Seaside Nights Read online

  Words began to sail into his mind—moonlight, sunlight, cloudy days—shifting quickly from light to dark. Fissures of love. Struggle and stretch. He tried to ignore the persistence of them, but they kept coming, one after another. Bonds fraying, years ending. Like the night he met Sky, he knew these weren’t passing thoughts and there was a song in there somewhere. He grabbed a pen from the floor, and at a loss for paper, he scrawled the words on his forearm.

  Silence. Pleas.

  Strength. Forgiveness.

  More. Always more.

  Tenuous days. Harsh endings.

  He sucked in air, swallowing past the tightness in his throat. He rose to his feet and paced the hardwood floor, fighting against the song he didn’t want to write. It was one thing to keep himself so focused on winning the fight that he separated his father’s illness from the truth of where it was headed. But now it was staring him in the face—and all the fighting in the world couldn’t shelter him from it. He let out a tortured groan as more words coursed through his mind.

  Like the wind in the night, shifting, stealing, paving the way. There will come a day, come a day.

  The pen fell from his hands.

  Sawyer lifted his eyes to the window, thinking about history and family and all the things that mattered. Love and honor, trust and commitment. Those were things that could never be taken away, no matter how much of his father was stolen by the disease. Memories. His father would never have a chance to create the same kinds of memories with Sawyer’s children as Sawyer had of his grandfather, but that didn’t mean that Sawyer and his father couldn’t create other types of memories that could be carried forward and shared for generations to come.

  With his hands fisting at his sides and his chest swelling with every inhalation, he pushed past the urge to ignore the future of his father’s disease and grasped at the now.

  He pulled out his phone and called his parents.

  “Hi, honey.” His mother answered on the second ring, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you. Don’t you and Sky leave today?”

  “Hi, Mom. Yeah, we’re leaving shortly. I wanted to check on you and Dad before we take off.” He hadn’t gotten down to see them this week, with the ramp renovations taking precedence, and even though he’d called twice, he felt a little guilty.

  “We’re fine, honey. You go and enjoy your time off. Maybe when you come back you can bring Sky to meet us?”

  The hope in her voice made him smile. “I will. I know she’d like that. She’s one of Dad’s biggest fans. Actually, I wanted to talk to him about something. Is he around?”

  “He’s right here. Hold on.”

  He heard his mother try to hand the phone to his father.

  “Hold on, honey,” his mother said into the phone again. “I’m going to put you on speakerphone and hold it up so it’s easier for your father.”

  “Okay,” Sawyer answered, hoping she couldn’t hear the tug of his heartstrings as loudly as he felt them.

  “Son,” his father said in his slow drawl.

  “Hi, Dad. Guess where I am?” The silence stretched so long that Sawyer wondered if his father had heard him. He was used to long stretches of silence, but this one felt interminable—he realized that it probably felt that way because he was bursting at the seams to get his thoughts out.

  “The…gym?” his father finally answered.

  “No, Dad. The skycap. The ramp is done. It’s beautiful, and I can’t wait to bring you up here to look out over the water. I was thinking about the times you brought me up here and told me about the walks you took with your father and grandfather.”

  “Good…times.”

  Sawyer smiled. “Yes, they were.” His throat swelled with the reality that one day these phone calls might be impossible, too. “Dad, I’m sitting here looking out over the bay, and I’m thinking about the future—and the past. I want to do something with you, Dad. Something of our own.”

  “Anything…son.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes tightly shut against the tears that threatened. “Thank you, Dad.” His voice was so thick with emotion he didn’t recognize it. He cleared his throat to try to regain control of his emotions and said, “I want to write with you, Dad. I know you haven’t written in years, and I know you don’t want to write and that I’m not as good with words as you are. But, Dad, I want to bring our voices together in a poem, or a song, or both. Whatever you’re willing to do, I want to do this together. I want something that we can have forever, that I can share with my children, and…” He realized he was rambling and paused again to regain control. “Dad, it would mean the world to me if you would consider doing this with me. For me.”

