by Lauren Rowe
“A very feisty mood,” he says, taking my breath away.
Crystal’s movement at the far end of the patio behind Zander’s shoulder catches my attention. She’s speed-walking in her dripping-wet bikini toward the exit of the pool area. . . and then quietly slipping out. “Crystal just left the party,” I whisper.
“Gee, I wonder where she’s going?” Zander says.
We share a knowing smile. It’s the worst kept secret on the tour: Brett and Crystal have been banging since the night of Reed’s party and they’re showing no signs of slowing down.
I press my pelvis into Zander’s underneath the water, hoping to inspire him to decide to fuck me the way Brett’s apparently about to fuck Crystal upstairs. “So, did you and Keane talk about the bet, by any chance, Mr. Bodyguard?”
Zander’s nostrils flare as my body rubs against his hard-on. “We did.”
My clit is throbbing like crazy as Zander’s erection grinds against me just right. “And?”
“And the bet continues.”
“Boo. Collusion.”
Zander chuckles. “Nope. I put my eyeballs right up to the screen and answered every one of Keane’s questions and he determined I was telling him the truth: I’m not in love with you.”
“Bullshit. You’re madly in love with me and we both know it.”
Zander grinds his hard dick into me slowly—like he’s fucking me on a lazy Sunday morning after having fucked me raw the prior night. “Nope,” he says, his erection pressing right against my bull’s-eye. “Apparently, there’s one pickle on planet earth who’s resistant to your endless charms, Aloha Carmichael. Sorry to disappoint you, Little Miss Pickle Collector.”
He’s such a liar. A sexy liar whom I want to lick from head to toe. I press myself even tighter around his torso. “I’ve got news for you, Z: that pickle ain’t resisting nothin’.”
He laughs. “My pickle? Not so much. My heart? Yes.”
I lick my lips. “Offer accepted. I’ll gladly take your pickle today and snatch up your heart tomorrow.”
The winning duo from my earlier chicken match bounds over to us, splashing and shit-talking and challenging us to a game. Zander shoots me a rueful look before turning to the duo and launching into an enthusiastic round of trash-talking. But I can’t join in on the fun. I’m too aroused. Too desperate. I don’t want to play chicken. I don’t want to do anything but get fucked by Zander Shaw.
“Come on, hula girl! Let’s beat these damn fools!” Zander bellows, drawing me out of my horny stupor. He guides me off his chest and effortlessly swivels me around to his back. “Climb aboard, baby. It’s whoopin’ time.”
I sigh, wishing I were hearing those words from him—climb aboard, baby—in an entirely different, and naked, context. But, of course, I do as I’m told. As he lowers himself into the water, I slide my thighs onto his broad shoulders on either side of his head, thereby pressing my pulsing, aching, desperate clit into the back of his strong neck.
Zander grips my thighs and rises to his full, glorious height. “Show no mercy, hula girl!”
I grip his head. “I know of no other way, Shaggy Swaggy.”
And away we go. There’s splashing, pushing, and wrangling galore with the other duo. Shit-talking and squealing and laughing, too, as well as cheers and boos from onlookers. And, finally, after a fierce battle, Zander and I prevail over our insipid opponents. Of course. Because he’s a gladiator and I’m a warrior princess and together we’re magic. But if I thought winning the match would keep me from being dunked into the pool, I was sorely mistaken. Right after our opponents are toppled, Zander whoops, tilts back like a felled redwood, and gracelessly crashes both of us into the pool.
My sudden entry into the water sends my bikini bottoms yanking down, but before I’ve got them back into place, Zander is already scooping me into his arms and twirling me around.
The minute Zander stops spinning me, I hastily pull my bikini bottoms up, trying to keep my lady bits from peeking out. But I’m clearly not fast enough because Zander’s gaze is squarely on my pelvis.
“Aloha,” he whispers, his voice tight.
Thinking my vag must be hanging out, I look down and discover what’s got Zander’s attention: a dastardly scab—the healing mark from a deep, vertical scratch on my hip that’s now plainly visible due to the displacement of my bikini bottoms. Quickly, I snap my suit over the mark... but Zander is a bloodhound on the scent.
