He shrugged, his stare never leaving her face. “I figured you wouldn’t answer the door if I knocked at your house. When you finally broke cover, I thought I better take my chance or risk not seeing you for another fifteen years.”
She gave him a hard look. He quirked one eyebrow.
“We need to talk, Mari. Please.”
Against her will, her gaze lowered to his shadowed jaw and tanned throat. She shivered when she recalled how the stubble had felt brushing against her neck that night in Chicago, grazing ever so lightly against the sensitive skin covering her ribs. The sight of his insouciant male good looks only increased her caution.
Or her reaction to them did.
“So if I let you come with me to Sunset Beach, that’s all you’ll try to do? Talk?”
He sighed. “I’m not planning on coming on to you on the beach,” he replied drily.
She rolled her eyes at him as she aggressively swung her legs out of the car, daring him not to move back and give her the space she required.
His only reaction to her wary acquiescence was a slight grin. They said nothing as they made their way down the private sidewalk that ran between two mansion sized homes. When they hit the white sand beach, Mari led them over to the manmade break water that consisted of stacked lengths of cut, unfinished logs.
She plopped down on the breakwater. Marc sat down next to her. She studied him through the corner of her eye. He wore a pair of cargo shorts and a dark blue shirt that failed to hide the breadth of shoulders or hint at the sleek muscles Mari knew lay just beneath the soft fabric. He managed to make the casual beachwear look sexy as hell. She could just see him as a tall, lanky, cocky fourteen-year-old sporting a new pair of sunglasses, standing on Sycamore Beach and clutching his skimboard, the sunlight turning his hair into a havoc of incandescent gold waves.
She handed him half of her sandwich wrapped in a napkin.
“I was only kidding about sharing. Eat your supper,” he murmured, giving her a sideways smile.
“You know how they make sandwiches at The Tap. It’s huge.” She insistently pushed the sandwich toward him. Maybe he noticed the irritation in her expression, because his eyebrows rose, and he accepted the food, probably to avoid an argument.
The fiery, orange-red sun looked like it was slowly quenching itself in the shimmering, dark blue water. They ate without speaking. For the first time, it struck her how odd it was that the beach was empty.
“Isn’t Sunset Beach public anymore?” she slowly asked Marc as she held up the paper bag so he could deposit his rumpled napkin inside it.
He shook his head. “Mom told me the home owners hereabouts bought it from the town a few years back. It’s private now.”
Mari stopped chewing and glanced warily at the affluent residences nearby.
“Don’t worry. They aren’t going to call the cops on us. Unless we make an ugly scene or something,” Marc said when he saw her uneasiness over trespassing.
She took a swig of the bottled water she’d ordered with the sandwich. She offered the bottle to Marc, and he drank, too. Mari glanced away from the strangely erotic sight of him placing his mouth where hers had just been.
“I don’t plan on making a scene,” she said briskly, shoving the wrapper and the remainder of her sandwich into the bag. “And you’re awfully quiet for someone who insisted we had to talk.”
“I just didn’t want to ruin the peaceful moment.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Implying that whatever you have to say is the opposite of peaceful?”
“If it involves you reacting to it by refusing to see me again… Yeah, there might be some serious waves.”
Mari kicked off her flip-flops and stuck her feet in the cool, fine sand. Despite her attempts to calm herself, her voice still cracked when she spoke.
“Marc… You saw what happened last night as well as I did. All that animosity, all that hurt. It’d be irresponsible of us to…you know—”
“I think I know, but do you?”
“What do you mean?” she asked slowly.
“I wasn’t planning this little reunion, Mari. But now that it’s happened, I’m not willing to just walk away from it, either. And I’m not talking about sneaking down to your house and having some hot, vacation sex with an old fling.” His gaze flickered down over her neck and breasts and he added gruffly, “Although I think we both know that scenario has its appeal. The point is, you mean more than that to me. It was a hell of a thing to see you Chicago and realize that was still true, after all these years. I’m a practical guy. It’s kind of hard to run from the truth when it’s staring you right in the face.”
Mari swallowed thickly in the silence that followed.
“It would never work out,” she said after a moment, her voice so quiet it almost couldn’t be heard above the sound of the waves breaking gently on the beach.