A part of our foreplay, so to speak.
“Bathing suits seem kind of silly,” she remarks with an impish grin.
“I’ll close my eyes while you disrobe if it helps,” I offer gallantly, but really… I’m going to watch and she knows it.
“Whatever,” she responds cheekily. Then I almost swallow my tongue when she steps back, reaches down to her hips, and tugs her dress straight up her body.
Oh, man… her lingerie is on point and I take every bit of it in as the material moves past her shoulders. Butter-yellow lace panties sit high on her hips, low on her belly, and are completely translucent, proving, once again, she’s a real redhead. A matching strapless bra covers her breasts, which have fast become one of my favorite places on her body. When her dress is free and tossed to the bed, she reaches behind her to undo the clasp to her bra.
Most shocking, she does so while maintaining eye contact, a feat I admire as I know she’s still having some shy reservations around me.
I have to brace my feet apart to hold my ground, otherwise, I might pounce on her. My entire body goes tight as she shimmies out of those little panties to stand before me gloriously naked.
Clarke nods as she asks, “Going to join me in the pool?”
I scramble into action, kicking off my shoes. She turns from me, moving over to the edge of the pool that snakes into our room from the outside patio underneath a glass wall that opens fully to the outdoors. Undoing the latch, she slides the door, which comes in four panels and essentially removes the entire wall that separates us from the balcony. I’m just working at my belt when she starts stepping down into the small lap pool. As she had not turned on the lights, that damnable dark water covers up her body as she sinks farther down.
I refuse to be embarrassed by my own hard-on that sprang forth while watching her undress, figuring the cool water will tame it into submission. When I’m naked, I follow her into the pool.
The pool is only about five feet in depth, something I can easily walk the length of. Clarke is barely over five feet, so she has to move on her tippy toes or swim it, but I find her at the far end that extends onto the balcony.
The way the rooms are situated—built into an incline of a mountain with privacy walls on either side—we could be laying out on the balcony deck buck naked and no one would see us.
The rooms to our left and right are completely shielded, but sound carries so I keep my voice low as I move to her end of the pool. “Did you want anything else to drink tonight?”
She shakes her head, spreading her arms out along the ledge of the pool behind her. “Just some water before we go to sleep. I have a feeling we’re both going to be a little hungover.”
That’s the truth. I’ve got a good buzz going on now, and I know she does as well. I credit part of that with giving her the courage to strip down in front of me for the first time without my assistance and for us to do nothing more than take a cooling dip in the pool.
I wade through the water, which barely hits my shoulders, and come to stop in front of her. Bending my knees, I dip my entire body under the water and when I come up, I wipe the water from my eyes, seeing Clarke’s smile. The lighting out here is strictly moonlight and two dim sconces, one on each privacy wall to our left and right, but I can tell she’s feeling mellow and relaxed.
I actually am, too, despite the heat that had been coursing through me over her naked body moments ago. Slipping my hands under her arms, I grip onto the wall and keep a foot in between us. I can feel her legs treading slightly between my own, her feet sometimes brushing against my shins.
“Can I ask you a question?” she says, her arms now moving and her hands coming to rest on my shoulders.
“Of course,” I say.
“After dinner tonight, you and Rafe were talking about your dads. Your dad died?”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice dipping low as I force the acknowledgment up and out. “A few years ago.”
Her hands glide back and forth along the skin of my shoulders, almost in a soothing way. “You don’t have to share with me if you don’t want to.”
My hands move under the cool water to her waist. I consider just kissing her to move on from this subject, letting my actions be the answer to her curiosities about my dad. It’s going to lead to more about my mom, two subjects I don’t like to talk about. The only reason Rafe is privy, and even he doesn’t know the full story, is I knew he was in pain and needed the guidance.
Still, as I look at Clarke’s face and see nothing but concern mixed with curiosity—not the salacious type but rather born of a need to know me a bit deeper—I realize I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of by letting her know about my past. The connection I’ve formed with Clarke has deepened day by day, and I have no reason to hide anything from her.
“My dad was a drunk while I was growing up,” I say. By the way her eyes grow round, I can tell I’ve caught her completely off guard. “He wasn’t mean or violent when he drank. Just extremely apathetic. He didn’t care about his family, me in particular. He drank a lot… every day after teaching at school… and he’d just sit in his office and ignore my mom and me. Now, granted… my mom was a drinker too, but she did not ignore me. Quite the opposite… she tried to overcompensate for my father’s lack of interest. She was oppressive, really.”
“I’m… so sorry,” Clarke says, aghast at my revelation.
I lean in, kissing her softly. “You don’t need to apologize. And his drinking really wasn’t the worst of it. Turns out, he ended up having an affair and falling in love with another woman. He left my mother and me when I was fourteen. He got sober—a requirement from his new wife—and started an entire new life without us.”
“You said you have a sister,” she remembers.
“She’s twelve years old now.”
“Wow,” she murmurs. “And you’re not close?”