“How’d you get that scratch?”
“Huh?”
“The scratch on your hip. It’s healing well, but how’d you get it in the first place?”
“Oh, that.” I roll my eyes. “During a costume change backstage in Phoenix. I was walking past a wardrobe rack and there was this metal thingy sticking out and it got me.”
“As you were walking past?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“In Phoenix?”
“Yep.”
“I saw that scratch on opening night in LA—when I was helping you shower after Reed’s party.”
“Oh. Yeah. I meant LA. Pfft. All the shows begin to blur together after a while.”
“So if I asked Yana about this, she’d remember the incident?”
“I don’t think Yana was there.”
“But you said it was a costume change.”
“I don’t think Yana was there that one time. I don’t remember who was there.”
Zander’s eyes are like lasers. He knows as well as I do that Yana, my costume mistress backstage, never misses a step.
“And you were walking past a wardrobe rack?”
My stomach clenches. Why is he so fixated on this? “Yep. I was in my teeny-tiny undies doing a rushed costume change. In fact, now I remember: I was so rushed, I didn’t even wait for Yana to get there—and there was this little pokey thing sticking out of the wardrobe rack and it dug really deep into my hip as I walked past. Hurt like a motherfucker at the time, but it doesn’t hurt now. I’d honestly forgotten about it until you pointed it out. It seems to be healing pretty well, luckily.”
“Did someone put ointment on it? Who helped you after it happened?”
My heart is pounding. “Nobody helped me. There was no time. I had to get back onstage. And then I didn’t mention it to anyone because I just forgot about it. It was just a scratch, Zander. No big deal. I know you’re my bodyguard and all, but I promise nobody will hold you responsible for literally every little scratch I might get, especially the ones I get from being a klutz.” I smile but Zander doesn’t return the gesture. He just stares into my eyes for a long beat, his jaw frozen, like he’s waiting for me to say more. Like he’s waiting for me to confess that I’m full of shit. But I say nothing. At least, not about my traitorous scratch. “So, hey, Shaggy Swaggy,” I say brightly. “How about you give me a little piggyback ride around the pool? Or, even better, you give me a piggyfront ride so we can continue what we started before our chicken match.”
Still, Zander doesn’t speak. His eyes are laser beams, boring holes into my face. His gaze is unsettling. Unrelenting. Unconvinced. He’s a PET scan in search of cancer cells. An ultraviolet light in search of blood splatters on a murder suspect’s T-shirt. But, fuck him, he can glare at me all he likes. I got scratched walking past a wardrobe rack and that’s all there is to it.
“Piggyfront ride, it is,” I say. With a big smile, I slide my arms around Zander’s neck and arrange myself around him like a baby in a Baby Bjorn, the same as usual. And, instantly, I’m a horny little monkey climbing my favorite tree, once again. I press myself into Zander’s wet, slick, muscular body. “Now, where were we, sexy man?”
Zander lets out a shaky breath and I know I’ve got him—hook, line, and boner. He’s not thinking about my stupid scratch anymore. He’s thinking about my almost naked body pressing against his. The sensation of our wet flesh rubbing delectably under the water. The nearness of our lips.
“Aloha,” Zander whispers.
His erection rises between us and pre
sses against my happy spot. He nestles himself firmly at my entrance and exhales a shaky breath.
Oh, God, all of a sudden, I can’t stand this game of cat and mouse another minute. I want him to push the crotch of my bikini bottoms to the side, to bare my entrance to him, and burrow himself inside me right here and now. Nobody will see. The pool lights underneath the water have turned everyone in the pool into darkened silhouettes in the night.
Zander begins grinding into me like before, like he’s fucking me on a lazy Sunday morning, and, once again, jolts of pleasure shoot straight to my tip. I moan and he begins grinding me with even more enthusiasm.
Oh, God, I can’t take it anymore. Yes, I promised to hold back and let him make the first move, but I’m hanging on by a thread here. In fact, I’ve been hanging on by a thread for weeks.
