My cock has been at half-mast since the pool four hours ago. The memory of her delicate shoulder blades under my thumbs, the little shiver that ran through her when my fingers grazed her neck, is still sending low, persistent signals to a part of my anatomy that has apparently decided my forced medical leave is its time to shine.
As for Ella, she was already gone when I returned to the suite a while ago. She left me a note saying she was out to dinner with some new friends from Montreal she met earlier today. She’d even added a smiley face and a p.s. that she’d left half a slice of chocolate cake in the mini fridge if I want to “live dangerously.”
She’s been on this island for one day and she’s already collecting people like frequent flier miles. The only person I’ve met is the blonde maneater down at the pool, and although I’msure Honey Carlisle would have jumped at the idea of dinner with me, I’m not buying anything she’s selling.
No, apparently, I’d rather sulk by my lonesome on the dark veranda with a drink I shouldn’t have and an erection I can’t explain, wondering how much fun Ella is having without me around to be the dark cloud looming over her fun.
The sliding door whispers open behind me.
“Oh—sorry.” A pause. “My bad. I didn’t know you were out here.”
I turn. She’s in the doorway with her sandals hanging from one hand, barefoot on the tile. Her face is flushed, her dark hair wind-tossed. She’s looking at me with that kind of easy, unguarded warmth that hit me last night when I walked into the suite and found her eating chocolate cake with the unapologetic abandon of a child. Her knee-length sundress is pale yellow, nothing particularly sexy about the sunny, sweet look yet I stare at her for more than a few moments too long.
My dick stirs. Of course it does. I should let her go inside. I should say goodnight, finish my drink alone, and maintain what’s left of the boundaries I set when we first arrived in this suite.
“Stay,” I say instead. “Come on out. It’s fine.”
It’s not fine. I just dismantled my own protocol because watching her walk away is worse than standing next to her, and I don’t want to think about why that equation has changed.
She hesitates, and I think she’s going to retreat back inside—part of me hopes she will—but then she pads over to the railing next me. I notice she leaves a reasonable amount of space between us. I track the distance like a shrinking budget line.
“How was dinner?” I ask.
“So good.” She leans on the railing and tips her face toward the ocean breeze. “The Tremblays are amazing. Married thirty-one years. They’re adorable. Pierre still pretends to steal bitesoff Colette’s plate, and she swats his hand away, but she’s always pushing the plate closer to him. Thirty-one years and they still look at each other like swoony teenagers.” She smiles, breathing out a wistful sigh. “They say I remind them of their daughter. Who is apparently a ‘handful.’ Their word. But they said it in a nice way.”
I don’t care about the Tremblays. I don’t care about Pierre’s dessert habits or Colette’s plate choreography. I care that Ella can describe a thirty-one-year marriage in three sentences and make it sound like something she wants. Like something anyone should want.
“Sounds like you had a nice time.”
She swivels a big smile in my direction. “I really did. And afterward, I did the limbo.”
I chuckle under my breath. “Of course you did.”
“I was terrible, Alec. Like, genuinely, historically bad. The bar was at thigh height and I still knocked it off. Twice. The second time I took out the entire pole and nearly flattened Colette. She told me I had ‘enthusiastic form.’” She holds up two fingers, proud of this disaster. “I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”
This woman cannot do a single thing at half volume. Not eat cake, not apply sunscreen, not attempt a basic limbo pass without committing structural damage to the equipment.
“Enthusiastic is what people say when ‘structural hazard’ feels rude.”
She laughs loud and hard, and the sound of it hits me low, in the place where my cock has been keeping a running tally of everything that seemed annoying about her on the plane but that I’m starting to find endearing and real. I take a sip of my warm drink because I need something to do with my mouth that keeps me from looking at hers. Damn, she’s got a nice mouth. Soft, pillowy lips in a dusky, natural shade of rose that doesn’t needartificial color. For a charged second, I wonder what those lips would feel like under mine. Would they resist at first, or would her mouth part easily for me if I kissed her right now?
“What about you, Alec?”
I snap myself out of the dangerous direction of my thoughts. “What? What about me?”
She tilts her head at me like I’m a halfwit. “Did you eat anything interesting tonight, or does your ‘dietary protocol’ prohibit actual food?”
“I had fish. And some steamed vegetables.”
“Sounds kind of sad.”
I scoff lightly. “The fish wasn’t sad. It was fine.”
“There’s that word again.Fine.Life is meant to be more than fine, Alec.” She nods at my glass. “At least you’re drinking something fun. What is that?”
“Rum punch. It’s too sweet.”
“Then why are you drinking it?”