I gaze into the starry night, seeing the bay sparkling in the moonlight below. “You know how I can quote the classics? Well, that was my pathetic attempt to have a relationship with my dad after he left us. I started reading all his favorites, which he’d left behind. I mean, the man loved those books like nothing in the world, yet he left them all behind when he started a new life. I’d read them, memorize passages, then I’d call him to try to discuss them with him. And he was sober, you know? So I thought he’d enjoy a mutual interest with me, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was his new wife and baby daughter. I spent years trying to have a relationship with him over those fucking books, and it was like trying to pull teeth.”
“And you eventually gave up,” she surmises, sadness evident not only in her tone, but also in the way her arms start to gather in tighter around me.
“He never let me be a part of his new family, so I never got the chance to be close to my sister. When I was eighteen… I just packed the books away in a box and that was when I let my dad go. We rarely spoke after that.”
“I know he’s dead, but he sounds like an ass,” she says hotly.
“Yeah,” I agree, her offense on my behalf making me chuckle. “He was an ass. Not a good father at all. At least not to me.”
“But you were with him when he died?” she guesses, based on the statements I’d made to Rafe.
“He was pretty sick when he reached out,” I say, remembering how shocking it was to not only hear from him, but also to hear he was dying. “I think he was trying to make amends before he died, so I went to see him. He was under hospice care, and I stayed there until he died. He apologized, and I accepted it.”
“That was very noble of you,” she murmurs.
I shrug, because it really wasn’t that transformative for me. His apology was too late, but I’d graciously accepted it to give the man peace. It was the advice I’d imparted to Rafe… help his dad with the transition as best he could.
While I’m glad I was able to freely tell Clarke this, showing her a little bit more of the man I’ve asked her to trust, I’m also tired of the conversatio
n. There’s never anything good in remembering my father didn’t care about me in any way until the very end when he only wanted to ease his conscience.
Nor is there any use in telling her that my mom wasn’t much better, sinking more into alcoholism after my dad left and that we have virtually no real relationship now.
What I do know is I have a beautiful, sweet, and caring woman in my arms who is very naked. I also haven’t seen her yawn once since we got back to the room, so I’m not feeling all that gallant right now thinking she’s better served by getting a good night’s sleep.
My theory is we can sleep in tomorrow.
Dipping down slightly, I move my hands from her waist to her armpits, lifting her out of the water. She gives a startled yelp, pushing down hard on my shoulders for leverage. Within moments, I have her ass sitting on the edge of the pool. Water sluices down her naked body. I put a large hand to the center of her chest, forcing her to lie down on the wooden decking of our balcony.
She resists for a moment, but ultimately gives in.
And as she slowly leans back, using her elbows to help lower herself down, I note her legs willingly parting so I can step in between them.
The most perfect way to end the evening.
CHAPTER 19
Clarke
I’m sleeping so deeply the first thing I register is irritation that I’m being brought out of it. A sound plays in my head… repetitively at the same pace.
There it is again.
Tap, tap, tap.
I growl in my throat, burrowing deeper against the warm skin and solid muscle of Aaron’s arms surrounding me.
“Make it go away,” I mutter grumpily, because there is no way in hell I’m ready to wake up. Someone who shall not be named but who is insanely handsome and very good with his hands, tongue, and other body parts kept me up until the wee hours of the morning.
I feel a rumble in Aaron’s chest, realizing it’s him chuckling, and I vaguely recognize the sensation of his lips pressing into the top of my head.
Then he’s gone, a startling chill left where his body was, and I’m fully awake. I sit partially up in the bed—naked, of course—and press an elbow into the mattress. Rubbing at my eyes, I hastily reach over to the nightstand to put my glasses on so I can clearly see Aaron’s gorgeous naked backside walking from the bed toward the door. He nabs a bathrobe from the closet as he passes, and I frown as his body is covered.
Oh, God… I’ve turned into a certifiable sex fiend, and it’s all his fault.
I stretch as Aaron answers the door, noting he doesn’t open it very far to afford me privacy, but I still pull the sheet up and over me. I give a stretch, feeling all the ways in which my body is sore from our all-night lovemaking.
Aaron murmurs something to the person on the other side and I flop back down onto the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. When Aaron comes back to bed, I wonder what would happen if I made a move on him.
I’ve never done that before, as he’s always the first to initiate.
Would he be receptive?
Would he be too tired?
Would he think I’m loose and amoral?
I snicker at that last thought. I’ve come to know Aaron pretty well over the last few weeks we’ve spent time together, and I’m pretty sure he’d welcome an advance from me.
I think I’ll do it.
But shit… should I get up and brush my teeth? Plus, I have to pee. While I’m getting more at ease being naked in front of him, would it look weird for me to get up and jet quickly into the bathroom?
The sound of the door closing has my head popping off the pillow and Aaron strides back to the bed. In his hands is a picnic basket with a card on top.
“What’s that?” I ask.
He shrugs. “No clue. It was just delivered, and we were told to open it immediately.”
I scramble up in the bed, bringing the sheet with me to cover my breasts. Aaron places a knee to the mattress, then climbs in beside me. I try to ignore the way the robe parts, giving me a peek of golden chest above and his magnificent endowment down below.