Still grinding against him under the water, I skim my lips against his cheek and bite his ear, taking his diamond stud into my mouth and sucking on it. “Hey, Mr. Magic Fingers,” I whisper into his ear. “Hypothetically, do you think you could make a girl come in a swimming pool by touching nothing but the outside of her bikini bottoms?”
He slides a palm to my lower back, just above my ass. He’s trembling. “Hypothetically? Yes. I’m sure of it.”
“Even a girl who’s never had an orgasm with partner?”
“Absolutely.”
I grind myself against his bulge harder, until my clit is throbbing almost painfully. “Prove it.”
He exhales sharply... and, as he does, I can palpably feel the last shreds of his self-restraint leaving him. His body twitching, he wordlessly slides a hand between my legs over the fabric of my bathing suit bottoms—hallelujah!—and when his expert fingers find my hard, swollen tip, he doesn’t hesitate. He begins rubbing the bud around and around in tiny circles. Instantly, he’s ignited me. I groan at the incredible sensation and Zander replies with a long, shuddering, sexy moan.
“Oh, God,” I choke out.
“Good?”
I dig my fingernails into his broad shoulders. “So good.”
He doesn’t let up. He just keeps on going. And, soon, I’m on the cusp. I moan loudly. So loudly, he clamps his free hand over my mouth. And that simple act turns me on. I bite his fingers. Lick them. Gnaw at him. And all the while his fingers are doing magical things to me underneath the water.
“Here it comes,” I blurt. I inhale sharply, stiffen in Zander’s arms, and blissfully come. It’s the first time a man has brought me to orgasm in my life. And it feels amazing.
When the delicious waves of pleasure cease, I open my eyes to find Zander’s dark eyes smoldering at me like burning coals. He removes his hand from my crotch and I press my center enthusiastically into his hard-on, every fiber of my body yearning for him to penetrate me.
“Zander,” I purr, just as some dancers make a commotion nearby—a splashing commotion—that reminds me we’re not alone. I clear my throat and speak at full voice, loud enough for anyone nearby to overhear. “I think I’m done swimming for the night. You wanna come to my room to watch a movie, Zander?”
“That sounds great, Aloha,” Zander says, his rock hard dick pressing against me.
“Why don’t we head to our respective rooms, take showers and change into pajamas, and then meet at my room in, oh, about twenty?”
Zander pauses, just long enough to make me think he might throw on the brakes. But then he grinds his cock into me with a particularly enthusiastic thrust, squeezes my ass cheek with gusto, and says, “I’ll see you then.”
Chapter 28
Zander
I reach Aloha’s door, knowing full well I shouldn’t walk through it if I want to keep my dick in my pants and my heart in my chest. And maybe even if I want to keep my job. But, fuck it, there’s no turning back now. After seeing Aloha’s O face in the swimming pool and knowing I was the first man to see it... yeah, come what may—even if walking through that door ultimately leads to calamity for me, one way or another—wild horses couldn’t keep me from doing it.
I knock on Aloha’s door, and when she opens it, my shallow breathing hitches. She’s wearing pink boy shorts and a white tank top. No bra. Her face is scrubbed and moisturized. Her light brown skin is luminous. Her hair is a tangle of waves. She’s got a wicked gleam in her emerald eyes that tells me I’m toast. In short, she’s sexy as fuck.
“Welcome to my lair,” she says. She widens her door to me. “Entrez vous.”
My brain knows I shouldn’t do it, but Mr. Happy is running the show now.
I stride into the room.
“Would you like something to drink?” she asks.
I turn around to face her, my jaw tight. “No. I’m good.”
“Then let’s get into movie-watching position, shall we?” She literally leaps to the bed and then slowly crawls across it, arching her back and shoving her incredible ass into the air in her itty-bitty boy shorts as she goes. When she reaches the pillows at the head of the bed, she flips over onto her back, stretches her dancer’s legs out to full length, pats the bed next to her, and coos, “Come heeeere, Shaggy Swaggy. I’ve found the perfect movie for our viewing pleasure.”
Porn? The girl wants to watch a little porn before we get down to business? Not what I was expecting... but she’ll get no argument from me. My heart pounding like a jackhammer, I crawl onto the bed and settle myself next to her.
