by Amy Brent
“Olivia,” I said.
“I gotta make sure all that paperwork can get processed before the weekend,” she continued, not answering me. “Wouldn’t want to wait any longer for your deal to close, would you?”
“Olive.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow, or text you or something, all right?” she asked.
“Olivia, just wait.”
I watched her stumble into her clothes before she grabbed her flip-flops. Just as I got up to put my clothes on, she was already stumbling for my house. I jumped into my shorts before I grabbed the towel and my shirt. Then, I raced after her to try and catch her before she left. I knew Olivia well enough to know something had spooked her, and I wanted to sit down and figure out what it was.
I wasn’t ready to let her go yet. Not like this.
But, by the time I got to the house, I was watching her headlights pull out of my driveway. I tried flagging her down, jogging after her car before I found myself in the middle of the road. Olivia sped down my street and made a sharp left turn, ignoring the stop sign as I watched her drive out of sight.
What the fuck just happened?
Chapter 18
Olivia
I had dodged most of Wesley’s calls and texts messages since our encounter on the beach. I began searching for him, using the information he gave me, and I found a few more aliases and pictures to add to the file. I raked my fingertips through my hair, feeling tears burn behind the backs of my eyes.
Why had he been doing this? How had he turned into this man?
Washington State. Alabama. Texas. Each time, with different features and a different persona. But each time, the smile was the same. The twinkle in his eye was the same.
The slightly wounded look I found in his features was the same.
The fake documents taunted me for the next couple of days. I knew I had to deliver them to him, and I figured doing it on Friday would give me the weekend to get the last of my things in order. I had to stay away from him, that much was for sure. So, I called the cabana and asked if he was working Friday night. Some guy with a jovial attitude on the other end told me he was, so that was how I would do this.
If we were in public, I didn’t run any risk of falling out of my clothes and hopping on his cock.
I printed out the last of the pictures and phone records before I shoved them in the manila envelope. I tracked down the names of the women he was in the pictures with, but still found no one who had filed a police report. It would take me at least through the weekend to call up the PIs in these cities as well, so the moment I grabbed the fake documents and headed for the cabana, I felt good. I had a purpose and a mission, and delivering these on Friday would buy me the time I needed to complete it.
After all, Destiny deserved to have closure.
The moment I walked into the bar, Wesley spotted me. He smiled broadly and flagged me down, and I held up the papers and waved them to him. I walked up to the bar as he leaned on the edge of it, and then I slid the documents his way for him to look at.
“Ah, so this is why you ditched me Wednesday night,” he said, grinning. “I was beginning to think I was losing my touch.”
“Not in the slightest,” I said. “It just hit me like a ton of bricks, I guess. I get my mind wrapped up into work, and I can’t let it go until I finish something.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “I was beginning to think you’d taken off with my property and was never coming back.”
“I can’t just take off with a piece of ground, Wes,” I said, giggling. “That’s not how that works.”
“I don’t know. You seem to have a way with things. I’m sure you could’ve flashed it a peek of your legs, and it would’ve pried itself up and gone anywhere with you.”
I couldn’t stop giggling at him as he checked out the documents. His sense of humor brought back more memories from high school. It was one of the things that had drawn me to him in the first place. He always had a way of infusing humor into tense situations and diffusing them before they got out of control.
That was one reason I’d had to leave so hastily Wednesday night. If I gave him a chance to speak, I never would’ve left. Hell, I probably would’ve woken up with him, tangled up in his sheets and limbs before fucking him senseless the next morning.
I felt a heat grow between my legs as I cleared my throat.
“If you wanna go over the contract now, I can take my first break, and we can venture into the back room or something,” he said.
“There’s a back room for a cabana on the beach?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “There’s a couple chairs and a small desk. I mean, it’s also where we store our overflow cleaning products, but it’ll give us some privacy to conduct business the right way.”
Everything in me was screaming not to do it. A table in the corner would do. A walk on the beach would do. Hell, another appointment where we met up in a restaurant would do. But he was obviously trying to get me alone. He was trying to pull me away from the crowd. I knew the moment I stepped away from these people, I would be weak to him.
And I found myself nodding anyway.
“Hey, Chad! I’m taking my break. Finalizing real estate stuff. We’ll be in the back room.”
“Got it,” he said. “Twenty minutes.”
“Follow me,” Wesley said, grinning.
With every step, I found it harder and harder to keep up my ruse. As we made our way into the back room, I couldn’t help but want to tell him the truth. I wanted to be alone with him. I wanted to be close to him. I wanted to ignore all the things he’d done in the past and try to get to know the man who was standing before me. The echoes of Destiny’s voice soon faded to the background when Wesley shut the door behind me, and as the two of us sat down, he put his hand on my knee.
