“I think this was the perfect choice.”
I don’t know how long we lay like that, both of us just staring at the sky and while the waves crash on the beach below us. Peaceful doesn’t even begin to describe how being out here feels—I could easily fall asleep under the stars without worrying about anything. It’s just so relaxing and the sound of the ocean in the distance is soothing. You can tell the resort was designed to take advantage of these little things: I’ve never heard of a resort putting a bed outside, but lying here right now it all makes perfect sense. It’s so relaxing and quiet that I know if I don’t get up soon, I’m going to end up falling asleep out here.
“I should head to bed,” I say after yawning.
I start to sit up, but Nicholas grasps my hand gently and pulls me back down. I lay back, his arm under my neck and instead of looking up at the stars, he is now looking at me, his head just above me. We stare at each other for what feels like several minutes, before he moves closer to me and captures my lips in his. The kiss starts off gentle but quickly becomes something more, like most of our kisses do any more. Within seconds, our hands are all over each other, one of his working on untying my robe while I run mine through his hair. I tug at his hair and grasp the arm that is holding him over me as he ravishes my mouth. He groans and pulls away from me when he finally succeeds in untying my robe. He cautiously pulls back the robe, his eyes never leaving mine, almost as if he is worried that I’m going to stop him. I’m too busy trying to figure out how to breathe again to stop him from doing anything right now.
“God, Kenzie, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he says, as he looks down at me, taking in my outfit for the first time.
Last night was more of a quick glance before I came to bed, tonight, though I feel like he is really looking at my outfit. I don’t need to look down to know the nightie has ridden up quite a bit—I wouldn’t be surprised if he can see the matching thong I’m wearing, especially since it was barely covered it to begin with. His hand gently runs down the length of my nightie before slowly heading back up towards my face. This simple touch has my body heating up within seconds, it turns me on more than I even thought was possible, even though he hasn’t touched my bare skin… yet.
He looks at me for permission when his hand reaches the lace barely covering my breasts—I nod in answer to his unasked question. His lips are back on mine just as his hand slips beneath the lace fabric, cupping my breasts. I can’t hold back the moan when he teases my nipple with his fingers: my body feels like it is on fire right now. I’ve never been so turned on in my life. I’ve never wanted to be with someone as much as I want to be with Nicholas right now.
His hand slips from my breast and roams my body, feeling every inch that he can possibly reach in this position. His lips leave mine and he slowly places little kisses down my neck before shifting his weight again so he slides down me a little further. As he moves, I can feel his hardness against my thigh, leaving me no doubt that I’m not the only one affected by what we’re doing right now. Knowing how he feels right now, knowing that he is turned on right now, erases the doubts I had earlier when I was getting changed.
“Nicholas…” I gasp when his lips find my bare nipple. He squeezes my hand before releasing it to pull the other side of my nightie away so both of my breasts are exposed to the cool night air. He alternates between nipples, sucking and nipping them, leaving me a writhing mess beneath him. When his other hand slips between my legs, I nearly lose it.
“I love how responsive you are,” he whispers, pulling away from my nipples momentarily.
I blush at the bluntness of his words. He takes one of my nipples back in his mouth, but his eyes don’t leave mine when his hand moves my thong aside so he can explore my sex. I’m more turned on than ever before; I never knew it could be like this, that it could feel this… amazing. It’s so different than anything I’ve ever felt before; I don’t know if it’s because it’s not him or if it’s because of Nicholas.
He shifts his weight again, this time sliding down me further; he places light kisses long my nightie, pulling it up a little when he reaches the end of it. He kisses my bare stomach, his tongue tracing the outline of my thong against my skin. His fingers find the ties on the side of thong, he tugs at them gently until they come untied. He lifts his head from me, looking down our eyes meet. This time I don’t know what Nicholas is hoping to see; maybe he’s waiting for me to tell him that I’m not comfortable with moving things forward between us. I don’t tell him that—I can’t tell him that. Because right now, the only thing I’m thinking is how amazing it would feel if he were to make love to me. I know we’re not there yet, and with how complicated things already are between us we may never be, but that doesn’t stop my mind from thinking about it. When he realizes I’m not going to tell him to stop, he lowers himself until his lips once again find my bare skin.
With a quick flick of his wrist, the thong is pushed away, leaving me completely exposed to him. My skin heats up even more when I realize how open I am right now; I’ve never had a guy this close to me. I gasp in surprise when his kisses move lower until I feel his tongue exploring my sex. His hands are on my thighs, opening me even further to him as he explores every inch of me. I’m grasping the blanket below me as his actions push me to a whole new level.
“Nicholas!” I cry out when he takes my clit into his mouth, sucking and teasing it. I’m on the edge of what is likely going to be the biggest orgasm of my entire life; of course, I’ve only had a handful in my entire life, but I can tell this one is different. Everything with Nicholas is different—everything he does feels different.
