Just One Room - Chapter 3

Later that evening, Madi sat on a blanket on the empty beach, her arms around her bent legs. It was just her and the moon, a silver ball hanging low in the sky. It dropped ribbons of light onto the lazy sea, and a crab scuttled across the sand in front of her. After a few weeks of back-to-back shoots, she was happy for some downtime. And Calcott Manor was the perfect place to unwind, to get her bearings.

“Madigan.”

Madi turned to see Rigby standing behind her. He wore tailored navy shorts and a white cotton button-down, sleeves rolled up to expose his muscled forearms. At the barbecue earlier, he’d been wearing deck shoes, but she had no idea where they were now. Up until today, Rigby—with his hot body and masculine, still-gorgeous face—had been a figment of her imagination, but he was so much smarter and more interesting in real life.

As he came close, Madi noticed the bottle of wine and the two glasses he held. He’d brought alcohol, bless him.

“Are you going to share your wine?’ she asked.

“Are you going to share your blanket?“ he replied, arching his eyebrow in a way that made her insides flutter.

Madi patted the blanket and he sat, pulling the partially exposed cork with his teeth. He poured red wine into a glass, handed it to her, and she sniffed. “Berries, chocolate, something spicy.”

Rigby surprised her by shrugging. “I don’t care what it smells like, as long as it tastes good.” He tapped his glass to hers, took a sip and nodded. “Yeah, it tastes good.”

It tasted sublime and Madi held up the bottle to squint at the label in the moonlight. She couldn’t be sure but she thought it might be a Romanée-Conti, from one of the best vineyards in the world. “Did you bring this yourself or did you steal it from the manor’s cellars?” Madi asked.

He grinned at her. “Soren handed it to me, told me you were on the beach and that you needed a drink.”

Madi rolled his eyes. “Matchmaking again, huh?” Her friend’s husband had excellent taste in wine, so she might forgive him for trying to set them up. This time.

“He said not. He told me you like red wine and that I should bring some down.’

He couldn’t be that naive to buy Soren’s BS, could he? “He was matchmaking, Rigby. Probably at Eliot’s instigation.”

“Of course he was,” Rigby replied, smiling. “But hey, we’re onto him and we got a damn fine bottle of wine out of him. We’re not losing here.”

He was right, they really weren’t. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and Rigby looked around, taking in the empty beach, the peace and the stunning full moon. It was an incredibly romantic setting, the air was warm and fragrant, and she had a hot man sitting just a foot away from her.

And he looked so good there, lying on one arm, his long legs stretched out, his shirt plastered against a very nice, muscled chest. It would be so easy to lean down and rest her mouth on his…

“Tell me about your wife,” she abruptly said, wincing when he frowned. Right, maybe that had been a bit out of the blue. And Madi knew Rigby wouldn’t explain anything if he didn’t want to. He wasn’t, in any way, a pushover.

“Not a request I expected,” Rigby replied, sitting up and bending his knees. He rested his forearm on his knee and held his wineglass with just one finger hooked into its rim. “Why do you want to know?”

Madi lifted her shoulders to her ears. “Honestly?”

“I always prefer honesty,” he assured her.

“Well, I really wanted to kiss you and I knew that would be a bad idea, so I blurted out that request instead.” Okay, he’d think she was a complete fool but did that matter? It wasn’t like she was going to see him after these four days spent at Calcott Manor.

“Mmm. I wouldn’t mind kissing you either.”

“Why?” Madi whispered. And if he said something about her being a supermodel or being pretty or mentioning the moon and the romantic setting, she’d be disappointed at his lack of creativity.

“Because you have a bit of a duck mouth, and Daisy Duck was my first crush.”

Madi stared at him, not sure whether or not to laugh. Her lips twitched as she tried not to smile and felt the tickle of a giggle wanting to escape. She wasn’t going to laugh, she wasn’t…

“You can laugh, you know.”

Madi rolled her eyes, chuckled and shook her head. “Points for creativity, Rigby.”

“So can we get back to your duck mouth and kissing?” he demanded, lifting his hand to trace her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. And in a flash, the atmosphere flicked over from teasing to temptation, and the air around them grew muggy with hot promise. Madi felt the sparks in her big toes, behind her knees and between her legs. She desperately wanted to be free of her bra and needed his tongue rasping across her nipples.

The intensity of her attraction made her feel deeply uncomfortable. It was too much, too soon and she was a girl who liked to tiptoe into situations, not fling herself, body and soul, into a maelstrom. Rigby, and her attraction to him, wasn’t something she’d ever experienced before, and it scared her to death. She could handle him in her make-believe world. In real life? Not at all.

“One kiss, Madigan,” he murmured, his face obliterating the space between her mouth and his, and she didn’t pull back when his lips touched hers. She expected him to cover her body with his, to deepen his kiss immediately, to invade her mouth with an insistent tongue.

But he kept his touch light, his mouth soft. His lips nibbled hers as he learned the contours of her mouth. She loved the slight rasp of his stubble, adored how his thumb moved up and down her neck, a little reassuring, a lot sexy. But Madi knew that if she wanted more, then she would have to make the next move. Opening her mouth, her tongue traced the seam of his lips. She heard his back-of-the-throat groan and when he opened his lips, she slid her tongue into his mouth. He tasted of red wine and sex, of sin. She tangled her tongue around his, frustrated by his muted response. She wanted to know how this man kissed when he stopped thinking and when he wasn’t trying to control the moment.

If he couldn’t give her everything, then she wanted nothing. She pulled back and shook her head. When he looked at her, she wrinkled her nose.

“No chemistry?” he asked.

No, that wasn’t the problem. His holding back was. “There’s lots of chemistry but you’re not letting it ignite,” she told him, standing up.

She wasn’t interested in being anyone’s mercy kiss, a token moment of romance on the beach in summer. “The next time you kiss me, bring your A game, Rigby. Or don’t bother.”