“I live in an apartment.” She kicked me. “Because I don’t have girlfriends. There are women I have sex with, but I don’t hang out with them. I told you, I don’t date.” God, she was going to run screaming for the fucking hills, and I wouldn’t blame her. I’d never questioned my relationships with women before, but I didn’t want her thinking I was a complete dick.
“Oh,” she replied. I needed to distract her.
“Are you sleepy?” I asked.
“Not so sleepy that I don’t want you.”
That was the right fucking answer.
Anna
The next day we barely made it out of bed. Ethan kept suggesting we go down to the beach, which was only at the end of the gardens, just beyond the pool, and on severaloccasions I’d agreed, but we never made it. We were in our own private world in the house and somehow it kept pulling us back, like if we stepped outside it something would be lost.
We were sitting on one of the loungers, me between his legs, leaning back against him. We were talking about his sister when his phone rattled against the side table. He picked it up and checked his message.
“Urgh.” I felt his discomfort vibrate in his chest.
“What’s up?”
“It’s from Mandy. She wants us to go to a party tonight.”
“That’s nice of her to invite us. You don’t want to go?”
“I think she just wants to hang out with you again. I hate parties in the Hamptons.”
“So we won’t go. But I think we should go out somewhere. To dinner or something. We’ve been in this house all day.”
His phone buzzed again and he handed it to me. My heart skipped. It seemed a strangely intimate thing to do.
“What?”
“Read it.”
I clicked on the phone so the message came into view.
Andrew: Dude. Get your ass to this party or Mandy’s going to have my balls.
I giggled. “Those guys are really cute together.”
Ethan’s arms tightened around me. “They really are, but don’t tell them I said so. They’ll think I’m going soft.”
“Mr. Scott, in my humble opinion, being soft is not something you need to worry about.”
“Never around you, baby.” He buried his head in my neck.
“We should go, though,” I said. “I’d hate for Andrew to lose his balls. And I like Mandy and Andrew. It’ll be nice.”
“Really? Fuck. You won’t like those parties.”
I felt myself stiffen. What did he mean by that?
“You don’t think the British fit into Hamptons society?”
“You’ll see.”
“I’m not goingto be able to concentrate with you in that dress. All I can think about is that I could have it off in about two seconds.”
I was wearing a red jersey sleeveless dress. Ethan’s eyes had barely left me since we’d got into the car. It was a good thing Rory was driving or we would have been in an accident already. “Well, then, you’re not going to like it when I tell you that I’m not wearing underwear underneath, are you?”