  His father was quiet for so long he wondered if he’d pissed him off. A full minute or two later he heard the speakerphone click off, and his mother’s emotional voice came on the line.

  “Honey?”

  “Mom, did I push him too hard? Is he upset with me?”

  “No, honey. He’s just too overcome with emotion to talk.”

  Sawyer closed his eyes against new tears vying for release.

  “Sawyer?”

  “Yes, Mom?”

  She lowered her voice and said, “Thank you. Thank you so very much.”

  Chapter Twenty

  AS THE SUN kissed the horizon, the last of its warm peach rays rippling across the dark sea, Sky wrapped her arms around Sawyer’s waist and leaned her head on his chest. The brisk evening air whipped against her legs as they sailed toward Monomoy Island.

  “Two whole days alone, Sawyer. No customers, no painting, no building ramps, no tattoo guns, no sparring.” They decided to anchor at Monomoy for the night so they wouldn’t have to worry about other boat traffic.

  He tipped up her chin and the wind whipped her hair across her cheek. They both laughed as he pressed his lips to hers right through the whipping strands. “No flashing vibrators, no sneaking out to go chunky-dunking.”

  “Who needs vibrators when I have you?” She zipped up her hoodie.

  “Just what I wanted to hear.” He kissed her again, moaning a little in pleasure as he tugged her in closer. “I still can’t believe I have you all to myself for two days. Whatever will I do with you?”

  She raised her brows in quick succession. “Considering that nothing is going to come between me and my man, I’d say anything you want.” Sky liked the way my man felt as it slid from her tongue. He was the man she thought about when she woke up in the morning and the man she fantasized about when they were apart. He was the man who had shared her bed every night for days on end and the only man she hoped to wake up to from that day forward.

  Sawyer’s eyes warmed. “I like the sound of that.”

  She watched him steer the boat closer to the island. His movements were graceful and determined at once, swift and virile. His biceps flexed deliciously as he set the anchor and brought down the sails. The boat rocked with the current, a gentle, comforting motion that produced soothing sounds of water slapping against the sides of the boat as the rim of the sun dipped beneath the horizon, giving way to the hazy glow of night.

  “I always forget how dark it gets at sea,” Sky said as her eyes adjusted.

  “Not to worry, sweetheart. The moonlight will be enough.” He sat on the cushioned bench and pulled Sky down onto his lap. As he tucked her hair behind her ear, his eyes rolled over her face with a tender gaze.

  “I can’t believe you’re really going to write with your dad. I’m so excited to see what my favorite poet and my favorite person come up with.”

  “Your favorite person?” A serious look hovered in his eyes.

  “Yes, of course.” She pressed her lips to his, and he smiled. “I thought you didn’t want to do anything more with your songs than use them as a hobby and that your father was done writing. What changed your mind? What changed his?”

  “Sky, I haven’t slowed down much over the years to think about anything ot
her than fighting. My life has been a circle of train, fight, win.” He paused and brushed his thumb over her cheek. “And then came you.”

  “Did I throw you off your game?”

  He laughed under his breath. “That’s one of the things I love about you. You have so much going on, between your shop renovations, your apartment, the grand opening, and still you worry about if you threw me off my game. No, Sky, you showed me that I was playing the wrong game. You opened my eyes.”

  Sky’s heartbeat quickened.

  “When I was at the house this afternoon, everything sort of hit me at once. Seeing the ramp drove home my father’s fate, which further validated the need for me to win the title fight. But it also made me realize that while we’re busy making it through today and planning for tomorrow, some higher power, or whatever, could already be planning its own actions, which negate ours.”