When he slips two fingers into me and presses up, hitting that spot deep inside of me, I lose it. I come apart screaming his name embarrassingly loud. His mouth soon replaces his fingers, his tongue thoroughly exploring my core. I just start to come down from my orgasm when he finds my clit once again.
“Nicholas… I… can’t…” I pant as my body goes into complete sensory overload.
“You taste even better than I imagined, Kenzie.”
Not only does the bluntness of his words take me by surprise, but I’m also taken back by the fact that he is saying he imagined doing… this. I knew things were changing between us after we went to The Summit but after what happened later that night, I thought things would never move further between us. I thought he would always look at me differently, that he would realize just how screwed up my past really was.
“OH!” I gasp when he latches back onto my clit, bringing me right back to the edge, surprising me.
“Nicholas…” I moan when his one hand reaches up to find my breast, his fingers immediately begin teasing my nipple while his other hand is on my sex. I’m back to clutching the blanket below me; my body moves against Nicholas on its own accord. I’m completely overwhelmed with need…
“Come for me, baby,” Nicholas slips two fingers inside of me, thrusting deep until he hits that spot that causes me immediately to fall apart.
I let go of the blanket, instead, holding his head against me as I ride out another intense orgasm. With one final nip at my sensitive nub he moves down further, his tongue teasing my opening before thrusting inside. His hands hold my thighs open as he takes his time lapping every last drop. His movements are slow, as if he could lie between my legs all night, exploring me thoroughly before slowly kissing his way back up to me. He lies next to me, pulling me close to him before kissing me deeply. I can still taste myself on his lips, I’m not quite sure what I think about that. He doesn’t say anything but slips his arm under my pillow before urging me to roll on my slide. Once I do, he pulls me closer to him, with my back to his chest and rests his arm across my stomach. Neither of us say anything, not because there is an awkwardness between us, but because there isn’t a need to say anything.
He reaches down and pulls the blanket over us before lying back down next to me. His one arm is under my pillow while the other rests across my stomach. I have a brief t
hought of finding my underwear and redressing, but when he leans over and kisses my cheek, the only thing I can think about is how right his arms feel around me.
“Kenzie? Kenzie wake up…” I hear a voice pulling me from a deep sleep.
“Hmmmmm?” I moan, not quite ready to wake up.
“Kenzie! Come on, wake up, we have to leave in a few minutes!”
“Hmmmm?” I reluctantly open my eyes to find Nicholas kneeling in front of me. It takes me a moment to realize that I’m still outside on the bed where we… slept last night. The memory comes rushing back to me and I feel my face blush deeply.
“I put a set of clothes in the bathroom for you; I need you to get change and do anything else you need to do so we can leave in a few minutes.”
“It’s still dark out, where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise, go get dressed.”
I reluctantly sit up and stretch, at which point my bathrobe opens and I watch Nicholas’s eyes fly to my chest. I look down, thankful that at least my breasts didn’t pop out of the nightie. I quickly tie my bathrobe back up before standing up. He takes my hand as I step from the platform that the bed is on.
“I can’t believe we slept outside all night,” I can’t even remember falling asleep, but obviously at some point we did.
“I didn’t want to wake you to bring you inside and since it wasn’t cold, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to spend the night out here.”
“What time is it anyway?”
“Just before five.”
“UGH.”
“Go get changed, don’t worry about breakfast, we’ll be having that in a little while.”
Nicholas escorts me to the bedroom with his hand on my lower back the entire time. I’m keenly aware that I’m not wearing any underwear under my nightie. If he remembers this, he doesn’t say anything about it.
“I put everything I thought you might need on the bathroom sink. I have coffee started, but we need to leave in a few minutes if we’re going to be there on time.”
“I’ll be quick.”
Surprisingly, he found everything I would need, including panties and a bra which makes me blush, although it really shouldn’t, given what happened between us last night. I quickly change into the Capri pants and short sleeve shirt that he picked out before using the bathroom and brushing my teeth. Since I don’t have time for a shower, I throw my hair into a quick ponytail. When I walk out to the main room, Nicholas is waiting for me with a small cup of coffee. I don’t tell him I need something about twice this size right now because of how tired I am. I don’t know what time we fell asleep last night, but I know it was late.
Nicholas drives the golf cart to another section of the island that we haven’t yet been to. As we drive up a long dirt driveway, I see horse stables and several horses in a fenced in area.
“Are we going horseback riding?” I ask in surprise.
“I thought since you seemed to enjoy it before, that we would go while we’re here.”
After a quick lesson, I’m on a calm horse, slowly walking down a hill following Nicholas. Like before, the horse seems to know where it’s going, and I don’t have to do very much. We trot through the woods; it’s still fairly dark out, but it’s light enough to follow the trail. Within a few minutes we come out of the woods onto a beautiful beach with no one around us. My horse follows the other horse over to a large tree, where he easily dismounts from his horse before tying it up. He ties mine up next to his before taking my hand to help me down.
