Bring the Heat by Margot Radcliffe (13 ebook reader .txt) 📕

“I can’t, Oliver!” she cried, much louder than she’d intended, but how was she going to get him to understand? “I have to go.”

Those light eyes again, scanning her face as if memorizing it before landing on her gaze again, searching and searching. Then he was kissing her, his lips sweet and soft against her. “Trust me not to hurt you, Molly,” he whispered against her lips, a final plea that ravaged her. “I won’t ever lie or cheat or be anything but thankful that you’re mine. Please know it’s the truth.”

She kissed him again, hugging him tight to her before letting him go. “I have to go.” She repeated the words, choked and broken.

There were tears in his eyes, too, as he gave her hand one last squeeze before slowly releasing it, savoring the final contact between them.

“I love you, Molly,” he said again when she’d stepped onto the speedboat. “At least believe that.”

She nodded, then turned away as the tears threatened. The bosun in the boat gave her a commiserating smile as he started the engine and drove off toward the shore.

Finally, when she knew Oliver could no longer see her face, she let herself cry. It was embarrassing in front of another person but there was nothing to be done about it.

The worst part was that she knew Oliver was still standing there, alone on his boat, hurting just as badly as she was and she’d been the cause of it. She could go back and take the risk on love, but here she was running away, just like the scared person she’d been the first time things got serious with them. Even then, she hadn’t asked him to come with her to Colorado, assuming that he wouldn’t want to without really knowing. Not brave enough to take the chance and have her fears realized that it had been just another yacht romance for him.

They docked the boat at the marina and Molly helped the bosun take her luggage into the clubhouse, which was where the car was waiting to take her to the airport. But she had one more thing to do before she could go. She walked quickly to the small patch of beach near the docks to give the boat she’d had the best weeks of her life on a final look. And perhaps see a glimpse of Oliver on the yacht where she’d left him.

But when her toes dug into the soft, silky sand for the last time and she prepared to lift her hand in a final goodbye, she didn’t see Oliver anywhere on the deck, which shredded any remaining pieces of her heart. With a sigh, she waved in the direction of the boat anyway, her mind unwilling to even contemplate the future without Oliver that was almost upon her as soon as she left the piece of shore.

She lifted a corner of her shirt to wipe the tears off her face so she wouldn’t look like a crazy person walking through a clubhouse full of yacht owners. Having gotten hold of herself, she turned to head back to the dock but as soon as her foot left the sand, she heard shouting coming from behind her. Turning toward the boat again, she saw a speedboat slicing through the blue water, traveling far too fast in her direction.

“Molly!” a voice cried and she saw Oliver quickly approaching her in the water. “Don’t go!”

She started for the water as Oliver brought the boat to a stop. Barely waiting for the other deckhand to take the boat’s controls, he dived into the water and started swimming to shore. Molly’s feet were moving before she even knew what she was doing and she was knee-deep in water when Oliver surfaced and walked the rest of the way toward her. They met waist-deep in the ocean, eyes locked.

“I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t let you go,” he choked, water dripping off his eyelashes and rivulets flowing from the drenched locks of hair down his bare neck and throat.

Molly stared at him, prepared with the same farewell speech she’d just given him on the boat but found that the words simply wouldn’t leave her mouth.

“I don’t want to go, either,” she admitted, her lack of breath making her voice barely audible. The waves pushed against her waist but she hardly noticed the water splashing onto her face. “But I don’t want you to lose your dream just because I’m in your life.”

A wet hank of hair dropping cutely over his furrowed forehead. “Molly,” he groaned, his voice pleading as his eyes bored into hers. “Trust me to find a way to keep you safe, to make it work.” He took a step toward her, taking her hands in his. “Jump with me, please.”

When she didn’t say anything, couldn’t get anything past the avalanche of emotion that had her chest collapsing, she saw tears form in his eyes. “At least tell me I’m not alone here, that you have feelings for me—” He cut himself off then, his gaze downcast. “That you at least love me a little,” he finished, his eyes tortured as they met hers again.

Her heart had been broken before when she’d tried to leave him, but now the weight of how she’d walked away from him without letting him know just how very much she loved him was agony.

Tears came harder now as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Of course I love you, Oliver,” she assured him, kissing his lips, his nose, his cheeks, anything she could find to make up for not being as brave as she should have been. “I love you so much. I was just too scared that I would be a disappointment to you when we left the yacht and it would kill me to know that I was the reason you couldn’t have the life you wanted.”

Oliver shook his head, touching his wet lips to hers, the heat from the