  “You lost me. What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is that I don’t want to live my whole life hoping for a day when life will slow down enough, or the time feels right enough, to move forward and start my life. I love you, Sky, and I don’t want to wait another second to tell you. I don’t care that it’s fast. I’ve felt connected to you from the moment I saw you across the room. I love being with you, talking with you, making love with you. I don’t want to miss out on a single second with you, Sky. I don’t want to do what my dad did and work his whole life looking forward to retirement when he and my mom could have more time together—and then have something go wrong.”

  “Sawy—” Her voice hitched in her throat.

  He pressed his finger to her lips. “Let me finish,” he whispered. “I’m not saying we should get married, but I’m hoping that someday we’ll be ready to. Sky, I want to carve our initials in the rafters. I want to stand in that skycap and look out at the land below with you right there by my side—and one day with our children, if you’re willing—and create our own history. I want to wake up with you in my arms and know that at the end of the day, you’re right there with me, sharing our headaches and celebrating the best times in our lives. I want to grow old with you and watch you do tattoos and paint in your long flowing skirts with your windblown hair and that sparkle in your eyes, while I play the guitar and sing songs that I write for you and our family.”

  “Oh, Sawyer.” Sky could hardly speak past the tightening in her throat. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her lips to his. “I love you, too. I want all those things, too.”

  He exhaled a long sigh of contentment. “This is my last fight, Sky. Once I win, my parents’ financial future will be secure, and then I’m going to retire. No more fighting. I’ll become a trainer so you won’t have to worry.”

  “I don’t want you to give up fighting for me. I’m okay with it now, and I don’t want you to resent me.” She could hardly believe how much her feelings had grown for him, and part of that growth meant accepting his career.

  “I could never resent you. Fighting has risks, and that might not have mattered before, but now that we have us? I don’t want to leave our future to chance.”

  “You would do that for us?” Sky’s eyes dampened. “Sawyer…”

  “Sky, I would do anything for you, and in turn, for us.”

  Sky felt their worlds twining together, without hesitation or doubt, and when he drew her closer and whispered his love for her, she sealed her lips over his, cutting him off midsentence, wanting to feel his words as they moved through her body and settled into her soul.

  “You’ve turned my world around, Sky,” he said as he laid her down on the cushions. “I want everything with you. I want to make all your dreams come true, and I still don’t even know what they are. What do you want from life?”

  She leaned up and pressed her lips to his. “I don’t have big wants, Sawyer. I want you, and I want to be happy. I want to get to know your family and have you get to know mine. I want to have a simple life where if we want to shut away the world for an afternoon, we can do so without the rest of our world falling apart. I want to love you and be loved by you.”

  ***

  THERE WERE NO words for the emotions coursing through Sawyer. Love, happiness, and desire were all there, but they were wrapped in something more important, something bigger. They were wrapped in anticipation for a future with the woman he loved.

  He gazed into Sky’s eyes and could feel her love for him. “I will always love you. I will cherish you, and I will spend the rest of my life making sure that you feel safe enough to be strong, or weepy, or silly, or whatever you want or need to be. Because I love you for you, Sky, and I want all of you.”

  Their mouths came together in a kiss full of promise and hope as his hands explored the soft lines of her waist, her hips, her ribs. He unzipped her hoodie and helped her out of it, tossing it to the deck, then lifted her shirt off and set it aside, too. Her nipples firmed instantly under his touch, and a soft sigh escaped her lips as he brought his mouth to her breast.

  “Sawyer, you make me feel too good.”

  He drew his shirt over his head and tossed it to the deck. “I have to feel your skin against mine.”

  His hands slid over her, and he felt her heart beating fast as he lowered his mouth to hers again.

  “Touch me,” she whispered against his lips. “I want to feel your love everywhere.”

  He caressed her breasts, kissing, sucking, loving her nipples the way she liked, and moved down her body, tasting every inch of her warm flesh.

  “You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” he said as he unbuttoned her shorts and worked the zipper south. “When you tell me what you want, it makes my whole body hot.”

  “Then I’ll tell you more often,” she said with a teasing smile.

