Meant for Love (2 page)

She’d been trying to move on lately, accepting dates with guys her well-meaning friends had fixed her up with. So far she’d been out to dinner with the very nice—and very tall—Gansett Island fire chief, Mason Johns. They’d had a good time together, but there’d been no real spark. She almost hoped he didn’t call her for another date so she wouldn’t have to turn him down.

Linc Mercier, the Coast Guard officer who ran the local station, had called to ask her to dinner tomorrow night, and she’d accepted his kind invitation. She’d met Linc a few times through her friends Mac and Maddie McCarthy and newlyweds Tiffany and Blaine Taylor. Linc seemed like a nice enough guy, and he was certainly handsome, but again, she didn’t look at him and think,
wow
, the way she had the first time she met Toby at Wharton when they’d been MBA students together.

Maybe she’d never feel that particular emotion again. Maybe she should accept that she’d been lucky to feel it once, which was far more than some people ever got. She stared at the photo of Toby and thought of the phone call he’d made after the plane hit the South Tower. He’d said he was so sorry to do this to her and that he wanted her to be happy, that her happiness was the most important thing to him.

She blew out a deep breath, mad at herself for wallowing in the past as she had far too often in the last twelve years. Toby was gone. He wasn’t coming back. She’d accepted that a long time ago. Now it was time to get busy seeing to what he’d most wanted for the rest of her life—true happiness. It was out there somewhere, and she was determined to find it, if for no other reason than she owed it to him.

***

If Alex Martinez was looking for further proof of how totally his life had gone to shit, Exhibit A could be the sticky remnants of flying tomatoes drying on his back in the sizzling heat. He’d have full-blown spaghetti sauce ready to eat by the time he finished cutting the grass.
 

As he rode the biggest mower they owned over the acres of land that surrounded the Southeast Light, the sun beat down on him relentlessly. He guzzled the last of the water he’d brought with him. The scorching heat wasn’t doing much for his already surly disposition. He’d gone from cultivating new breeds of orchids and other exotic plants at the US Botanic Garden in Washington, DC, to cutting grass on Gansett Island, regressing to his former life as a sixteen-year-old.

He’d left the respect of his colleagues, along with his ascending career in horticultural sciences, to come home to help his older brother, Paul, run their family business on Gansett and manage their mother’s rapid plunge into dementia. A year ago, she’d been running the business their father started on the island more than four decades earlier. Now he and his brother were doing their best to keep the business afloat while dealing with their mother’s illness, too.

At times Alex felt like his head was going to explode from thinking too much about the staggering array of demands on his time as well as the overwhelming challenge of trying to care for their mother within the confines of the small island they called home. If they’d lived on the mainland, he and Paul would’ve investigated long-term residential facilities by now, especially after their mom strolled out the front door of their home recently and walked miles into town on bare feet.

That incident had scared the hell out of both brothers and brought home the very real need for more qualified medical care than they could provide, even with the amazing support of Dr. David Lawrence, the island’s doctor.

If one good thing had come from the tomato-chucking incident, he’d discovered that he was, in fact, still a man who could be moved by a sexy woman, even when she was spitting nails and hurling tomatoes at him. That was one hot lighthouse keeper, he thought, remembering the way she’d looked in the baby-doll nightie that barely covered all her most important assets. Too bad she was so unfriendly. He might’ve been interested in getting to know her better—as if he had time for such frivolous pursuits. Who was he kidding?

God, he was overheating, and he was only halfway done with this massive lawn. Thinking about the way she’d looked in that barely there nightgown wasn’t doing much for his temperature. Filled with frustration and unable to remember the last time he’d had sex because it had been so long ago, Alex shut off the mower and crossed the wide expanse of lawn he’d already cut to the lighthouse, where a hose lay coiled next to the lighthouse.
 

He turned on the water, let it run until it went cold and then stood under the spray until he began to cool off. While he knew he should get back to work, he stood there for a few extra minutes, relishing the refreshing shower. So little about his life was enjoyable these days that he had to take pleasure where he could find it, and this cold shower was feeling pretty damned good.

Alex pushed wet hair back from his face and startled when he saw the lighthouse keeper watching him take a shower under her hose. She’d put on a skimpy tank top and short-shorts that did awesome things for her legs. She was staring at him as if she’d never before seen a half-naked guy take a shower under a hose.

He expected her to chew him out for helping himself to her water, but then she licked her lips and something in him snapped. He dropped the hose, and his stride ate up the space between them until he was standing right in front of her.

Big brown eyes widened with surprise, but she held her ground as she gazed up at him.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

“Not a damned thing. What’re you looking at?”

He zeroed in on her lips, which were moist and very appealing. The entire package was very appealing. Well, except for the tomato incident. But he wasn’t thinking about tomatoes just then. Strawberries came to mind as he stared at her ripe lips and wondered if they’d taste as sweet as they looked. “Nothing.” Alex took another step that put him right in front of her.

Her lips parted with surprise as she looked up at him, probably trying to gauge his intentions. And what were his intentions, exactly? Damned if he knew.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Alex.” Since he had absolutely nothing to offer any woman, he gave her only his first name. “Who are you?”

“Jenny.”

He’d begun to rethink his plan to steal a taste of those lips when she moistened them again and made his decision that much easier. “If you don’t want this, say no.”

“I, um…”

His hands curled around her hips, drawing a gasp from her as he tugged her against him. “That’s not no. Last chance…”

She didn’t say no. She didn’t say anything as she continued to look up at him with big, startled eyes that had him thinking about melted chocolate. And then her hands landed on his bare chest, and he realized she was bringing him closer, not pushing him away.
 

