Just a few more minutes, I tell myself. It doesn't mean anything.
I close my eyes and breathe him in. Incense and rain and clean sweat. My hand finds his heartbeat through his ribs. Steady. Calm.
When I wake again, the sun is up and Jason is already out of bed, probably birding before the day starts. The bed beside me is cold. It’s fine. I’m not disappointed.
Despite my hangover, I lead a morning yoga session that Jason and Silas attend but Kelsey and Adrienne don’t. At breakfast, the girls sit with some of their other friends who are here for the wedding.
There aren’t any expeditions planned for today, so Logan, Silas, and I lounge by the pool, Jason goes on a short walk around the grounds with his binoculars, and I swim more laps along the middle of the kidney-shaped pool.
At some point in the midafternoon, I catch Silas and Logan exchanging glances. About fifteen minutes later, they make excuses for going back to their casita, Silas fairly skipping ahead of Logan’s more measured pace.
Jason’s returned from birding and is stretched out on a lounger next to me, reading.
“Looks like Silas just bought himself a one-way ticket to pound town,” I murmur, flicking my fingers at their retreating backs.
“I suspect he bought the weekly pass,” Jason says without looking up from his book.
It’s so unexpected—a dirty joke from Jason Perez, of all people—that I don’t even recognize it as such at first. He finally looks up at me, my mouth hanging open, and winks. I snicker at first, then laugh full out, and Jason chuckles along with me.
“Maybe he got a monthly pass,” I suggest in between wheezes. I don’t even know what the difference between a weekly or monthly pass to pound town might be, but I’m not letting this opportunity to joke with Jason pass me by. Jason stifles a snort, then gives up and lets his book fall open in his lap. He laughs like a hyena until an older couple that we’ve seen around the resort but haven’t spoken with files past us.
They look like they were heading for the loungers on my other side, but after casting sidelong glances at us, still laughing like loons, they keep walking and settle at the end of the pool, on the other side of the little rock-lined waterfall.
A few minutes after we finally run out of laughter, I roll my head on the lounger’s back to look at Jason. “Wanna?” I flick my eyes in the direction of our casita.
He gives me a once-over, honest-to-god checking me out like we’re in a club. “Yes,” he exhales in a low voice. “Go now and be naked when I get there.”
I sketch a salute to him, gather my stuff, and try not to trip inelegantly in my hurry to obey him. When I look over my shoulder, he’s got his book back in front of his face, but his fingers tap the back cover impatiently.
He takes his sweet time, though. I spend a good fifteen minutes, lying naked on the bed, half-hard, changing position every few minutes. I’m pretty sure he’s making me wait on purpose.
A hundred percent sure when he finally enters the casita and does only god knows what in the living area before finally appearing in the doorway of the bedroom. He stops just short of the bed, makes a stay motion with his hand when I start to sit up, and just regards me for a minute.
I flop onto my back. “You are a Dom, you know.”
Jason blinks at me. “What are you talking about?”
“I think you know what I’m talking about. I’m just saying there’s nothing wrong with it. And that I, especially, am okay with it, so you don’t need to hold back on my account.”
“You especially?” I’m not sure whether Jason is parroting my words to stave off coming up with his own or he’s building up a head of steam he’s about to unleash on me.
Maybe I’ll try a different tack. “You know Leah was my best friend, right? I told her pretty much everything. About my work, stuff about my clients, without revealing their names, of course. Guys that I was seeing, that kind of thing.”
“You talked to her about your sex life.” Jason’s tone is flat. Shit, I might have gone about this wrong after all. “And she talked to you about her sex life. Our sex life.”
“Sometimes. A little.”
Jason turns and sits on the end of the bed, his back to me. “Blessed Virgin and all the saints,” he mutters.
I scramble up behind him and put a tentative hand on his shoulder. Shockingly, he doesn’t flinch away, though he doesn’t turn around. “Jason, it wasn’t like she was spilling all your secrets all over town. She trusted me. With good reason. I loved her as much as you did. Maybe differently than you did, but still.”
He snorts. “Well, if you’re saying you wouldn’t do for her what she wanted in bed, then yeah, I guess we did love her differently.”
“I’m saying that I—wait, what did you do for her in bed?”
Okay, that causes him to look over his shoulder at me. “You just said she told you.”
“Broad strokes, man, not specifics! I told you, she didn’t spill all your secrets. And besides, I’m asking what you like in bed. Because I think I have some idea, but I’d rather hear it from you.”