“Are you all right from Wednesday?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m glad I was able to get the paperwork done on time,” I said.
“I was worried about you,” he said, his face troubled.
“You were?”
“Yes, I thought I’d done something to make you uncomfortable,” he said.
“Besides the sand I got in my vagina?” I asked.
“I didn’t feel any sand in your vagina,” he said, grinning.
His hand was massaging my knee, and my entire body began warming up. My defenses began to drop, and my head whirled with the story I had to keep intact. I settled back into my chair while Wesley’s eyes ran along the lines of the paper, but I couldn’t help but feel jealous of the attention he was giving those documents.
I wanted his attention.
“Wesley, I need to tell you—”
“This lawyer real? Nelson Wainwright?”
My body locked up as Wesley’s eyes slowly panned over to me. The stern look behind his eyes snapped me back from any warmth I felt underneath the massaging of his hands. My palms began to sweat, and I could feel my neck heating up. I tried to keep my breathing steady, drawing in a long breath through my nose before I furrowed my brow lightly.
“That’s an odd question,” I said. “Of course, he’s real. He’s one of the premier lawyers on this side of Malibu.”
“Olivia, calm down. I was just kidding.”
“Looked pretty damn serious to be kidding,” I said as I sat up straight.
“Consider it a bit of payback for ignoring my worried calls and text messages.”
“You’re such a dick,” I said, smiling.
“Well, some things have to stay the same.”
“You weren’t a dick in high school, Wes,” I said.
“But you thought I was a cheater,” he said.
“It was hard not to believe the gossip of dozens of girls, especially when you passed notes and shit to them during class. I was a self-conscious sixteen-year-old girl with my first boyfriend. Forgive me if I was a little lost on the protocol for the popular girls telling me my hot-ass boyfriend was kissing them.”
“Hot-ass boyfriend, huh?” he asked. “What, uh, do you think of me now?”
I watched him lean forward as his face slowly approached mine. I could feel the pulsing of his warm breath upon my lips, and for a second, I paused. This was it. The moment where I would either be the professional I needed to be or the weak little woman who caved to the presence of my high school sweetheart. I could either show him the door, or I could pull him onto my body and have my way with him.
And then, I caved. I closed the distance and connected my lips with his before he melded into me. Wesley’s hand came up to cup the back of my head while his tongue slid across my lips, and I was all too eager to let him in. Shivers ran up his spine while I smoothed my hands up his muscular thighs, but a loud crash came from the cabana, and it ripped me back into reality.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered.
“What was that, beautiful?”
I pressed my hands upon Wesley’s chest and pushed his body back from mine. I smoothed my hands over my outfit before standing to my feet, but before I could move, I felt a pressure around my wrist.
“Olivia, don’t go,” he urged.
“I can’t do this again, Wes,” I said.
“I’m not the man I was in high school.”
Obviously not.
“I know,” I whispered. Pulling my hand from his grasp, I stormed of the back room. My legs carried me as fast as I could run to my car while my mind buzzed with thoughts I couldn’t stop. Why was he doing this? Why did he have to rob those women? Why couldn’t I have just turned Destiny over to another PI? It wasn’t like me to take on cases where I knew people personally. Why had I accepted it from Destiny?
I ripped my car door open and climbed in before I sped off. My hands were trembling around the steering wheel while my tits coursed with unusable electricity. The brewing tears I’d felt for days finally poured down my face, and for the second time that week, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw Wesley jogging behind my car.
How many times did I have to leave him behind before he got the hint?
Please don’t get the hint.
Chapter 19
Wesley
I had no idea what to do. When I watched Olivia peel herself from me and go running for her car, I couldn’t help but go after her. I wanted to grab her arm and whip her around. I wanted to beg her to bring down the wall she’d thrown up between us. I wanted to tell her that the professional part of this was done. I’d file the paperwork Monday, and it would all be finished. I saw her throw herself into her car as I ran up behind her, and I watched her pull away quickly as I stood there watching her leave.
For the second time that week.
I couldn’t get Olivia off my mind. I wanted more from her. More than just what her body did to me. I wanted to know everything about her. Everything that was the same and everything that had changed. I wanted to know if her favorite color was still purple, or if her favorite place to visit was still the Wyoming countryside. I wanted to know if she still had dreams to see an opera in Germany, and if her favorite food was still extra cheese pizza. I wanted to cuddle with her on my couch and feel the way her body melted into me as we talked about high school.
Olivia had blossomed into an amazing woman. She was successful, headstrong, confident, and assertive. All those things were new about her, but I never once doubted that she possessed those qualities. I knew she would grow into something substantial. Something meaningful. Something beautiful.
It was why I’d left her back in high school. I hadn’t wanted to hold her back from what she was truly destined to become.