He lowered his head and moved slowly, giving her time to say no at any point. She didn’t. His lips landed on hers, and the impact was nothing short of incendiary. He told himself it was because it had been so long since he’d done this, but he suspected that wasn’t entirely the case.

It was her and the sweet taste of her lips and the moan that came from her throat as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Holy shit.
Holy fucking shit
. He pulled her even closer, not caring in the least that she’d feel his instant arousal or that he was getting her wet. Her breasts flattened against his chest as her mouth opened to his tongue.

Oh my God
. This was the hottest kiss he’d ever experienced, and he’d had his share of hot kisses. Just as he was sinking into her sweetness, though, she began to withdraw. He wanted to cry out in protest, but then she grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the door to the lighthouse.

“Not out here,” she said, her voice hoarse and sexy.

As he followed her through the door, his gaze firmly planted on her ass, Alex gave thanks to the god of hot kisses that she wasn’t done with him yet. And while he was at it, he said thank you, Jesus, too. In the mudroom, she spun around to face him, and that was when he saw that his wet chest had soaked her thin top, making her nipples visible. He took a good long look at that gorgeous sight.

Lust pounded through him as he reached for her at the same instant she reached for him. The second kiss made the memory of the first one pale in comparison. He reached down to cup her ass and lifted her in tight against his erection. When she wrapped her arms and legs around him and gave as good as she got, Alex decided he’d truly died and gone straight to heaven.
 

Hello, Jesus
.

Chapter 2

In all her life, Jenny had never done anything even remotely close to what she was currently doing in the mudroom with Alex, the lawn-mower guy. She’d never kissed a guy she wasn’t involved with, let alone one she’d been throwing tomatoes at in a fit of rage only an hour ago. She didn’t even know his last name and didn’t really want to know. Somehow, rage had turned to lust, right around the time she saw him taking a shower under her hose.
 

He was smoking hot, and he knew how to kiss, too.
Christ have mercy
, the man could kiss. She kept thinking she should put a stop to this. Her emotions were all over the place after the dream and her thoughts of Toby, so this probably wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had. But damn if she could bring herself to call a halt to it, especially right when it was getting interesting.

Shifting ever so slightly, he pressed her back against the wall, which freed up his hands to move from her waist to her ribs, stopping just below her breasts.
 

Jenny wanted to beg him to keep going, but since he was currently sucking hard on her tongue, she couldn’t exactly use her words. So she used her body, arching her hips into tighter contact with the hard column of his erection and placing her hand over his, urging him to keep going.

In addition to being one hell of a good kisser, the man could also take a hint. His big hand covered her breast, and Jenny nearly passed out from the surge of pleasure that coursed through her when he roughly pinched her nipple. Her audible gasp ended the kiss, but he didn’t stop what he was doing to her nipple.

Right when she feared that he was going to end the encounter, he tipped his head and went to work on her neck, licking and nibbling and sucking lightly on the skin just below her ear. Jenny had forgotten how much she liked to be kissed there. He rolled her earlobe between his teeth, biting down harder right as he squeezed her nipple again. The combination made her cry out. She wasn’t sure if she was asking for mercy or begging for more.

He leaned his forehead against her shoulder, seeming to summon control or sanity or something that would help him deal with this situation.
 

Jenny was oddly moved by the sexy stranger and curled her hand around the back of his neck, hoping to offer comfort and keep him from getting away. Not yet anyway.

“How did we get here?” he asked.

She breathed in the scents of freshly cut grass and tomatoes that clung to him. “I’m not quite sure.”

“One minute I was borrowing your hose, and the next…”

Jenny smiled at his summary of events. “I don’t do things like this.”

“Like what? Like this?” He tweaked her nipple again, making her gasp and squirm against his tight hold.

“Yes, like that. And this.” She dragged him into another torrid kiss, this one skipping right over the preliminaries and going straight to open mouths and tangled tongues.
 

His hands were under her shirt now and moving up, pushing her bra out of the way to cup bare skin. The work-roughened calluses on his hands sent her halfway out of her mind when they made contact with her nipples. He played with her breasts until she was on the verge of explosive release, which had never happened to her before. It usually took much more than that to get her to that point, but it had been such a long time since she’d experienced this kind of desire. A very long time indeed. Sudden thoughts of the last time she’d been kissed with such unrelenting passion brought visions of Toby to mind and had her pulling back from Alex as sanity returned.

“What?” he asked, his voice rough against her ear. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”
Everything
.

“Do you want to stop?”

“We probably should.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Even though he agreed, he didn’t sound like he wanted to. He removed his hands from under her top, and Jenny wanted to cry from the loss as she slid down the aroused front of him. When her legs wobbled under her, he held her steady until she regained her footing.

“I, um—”

With his hands on her face, he kissed her softly. “Don’t.”

“I was only going to apologize for the tomatoes.”

“Don’t do that either. I’ve never had a woman throw tomatoes at me or made out in a lighthouse. And here I thought this day was going to totally suck.”

She smiled up at him, dazzled by his gorgeous brown eyes, the darkly tanned skin, the scent of freshly cut grass and the ripple of muscles under her hands.

“Thanks for letting me borrow your hose.”

“Is that like a metaphor or something?”

“Or something.” He kissed her nose and then her lips, lingering for a full minute of pure lip-on-lip contact. “I gotta go.”