Ignoring his snicker, I squirted the aloe into my hand and winced at the cold sting when I slathered it onto one crisp shoulder.
“You look like someone threw sun rays at you.” He chuckled, grabbing the bottle from my hands and squeezing the green goop into his palm. “Turn around and take your shirt off,” he rasped, triggering a breakout of goosebumps down my neck.
I lifted my tank top over my head and crossed my legs under me on the bed.
“You saw me put sunscreen on. This is what happens.” He massaged the relief into my skin, his strong hands cooling one part of me and burning up the rest. My eyes rolled back as I succumbed to both sensations.
“So many freckles,” he kissed down my arm. “Look, this patch is like letters, I can almost make out a word.”
“Oh yeah, what does it say?” I said, my voice now a breathy whisper.
He gingerly turned me around pushed me back on the bed, climbing on top of me with a wicked glint in his eye. “I think I can spot my name…right here.” He trailed his finger down my chest and traced a circle around my belly button. I’d caught sun there too but only burned the skin on my back.
I cocked my head to the side, my cheeks sore from the wide smile spread across my face. This man was exhausting in all the best ways.
“My freckles spell your name? You’re a cheeseball.”
“It’s true, see?” He licked a straight line down my stomach and then swirled his tongue in a half circle. “That’s a D.” My hips bucked off of the bed when I felt the curve of the O. I shot up, grabbing both sides of his face and crashed my mouth against his, the anticipation of the M too much for me to handle.
He laughed against my lips and settled between my legs, his erection grinding into the ache at my core and making me forget the sore skin on my sticky back.
“Looks like I’ll have to claim you another way.” We both stopped laughing when he brought his lips back to mine, kissing me long and deep.
I pulled back and shook my head.
“You don’t have to claim what’s already yours.”
Thea
Present
As much asI hated to admit it, Dominic was right. If we were going to be seeing each other for the next two months, simply ignoring each other while we were in the same room wouldn’t work. Especially, sinceneitherof us could ignore the other, if this morning was any indication.
I’d forced myself to be professional while everyone was around, but when it was just Dominic and me, the hurt I’d been trying, and hoping, to ignore bubbled to the surface. If all we were capable of was skittish eye contact and stilted conversation, it would make an already uncomfortable project torturous. Addressing it was the best chance I had to move forward.
I took a long stroll down the boardwalk before I met Dominic, spotting a family eagerly awaiting an ice cream shop to open. The little boy had a mess of dark hair, his adorable Spider-Man bathing suit dripping from a dip in either the ocean or a ride at the nearby water park.
I couldn’t help the smile pulling at my lips when he clasped his hands under his chin as if he were praying they’d start serving. And my heart cracked right down the middle when his father scooped him up and pointed at the menu.
I tore my gaze from him and kept walking. He looked three or four years old, my brain doing the all too quick math equation it did whenever I encountered kids who looked about that age. Before I made it to Finley’s Coffee Shop, I inhaled a long breath and slowly let it out. There were enough ghosts messing with my head today. I needed to focus on one at a time.
“Hey, you made it.” Dominic sauntered over, his lips stretched into a wide grin. His blinding, gorgeous smile used to be my favorite thing in the entire world. In those last months we were together, it had vanished. Seeing him today, reminded me of how much of an empty shell he’d been before he’d left. It created another conflict in my already troubled mind.
If Dominic was still that distant and sullen man, I would have still hurt for him. But the selfish parts in me, the ones that had never fully healed from losing him, were pissed off plain and simple. I’d wanted to be the one to help him, to give him back that beautiful spirit that had been drained from him when Linda had suffered for what seemed like forever.
The first year we were together was wonderful. After his mother was diagnosed with cancer, nothing was ever the same. I wanted to be there for him so badly, but little by little he pushed me away. I’d hung on in the hope he’d eventually let me back in, and we’d move in together like we talked about. But it never happened. The sicker Linda became, the more he slowly pushed away from me until he was gone.
I hadn’t been enough or what he’d needed. As much as I wanted to deny it, it was that simple and that hurtful. I needed to finally swallow the bitter pill that had been choking me for all these years and move on.
“I did. Half an hour, right?” I fiddled with my purse strap. His smile dimmed as he nodded. Unexpected guilt crept up on me for being so abrupt, but since the moment I’d known I’d see him again, my guard had been raised so high, it was impossible to relax. We stood a few feet apart, and even this was too close for my comfort.
“I found us a table already,” he said, motioning with his hand to a spot in the corner. I made my way past him, feeling his eyes on me with every step.
“I don’t know if you’ve had lunch yet or just wanted coffee. They have a good chicken Caesar wrap, if you still like that.” His eyes darted from mine as a sheepish smile pulled at his lips.
“I do. I’m surprised you remember that.” I slid into the seat as a warmth I hadn’t expected flooded my chest. It was one thing to be guarded, another to be mean. He did have a point: for this all to work, we needed to clear the air and figure out how to be around each other without us, and everyone around us, feeling awkward and uncomfortable.
“Really? You had a rating system for the croutons places used.” He rolled his eyes before he sat down. An unexpected laugh fell from my lips.
