation. She kissed him back until the blood was pumping in his brain. He felt her press against him and reluctantly he lifted his head. “Can you run in those shoes?”
“If I need to.”
“You need to. I don’t mind everyone in the Ocean Club guessing why we’re leaving our meal half-eaten, but I’d rather they didn’t actually witness it.” Locking her hand in his, he led her down the path to the beach.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this. When did you last have sex on this b
each?”
“Honestly? I’ve never had sex on this beach but I’ll try anything once.”
They reached the sand and she stopped. “Eva will kill me if I ruin these shoes.”
“Take them off.”
“No way! I’ll hit my foot on a rock and have to be flown back to the mainland for surgery. The whole island will know it was because I was on the beach having sex. I do not want to be anyone’s cheeky headline.”