“And did you become a sports reporter?” Trey asks as we reach the doors. When we step outside, I am bathed in the most delicious warm air and sun. And even though we’re at the airport, with cars and shuttles buses streaking by, stopping to pick up and drop off passengers, the air feels cleaner and fresher.

Better.

Robert shakes his head. “Nope. I was assigned to cover a college basketball game. I hated every minute of it because it sapped all the joy out of watching the game, and I decided that I didn’t want to be a reporter; I wanted to be a fan. And so that’s what I am.”

“A sports fan with a typewriter tat,” Trey adds.

“Yep. An ugly, faded, hideous one at that, but I wear it like a badge of honor.”

“That’s the only way to wear one,” Trey says.

As we reach the parking garage, Robert shoots a lopsided grin at Debbie and me, and points to Trey. “I like this one. He’s a keeper.”

On the drive to their house, Debbie spends the entire ride twisted around in the front seat, so she can chat with us in the back, playing tour guide. She tells us about the old school feel of Ocean Beach where they live, the mom-and-pop owned shops, like bakeries, boutiques and indie book stores. Next, she chats about their dog, The Sheriff. After that, she mentions the dinner she has planned for us tonight.

“You probably figured we were going to take you to Once Upon a Sandwich,” Debbie says, with a glint in her blue eyes.

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“Nah. We were thinking we’d take you to our favorite burger joint for burgers, fries and milkshakes. Would that work for you?”

I glance at Trey, and he’s smiling and nodding. It’s such a simple plan, and it’s so us, and it’s so them, and it feels so right.

“Do you think he’s watching us?” Trey asks, nodding at the black and white border collie.

I check out The Sheriff. He’s curled up and sleeping on the hardwood floors of our bedroom in the duplex adjoining their cottage-style house. Debbie said they usually rent the duplex but the new renters aren’t moving in for a few weeks, so we have our own little home on the beach during our stay. It’s bedtime, alone time, on our first night here. Trey has already kissed me madly, nibbled on my collar bone, and stripped me down to nothing. Now, I’m lying naked before him in the dark of a moonlit night in California.

I shake my head. “Nope. His eyes are closed.”

“Good,” he says, running his strong hands across my skin, first my arms, next my hips, and then he trails his palms along my thighs. When he reaches my knees, he parts my legs, and my breath is uneven and needy.

“Why is it good? Are you going to do something naughty to me? Something you don’t want the dog to see?”

Trey raises an eyebrow suggestively. “Even if he saw, dogs keep secrets, right?”

I smile. “So I’ve heard. Their secret-keeping abilities are legendary.”

“Then he won’t tell a soul what I want to do after I do this,” he says, pressing his lips on the inside of my thigh, kissing me behind the knee as he taps soft notes of desire with his fingers up my legs, barely touching me where I’m already electric for him.

Teasing me.

So much teasing that I try to wiggle my way closer.

“What do you want to do after this?” I ask him, arching my hips, trying to bring his delicious mouth all the way to me.

“I want to see if you taste as good in California as you do in New York.” He switches positions, moves up the bed, and flops down on his back. Then he reaches for me, his hands on my hips. “Sit on me,” he whispers in a hungry voice that burns with desire.

“Really?”

He nods against the pillow. “I want you on my face,” he says, breathing out hard, and I don’t know who’s more turned on now, but I know this much—I’m aching for his touch. I’m dying for the exquisite agony he delivers with his mouth, lips and tongue. So I don’t ask any more questions. I simple obey, straddling his face, balancing my hands on the headboard. His hands are locked on my hips, and he holds me above him. “This is a fucking beautiful view,” he says, then tugs me down.

I bite my lip when he first licks me so I don’t scream out in pleasure.

“Mmm,” he murmurs as he kisses all my wetness, his soft lips greedily devouring me, like I’m the key to his survival. He slides his tongue across my sex as his lips consume me. I grip the headboard, digging my fingers around the wood as electricity shoots through me like a hot buzz running through my skin, spinning in my veins, turning my entire body into nothing but the deep, hungry ache for release. I won’t last long, not with his moans and groans as he laps me up, plundering me with his tongue so eagerly, like he’s coveting my pleasure.

Soon, I start to rock into him, to buck against his mouth. He grips my hips harder, grinding me deeper and faster into his mouth until I am awash in a hot charge that starts tight in my belly then pulses throughout my entire body, coating me in nothing but ecstasy and heat, all the way to my fingertips.

Everything is a blur as I shout his name, the orgasm rocketing through me, leaving no inch of my body untouched with its pure and beautiful bliss. I exhale hard, panting still, my legs shaking.

Then, as I slow my movements, I’m hit with the most fantastic aftershocks that radiate throughout me.

Soon, I shift off of him, collapsing on the bed.

“Holy hell,” I say, still dizzy and glowing from coming so hard on him. “You have a magic mouth.”

“I guess that was good for you, too,” he says, with a sly smile.

“Yeah. Slightly,” I say, and then I glance down at the sleeping dog. “Guess he doesn’t mind our noises, either.”

“I knew he was my kind of wingman,” he says.

I laugh. “So, what was your verdict?”

He switches to his side, brushing his lips ever so faintly against my ear. “You taste like the one thing I will never have enough of.”

A shiver runs through me with his words. They make me feel both loved and sexy. “Let’s do it in our position,” I say, and I move to my side, too. I reach down between his legs, grasp him in my hand, and bury him inside of me. I move with him, savoring his sounds, his breath, his ragged pants when he tells me he’s so close.

“Come in me,” I whisper, watching his face strain and twist with pleasure as I bring him over the edge.

Later, as we lie together, it occurs to me that San Diego is already winning. That the happiest days of my life were here when I was younger, and that so far, California is a bit like paradise.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Harley

The sky stretches with endless blue, the shade so pure and perfect it seems unreal. The sun inches its way overhead, and the waves crash into the sand, the powerful Pacific Ocean pushing and pulling at the sandy shore with its mighty force.

“I told you so,” I say to Trey the next morning. “I told you you’d want shorts.”

He holds up his hands in surrender as he throws another tennis ball to the dog. Trey’s jeans are cuffed up, but the cuffs are soaked. He wears a T-shirt, but without board shorts he looks out of place on the beach and, frankly, a bit silly.

“You look like an interloper. Like a city boy. You’re embarrassing me,” I say, as I kick sand onto his feet playfully, the grains sliding through my naked toes. I love the feel of the sand on my bare feet, the breeze on my arms, and the salty bite of the waves in my nostrils.

The Sheriff returns to Trey, trotting by his side and making big puppy-dog eyes at him as we cut across the beach toward the house. Already, the dog has adopted Trey, or maybe it’s the other way around. I never knew my guy had that side of him—the dog-person side. Then again, he never knew he did, either.

“I’ve never had a pet,” he’d told me this morning when he woke up, laughing as The Sheriff licked his face, the dog’s way of asking for breakfast. “But this dog kind of rocks.”