  He hooked his fingers in the waist of her shorts and pulled them down, stripping her bare. Then he rose to his feet, shed the rest of his clothes, and came down over her again. Their mouths came together hard, tongues thrusting, searching, taking, as their hips ground together.

  “Sky,” he growled against her mouth. “I want you so badly.”

  He moved straight down her body, unable to wait a second longer, and pressed her thighs to the cushion. He lowered his mouth to her hot center and dragged his tongue along her wetness.

  “So sweet,” he said against her skin. He licked and teased and rubbed his thumb over her clit as he thrust two fingers inside her.

  “Oh, good Lord.” Her hips shot off the cushion as she dug her fingers beneath his hair. “Oh yes. Like that…Yes…Sawyer…”

  Every word made him harder, more eager to feel her come apart against him. He licked and loved and took her sensitive, swollen clit between his teeth.

  “Yes. Oh God…Ohmygod.” Her back arched off the cushions as the climax claimed her. “Sawyer!”

  Desire mounted inside him at every sweet word that left her lips, every frantic thrust of her hips. He moved back up her body, using his hand to continue pleasuring her as he took her in a greedy kiss, breathing air into her lungs as she gasped her way through the final rush of her release.

  She reached between them and stroked his eager length. “Let me…taste you.”

  He nearly came apart at the demanding tone of her voice and the hungry look in her eyes. Before he could move, she pushed him onto his back and took his throbbing erection in her mouth.

  “Holy hell, Sky.” He gritted his teeth, and she teased the tip and then sucked all of him into her hot, wet mouth, shattering his remaining brain cells. His head tipped back against the cushion as she slowed her efforts, licking him base to tip, then teasing him over and over again. He fisted his hands, resisting the urge to come.

  “Let go,” she said in a seductive voice that brought his eyes to hers. “I want to taste you like you taste me.”

  “Sky, I want to make love to you.”

  Without a word, she wrapped her fingers around his hard length and stroked as she ran her tongue along the tip, pulling a moan from deep within him.


  “Sky,” he warned.

  She stroked and sucked, faster, squeezing tighter, until he was dizzy and every muscle pulsed with heat. Ice shot down his spine, and he grabbed her shoulders—a warning she did not heed. She took more of his shaft into her mouth, and an electric shock scorched through his body as he hurtled past the point of no return, his eyes shut and his body racked with shocks. His thoughts fragmented as her hands and mouth continued their hungry devouring.

  When the last shudder ripped through his body, she lay over him and kissed him roughly. Their mouths parted, and she gazed down at him with a savage inner fire burning in her eyes.

  “I’ve never done that before,” she whispered.

  He stroked her cheek. “You don’t have to do that with me, Sky.”

  “I wanted to be as close as we can be. I’m yours, Sawyer. All of me, and I wanted all of you.”

  He gathered her in close and kissed her again, ignoring the taste of himself still lingering in her mouth and savoring the closeness of their bodies, the bonding of their love, as their breathing calmed and they gave in to their exhaustion and dozed off beneath the starry sky.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  AFTER A MORNING of skinny-dipping, making love, and teasing each other about being eaten by sharks while naked, Sawyer and Sky showered in the cabin, then took a leisurely sail to Nantucket. It was a sunny morning, and there was a nice breeze as they crossed the harbor.

  “I still can’t believe that neither of us has been to Nantucket,” Sawyer said as he docked the boat at the marina.

  “I think that’s because we grew up here,” Sky said. “When I was growing up, my dad was running the store on the weekends and my brothers were in sports. There wasn’t much free time for us to go away for a whole afternoon.”

  He tied off the boat and stepped onto the dock. He turned back and helped Sky out of the boat. “My dad is such a private person. He traveled for book signings, but he wasn’t really into exploring new places. When I was young, we spent afternoons on the beach, or at the cottage, but once they sold the cottage, we pretty much stuck close to home. And then I got into boxing, and nothing else mattered.”