He took her hand as they walked onto the sand. The bracken bushes provided some handy shade from the noon sun as he spread a thin blanket on the ground, and dropped the brown paper sack onto it.
Jessie took off her jacket, the lacy camisole beneath fluttered in the breeze and cooled her heated flesh. Sitting down, she toed off her sandals and reached for the bag.
‘I certainly hope we’ve got something more inspired than sandwiches in here,’ she said. ‘I’m starving.’
‘You know what?’ He sank down onto the blanket next to her and grabbed the grocery sack. ‘She who doesn’t buy doesn’t get to belly-ache about what’s in the bag.’
‘What are those—Latimer house rules?’ Jessie’s lips curved as she watched him pull an assortment of ready-made salads and a large foil bag out of the sack.
‘Yeah,’ he said as he brought out a chilled bottle of wine with a flourish. ‘Now who’s griping?’
‘Not me,’ she replied.
He up-ended the sack and paper plates, plastic cups, napkins, forks and a bottle opener dropped onto the blanket.
‘You thought of everything. I’m impressed.’ Jessie tried to sound contrite but was enjoying the moment too much. He looked so pleased with himself. Like a little boy who’d just got straight As for the first time.
As he concentrated on opening the wine, Jessie leant forward on her knees and placed her hands on his shoulder. When his head came up, she put her lips on his. The kiss was a whisper, full of the love blossoming inside her.
He dropped the wine, fisted his fingers in her hair. Dragging her mouth across his, he plundered. The kiss shot to scorching, but only for a moment. When he released her, his face was dark with arousal, and something else, something she wasn’t sure of.
He scooped up the bottle of wine. ‘Don’t get carried away, Red. We haven’t tasted it yet.’
Jessie forced herself to ignore the stab of regret. Why hadn’t he carried on kissing her? Don’t be a ninny. Of course he didn’t want to take things any further—they were on a public beach. Anyone might see them. But she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he had withdrawn for some other reason.
She turned round on the blanket, stared out at the waves gently lapping against the shore. She could hear the screech of seagulls overhead, see the tip of the lighthouse in the distance over the long grass and bracken that edged the bluff.
‘Here you go, Red.’ He nudged her arm. She turned and took the plastic cup. He tapped it with his own. ‘Here’s to sand in your potato salad.’
Jessie forced her lips to curve. ‘Here’s to guys who know how to pack a picnic.’
Monroe took a long gulp of the light, fresh white wine. It tasted pretty good, but did nothing to calm the fire inside him.
She had wanted to continue the embrace, had looked disappointed when he’d pulled his mouth away. That fact and the memory of her warm and willing in his arms was making the need claw in his gut like an angry dog. He screwed the plastic glass down into the sand and started pulling the wrapper off the plates.
He’d brought her here to have a nice sensible lunch, not climb all over her again as soon as they got here. He refused to feel bad about it. Even though the confusion in her eyes and the surge of blood to his groin made it damn near impossible not to drag her across his lap right now and…
Jessie opened the salads, searched for something to say as she arranged them on the blanket. ‘Ali called the gallery today.’
‘How are they doing?’
‘Ali’s exhausted. I don’t think she’s left the penthouse much.’
‘The heat’s a bitch in Manhattan in August.’ Monroe ladled some potato salad onto her plate, then his.
‘Emmy’s having a great time, though. Linc took her to the Bronx Zoo yesterday.’ Jessie laughed, remembering the conversation with her sister that morning. ‘She said Linc was so shattered when they got back he could hardly string together a coherent sentence.’
Monroe chuckled. ‘I bet Emmy was still chattering away like a little magpie. The poor guy.’ Tearing open the foil sack, he put a piece of fried chicken on Jessie’s plate. ‘Did you say anything to Ali about us?’
Jessie glanced up, watched him lick his fingers. ‘No, I didn’t.’ Was that relief she saw flash in his eyes? No, she was being silly, paranoid. ‘Ali wouldn’t be all that surprised, though.’
‘Why?’
Jessie wished she hadn’t blurted that out. How did she explain the statement without sounding pathetic?
‘It’s just…’ She looked down at her plate, concentrated on forking up the potato salad. ‘I used to have a pretty massive crush on Linc when they were first married.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
She looked up. He put his fork down on his plate. He was watching her, his expression unreadable.
‘It’s silly really. It was just a stupid schoolgirl’s fantasy.’
He dumped the plate down on the blanket. ‘What kind of schoolgirl’s fantasy, exactly?’
‘Not that kind of fantasy, you numbskull.’Was he jealous? It was so ridiculous it was almost sweet. If she hadn’t felt like a complete fool for bringing up this whole business, she might have been flattered. ‘It took me a while to realise it, but it wasn’t Linc I fancied. Well, not much anyway. It was what he represented.’
‘And what was that?’ Monroe didn’t even know why he was asking the question. He didn’t want the answer.
Jessie huffed out a breath, put her own plate down. ‘He adored Ali. It was obvious whenever they were together that they adored each other. And then, about a month after they announced they were getting married, they told us that Ali was expecting a baby.’Jessie picked up her fork, toyed with her food. ‘Of course, it was wonderful news. We were all so excited.’
Monroe wasn’t convinced. He could see the misery in her eyes at the memory. ‘You sure about that?’
‘A part of me was,’ she said, so quietly he almost couldn’t hear her over the churn of the sea. ‘But a part of me was pea-green with envy.’
‘Because she was having Linc’s kid?’ He really didn’t want to hear the answer to this one.
‘No,’ she said.
The knot of tension in his shoulders released.
‘Because she had this perfect life,’ Jessie continued. ‘Marriage to a gorgeous man who worshipped her. When Emmy arrived, a beautiful daughter.’ Jessie shook her head, her eyes downcast. ‘I was a stupid, selfish, silly little girl who wanted what she had without having to work for it.’
‘Red.’He reached out, stroked his hand down her arm. ‘Don’t be so damn hard on yourself. You were only a kid at the time.’
‘I was old enough to know better. And I didn’t really get over it until after Toby.’
‘Toby.’ Monroe felt his shoulders tighten again. ‘The dumb bastard who couldn’t give you an orgasm?’
Jessie laughed, breaking the tension at last. ‘Yes, that would be Toby.’
‘How long were you guys together?’ Funny, but he didn’t feel nearly as threatened by her relationship with her ex-boyfriend as he did by her teenage crush on his brother.
‘Two years.’ She sighed, picked up her plate again. ‘Two very long years.’
‘Two years without an orgasm. No wonder they felt long. You’d have to be some kind of a nun not to be