“This is beautiful out here,” I take in the sky which is just starting to change colors over the ocean.
“Our breakfast over here is waiting, we should be able to sit and watch the sunrise as we eat,” he explains gesturing to the picnic basket that is further away from the horse.
I follow him over to the small picnic table where a basket is waiting for us. We both unpack the basket with fruit, muffins, yogurt, juice and thankfully more coffee. We sit next to one another on the same side of the table so we can watch the sunrise over the ocean. It truly is amazing to watch the sky turn so many different colors just before watching the sun rise from the horizon. I’ve never experienced anything like it before, and I don’t think anything will top it. Not only are we watching this beautiful thing happen, but we are doing it alone. There isn’t a single person around that I can see.
“That was really amazing, thank you,” I lean over and kiss him. What starts as a simple kiss, quickly turns into more when I feel his tongue at my lips. I moan against his mouth as he pulls me against him so I’m sitting between his straddled legs on the bench. When the horses make a loud noise, we both pull away from each other, laughing at the distraction.
“Come on, we still have the rest of the trail,” leading me back to the horse, he assists me in climbing on before readying the horses.
We spend the next couple of hours exploring the island on horseback. The horses led us on a route they are obviously very familiar with, but one that included walking on the beach, through the woods and even along a small stream. The entire time we were out, we never saw another person, which is something you definitely don’t expect. I couldn’t help but think how nice it was to get away from the paparazzi that I know are waiting for us back in New York.
We spend the rest of the day at the villa except for dinner when we venture to the main area with the restaurants.
“Mr. Parker, Mrs. Parker,” Carter greets us just as we are seated for dinner.
“Carter, Julie, how are you?” Nicholas asks.
“Very good, sir. Thank you again for—”
“Don’t mention it, Julie, you deserve this vacation just as much as Carter does,” Nicholas interrupts.
We chat for a few minutes before Julie and Carter head back to their room. We order drinks and dinner, before discussing our plans for the last few days of our trip. We make plans to go kayaking and hiking, but otherwise, we don’t decide on anything firm. I think Nicholas is enjoying not having a schedule to follow like he does when we are in New York.
“Shit!” he exclaims, glancing at his phone.
“What’s wrong?”
“Seems I need to deal with something when we get back to the villa.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, we… there’s a company that I’ve been looking at signing for the last few weeks. I thought this could wait until we got back, but it seems like there is another company also submitting a proposal, so we need to move quickly.”
“Do you need to go back to New York?”
“No! I just need to spend a few hours tonight reviewing spreadsheets and a report that Alex sent. I need to decide if we should make a formal proposal or let it go.”
“We can head out now. Let’s just have them box up dessert.”
“Okay.”
For the first time since we arrived in Fiji, I go to bed alone after changing into yet another revealing nightie. Nicholas comes to bed at some point during the night; I only know this because he is there when I wake up to use the bathroom before falling back to sleep.
Chapter 16
Nicholas
Last night I ended up having to work until long after Kenzie went to bed, and then once I finally finished, I came to bed to find her lying on top of the blankets in this… sheer little thing. With the moon light shining through the French doors I could almost entirely see through the outfit she was wearing. God, all I wanted to do was wake her up and get inside of her. I haven’t been able to keep my hands off of her this trip—it’s like I need to touch her. I’ve never been the touchy feely type; I’ve never felt the need to touch a woman unless we’re fucking. Yet, with Kenzie, I find myself looking for reasons just to touch her. Whether it’s holding hands, like fucking teenagers when we walk, or my hand on her back, I just can’t help but touch her.
It took everything in me not to wake her up, strip off the little outfit she was wearing and sink deep inside of her. I didn’t though… part of me is still convinced
that if we cross that line, things will change between us. She’s not the type of woman who can separate sex and emotions, I know she’s not. I can’t have things getting messy between us… messier than they already are.
But waking up like this, with her wrapped around me, makes me wonder if we haven’t already crossed that line. Yet again, we had somehow drifted towards each other during the night and were now sleeping in the center of the bed pressed up against each other. Her head was on my pillow, her leg rested on top of mine, and her hand under my shirt on my stomach.
I slip out of the bed but not before taking one final look at her sleeping peaceful, free from any nightmares. I can’t help but wish things were different between us—that this contract didn’t exist, that there wasn’t so much on the line with it. That I could give her everything she wants. That I could give her that emotional connection she would want if we slept together. That it wouldn’t just be fucking to me… that I could give her something more like she deserves. That it wouldn’t complicate things even more than they already are between us.
I head out to the living room and check my email. Alex confirmed he was available to talk today about the proposal, which shouldn’t take long. I respond to a few other emails, making notes of various things that I need to touch base with him about when we talk.
“You’re up early,” Kenzie comes out of the bedroom, thankfully fully dressed and no longer wearing the nearly see through nightie from last night.
“Work,” I shrug. “I wasn’t able to get everything done last night.”
The Arrangement Duet Box Set Page 48