He smiles. “You look so cute in the morning with your hair all messed up and those glasses on.”
I roll my eyes, scooting in closer to him, then nod at the envelope. “Open it up.”
The envelope is square, white, and secured through a hole in the corner via a pretty yellow ribbon tied to the handle of the picnic basket. He removes it, opens the flap, and pulls out a thick piece of cardstock with a handwritten note.
Dear Aaron and Clarke,
Please join us at the seaside bluff overlooking Caneel Bay at ten sharp for a very special gathering of friends. Until then, enjoy breakfast on us, which is provided in the basket.
See you at ten.
Love,
Tacker and Nora
“Screw that,” Aaron mutters, tossing the card over his shoulder and setting the basket on the floor. Whipping my way, he pounces on me. Burying his face into my neck and pushing the sheet off my body, he murmurs in a way that makes my entire body melt, “I love my friends and all, but I’d rather spend all morning in bed with you.”
I laugh, broken by a thoroughly horrid giggle as his stubble tickles my neck, and let my fingers dive in. His mouth feels good, and I know how very much he likes to use his mouth on me everywhere.
But a thought strikes me. “You don’t think this is something more meaningful than just a gathering of friends, do you?”
Aaron lifts his head with a frown. “Like what?”
“Like,” I drawl with a slight shrug. “It seems wedding fever is sort of in the air with you Vengeance people. Maybe they decided to just get married.”
“They’re not even engaged,” he replies, his frown deepening.
I give him a slight punch to the shoulder, accompanied with a smirk. “For someone who preaches about spontaneity all the time, you don’t seem to understand it yourself. You don’t have to be engaged to get married, you dork. You can just decide to go for it.”
Aaron considers this for a thoughtful moment, then shakes his head in vigorous denial. “No way. They’ve only been together for like… four months.”
“So?” I reply blandly. “My parents dated less than two months before they got married.”
His gaze goes a little fuzzy as he considers this, but then he refocuses. “No. Just no way. Tacker’s got too much wedding baggage to do something like this so suddenly.”
My chin pulls inward with confusion. “Wedding baggage?”
Aaron rolls off me, balancing on his arm and his hand lazily comes to my stomach to rest there. His expression is somber. “Tacker has come through a lot of painful stuff over the last few years. He was piloting a small aircraft with his fiancée aboard. They crashed, and she died. This was before he came to the Vengeance. And through most of last season, he just spiraled. Was really drowning in grief he couldn’t process.”
I had briefly heard this story before—from Aaron in passing, but Nora had also mentioned it the first day we were here. I hadn’t asked any questions, though, as that was something so personal I didn’t want to pry.
“He was so lost,” Aaron muses. He’s obviously sharing the story with me, but I can tell he’s a million miles away and lost in his memories. He and Tacker are best friends, so I’m sure Aaron witnessed the worst. “I wasn’t sure he’d ever recover, and while I know he loves Nora with all his heart and soul, wouldn’t he still be terrified at the thought of marriage? Wouldn’t he be scared it could happen again?”
“So, you think it’s too soon?” I ask.
He throws it back on me, clearly not sure about anything. “Isn’t it?”
“Not if they love each other and they’re sure about it.” Of this, I’m certain. I believe when something is real, a person knows it deep down inside. And I know this because if I’m honest with myself, the terrible little secret I carry around with me is I wasn’t sure about giving my virginity up to Tripp on that stupid reality show. I’d had d
oubts, but I felt so pressured to play the game.
I’ll never make that mistake again.
Suddenly, Aaron explodes upward, gazing at me with wonder. “They’re going to get married.”
I grin. He seems certain of it now, and his goofy expression of joy is beautiful. It speaks to how much he loves his friend, Tacker.
“Can’t believe the rat bastard didn’t share this with me, though,” Aaron muses, still grinning with affection in his tone.
“Maybe it was so spontaneous they just decided last night?” I suggest.
Aaron doesn’t respond, but glances past me to the bedside clock. “It’s almost eight.”
I look between the clock and Aaron, whose expression changes drastically in just that second or two it takes my head to swivel one way and then back again. His eyes are dark, glittering, and predatory.
A shiver of excitement runs through me. I decide to be bold, letting my fingers play at the collar of his robe. “I’m going to go pee. Then I think you and I have plenty of time to bang out an orgasm or two before we head to the bluff.”
Aaron’s gaze lights up with an almost feverish glitter as he practically pushes me out of bed. “Hurry. We also have whatever’s in that basket to eat, too.”
Laughing, I’m not even the slightest bit self-conscious as I slip out of bed buck naked and practically prance to the bathroom. I can feel the weight of Aaron’s gaze on me, and it feels good.
♦
As we walk the paths of the resort toward the same bluff Brooke and Bishop got married on just yesterday, we don’t pass anyone else. This seems to indicate if Tacker and Nora are indeed getting married, the invitations that went out were limited.
We traverse up a gentle rise, the bluff at the top. I take in the handful of people. By doing a quick perusal and pairing it with the recent hockey knowledge Aaron’s been teaching me, it appears that only the Vengeance first line was invited, along with the team’s owner.
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