But now, she was more guarded. In high school, Olivia had been open. With everyone. She told anyone who would listen her life story, and if she could’ve invited them all over for dinner, she would have. Her warm openness was something that drew me to her in the first place. I knew she would accept me for the broken boy I was, despite having a mother who drank more than she did anything else. I knew Olivia understood what it was like to have an absent father like I did, and I felt like I’d found a kindred spirit with her.
However, she was guarded now, and that was different for me. I didn’t know how to bust down those walls of hers. I didn’t know how to get her to drop her defenses and simply let me in. The physical wasn’t an issue. The two of us were salacious magnets drawn to one another. But getting her to emotionally open up wasn’t something I’d accomplished over dinner. Even with the banter and the laughter at my jokes, that wall still glimmered behind her eyes.
That wall would cause me to have a hard time keeping up with her, and that was simply unacceptable.
Part of me was frustrated. If she didn’t want to open up, then there was nothing I could do about that. I could find any woman in Malibu who would want to sleep with me and keep me company. I could find any woman who would want to tell me their life story and allow me a glimpse into their worlds. Hell, I didn’t have to become another person to find shit like that. That type of shit strolled in with the desperate, lonely women who practically threw themselves at me at the bar. But I didn’t want any of them.
What I wanted was her. I wanted her to open up. I wanted her to let me in. I wanted her to take my hand and allow me entrance into her world. I had adored it in high school. Reveled in every single second of it. I knew it would be no different now. I’d continue to savor her world while pleasuring her body. I’d hold her through the hard days before distracting her with my tongue. I’d walk her through any part of her life she was willing to give to me, but there was nothing I could do if she didn’t want to let me in.
And that frustrated me even more.
“Chad, we gotta talk,” I said.
“Oh, no,” Chad said. “Are we breaking up already? And we were having so much fun.”
“Dude, this is serious,” I said.
“Jack and Coke serious or virgin Strawberry Daiquiri serious?”
“Is a virgin anything ever serious?” I asked.
“It is if you get to be the first,” Chad said, winking
“Jack and Coke serious. Make it three shots.”
“Oh shit, dude,” he said. “What happened? Your house burn down?”
“It’s about Olivia.”
“Something go wrong with the paperwork?” he asked. “By the way, this is still part of your break. You’ve got eight minutes.”
“Didn’t you just see her run out a few seconds ago?” I asked.
“No, because I’m working and don’t have time for your soap opera right now. Give me the SparkNotes version.”
“We’ve been having a great time, right?” I said. “The sex is fantastic, and the banter keeps me on my toes. She’s exactly the way I remembered her from high school, only more confident and with so many more curves.”
“Can’t complain about confidence and curves,” Chad said. “Continue.”
“I brought her over to my house Wednesday night for dinner.”
“I remember you telling me about that. How’d it go?”
“It went great,” I said. “She came over, even though the paperwork wasn’t finished yet, and I cooked her dinner.”
“Wait. You cooked for her? Like, actual food?”
“Yes, Chad,” I said. “Believe it or not, I don’t live off prepackaged dinners like you do.”
“Not my fault my fiancé doesn’t cook,” Chad said. “The compromises we make for love.”
“Yeah, yeah. I hear you. Anyway, I took her out to the beach, and we had phenomenal sex, right? I mean, just electrifying. She initiated just as much as I did, and by the time our bodies were shaking and breathing heavily, we still wanted more.”
“Sounds like that shit Laura and I did in the beginning,” he said, smiling wistfully. “What happened?”
“She made a hasty excuse and left,” I said. “Just picked up her clothes, threw them on as she was headed to her car, and by the time I got dressed and caught up with her, I was watching her taillights fly down the road away from my house.”
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“That’s rough. You sure you didn’t do something wrong? Stick your foot in your mouth? Poke her in the wrong hole? Anything like that?”
“I know how to wield my cock, unlike you,” I said. “You pull that shit all the time with Laura, hoping she’ll let you in that backdoor sometime.”
“I do not,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “She just gets really slippery sometimes.”
“Well, that was more than I needed to know about Laura.”
“And yet, here you are indulging me in the nasty whims you’re having with Olivia,” Chad said. “Your Jack and Coke.”
“Took you long enough,” I said. “No tip for you.”
“Honestly? I’m surprised to hear about an actual woman.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked. “I’m with actual women all the time.”
“No, you’re with older women whose hearts you trample on while you take them for a spin. Now, you’ve got yourself a woman who’s more your age and type, and it seems as if she’s taking you on a little spin yourself. How are you liking a dose of that medicine you usually dole out, Fox?”
“You’re such a dick,” I said. “I’m coming to you because I have no idea what to do about all this shit, and you’re mocking me.”