“Guess what movie I’ve selected for us?” she says seductively. “I’ll give you a hint: it’s a romantic comedy from the eighties.”
My eyebrows shoot up. Not what I was expecting. Did I misread this entire situation? Did Aloha actually invite me here to watch a movie?
With a little giggle, Aloha presses a button on her keyboard and the movie poster of her selection pops on her laptop: The Sure Thing.
Well, there it is. Plain as day. No more dancing around it.
Aloha indicates her screen. “I haven’t seen this one yet, but I’ve heard from a reliable source it’s a ‘can’t miss.’” She grins naughtily. “I’m dying to find out if my source is right about that.”
I take a deep breath. Shit. Now that this moment has finally arrived in no uncertain terms, now that my toes are hanging over the bitter edge of the cliff and there’s no denying it or walking away, it’s suddenly clear to me I can’t take this leap into the abyss—I can’t take this risk—until I get an answer to a riddle that’s been plaguing me for weeks now. A puzzle I’d pushed away and stuffed down but which reared its head in the pool again just now.
The thing is, if I’m gonna fuck Aloha—if I’m more than likely going to fall head over heels for the woman as my body enters hers—then I need to solve this riddle first. Because, as much as I wish it weren’t the case, I need to know the truth about the woman I’ll be falling for. Who the fuck is Aloha Leilani Carmichael?
I touch Aloha’s thigh and she visibly jolts with excitement. “I’ll do The Sure Thing to you if you answer one question first.”
Aloha bites her lip seductively and nods, apparently thinking I’m going to ask her something naughty. Something flirty and fun. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
I place my fingertip under Aloha’s chin. “How’d you get that scratch on your hip, Aloha?”
Her naughty smile vanishes. “I already told you how I got it.”
“You told me a lie about how you got it. This time, I want the truth.”
Aloha jerks her chin away from my finger, indignation overtaking her features. “If this is your idea of foreplay, Zander, I’m not impressed.”
I take a deep, steadying breath. “Actually, yes, this is my idea of foreplay.” I grasp her chin and guide her to look at me. “This is me wanting to know the real you—not the one you churn out on Twitter. Because the thing that turns me on the most, even more than the thought of peeling off those shorts of yours and sliding my fingers inside you and making you come, over and over again, is the idea of getting to do it to the real you.” I grunt with exasperation. “Aloha, i
f I’m gonna get inside you, whether it’s with my fingers, tongue, or dick—or with my very heart and soul—then I want to get inside you and not fucking ‘Aloha Carmichael.’ And that means I need you to drop your bullshit with me right now because I’m not gonna take this big a risk for the Twitter version of you.”
Her chest is heaving. Her eyes are blazing. Everything about her body language reminds me of a trapped animal. “You’re calling me a liar?”
“Yes. About this, I most certainly am.”
Her nostrils flare. “I told you: I walked past a wardrobe rack backstage.”
“My God, you’re pathological. Lying straight to my face again.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You are. And you want to know how I know that for a fact?” I lean forward, my jaw tight. “Because it’s physically impossible to get a vertical scratch on your hip while walking past a wardrobe rack. If the scratch had happened the way you said it did, then it would have been a horizontal scratch.”
Panic flickers across her face. She looks down.
And, just like that, my anger dissipates, replaced by the overwhelming urge to protect her—to take her pain away, even if I’m the immediate cause of it. The truth is I’m taking no pleasure in calling out Aloha’s bullshit. I’d much rather my instinct about this be dead wrong. But if she got shitfaced and got hurt somehow, or if somebody laid a finger on her or took advantage of her in a vulnerable state, then getting her to trust me enough to tell me what happened is way more important to me than finally getting to plunge my fingers or dick inside her. I grab Aloha’s hand. “Did someone hurt you, sweetheart? If so, you don’t have to protect whoever—”
“I did it to myself.”
I freeze with my jaw hanging open for a long moment.
She exhales. “With a wine opener.”
There’s a very long beat of thick silence between us before I gather myself enough to say, “On purpose?”
Her eyes water. “Yes.”