The Pleasure of His Company

by Lindsay Evans

  “What part of last night are you here to apologize for, Adah?”

  Adah flushed and watched as he swam lazily to the deep end, the water covering him all the way to his chest and splashing at the edges of the pool.

  With him safely on the other side of the yard, she came closer, skirting the pool to perch next to the chair he’d just abandoned.

  “There is a lot to apologize for,” she said, thinking of the kiss she’d initiated without full disclosure of her circumstances. “I’m sorry I put you in that awkward position. It was selfish. And I should’ve known better. I do know better. I was just...” She trailed off, not knowing how much to reveal of what had been tearing her apart. “I’m sorry.”

  For a long moment, he looked at her, steady-eyed and handsome, the sun sparkling off the water gilding his face and throat. It didn’t seem fair that all she wanted to do was slink closer to him and kiss his face all over, tease his mouth with her tongue and touch him until every anxiety she had simply disappeared, leaving just him and her and the sun and whatever could blossom between them. But Aruba wasn’t a place to plant seeds, and this was not what she had come to him for.

  “Tell me,” he said, as he tread water in the deep end of the pool. “What exactly are you sorry for? Tell me. Explicitly.”

  He rolled the last word in his mouth in a way that made her want to drop to her knees in front of him, risk drowning in the pool to give in to every temptation he presented. And he knew exactly what he was doing. The way he watched her, eyes unrelenting and hard, said as much.

  She had to open her mouth and start speaking twice to finally get the words out. “I made a mess of my life.” Adah chewed the corner of her lip until it felt raw. “There’s an arrangement that was made a long time ago. I agreed to it. Marriage.” The last word felt like it curdled in Adah’s mouth. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  “And now you’re here for...?”

  More. “To throw myself at your abundant mercy?” She tipped her head at him in question, repentant and almost willing to grovel for his forgiveness and whatever else he wanted to give.

  Kingsley was too beautiful, floating in the water just out of arm’s reach. Despite what Bennett had said, this wasn’t easy. There was no decision for her to make. Her course was set, and there was nothing she could do about it except minimize the people she hurt before she acquiesced to the inevitable. She pursed her lips at Kingsley while he floated in the water and seemingly pondered her prostration.

  Then finally he said, “My...mercy is nothing if not abundant. Despite what I wanted when we met, we can be friends instead. I’m not a slave to my penis. It’s fun to pretend that I am, but—” He grinned, warm and teasing as the frost melted from his gaze. “I control the thing more than it controls me.”

  She felt an answering smile twitch across her face. With deep relief, she leaned all the way back in the chair, feeling an unspoken permission to look at him now. A mistake. He was waist deep in the pool, water dripping down his face and neck to sparkle in the sprinkling of hair on his chest and the dark trail dragging her eyes down. Adah drew in more air through her nose and felt her thoughts scatter like marbles across a slippery tile floor, a cacophony of color, noise and frustrated intent. Why was she so helpless to his charms?

  She liked to think she’d known men more attractive than Kingsley. But she couldn’t recall a single one. Bennett was very attractive. When she’d offered to take one for the team by becoming his pre-fiancée, she thought she was getting a pretty good deal. But that first look at Kingsley on the beach, floating above her head with his bared chest and focused attention, and she’d felt a full burst of lust that took her completely by surprise. She was used to denying herself, though, so it had been nothing to walk away from him. Now it was difficult to follow that routine. Nearly impossible. But, like Kingsley had said, maybe she could keep him in her life as a friend.

  She cleared her throat again and dragged her eyes from what they were desperately trying to see below the water line. “Okay. That’s good. That was all I wanted. To apologize and make sure you weren’t put off by the things my mother said last night.”

  “Mothers have said worse to me.” He winked at her.

  Adah shook her head, a smile teased out of her and into the early afternoon despite herself.

  “Would you like to stay for breakfast?” he asked, swimming closer. “Friends do that—right? Have breakfast together?”

  She tried not to think of the exact circumstances where she’d love to have breakfast with him—but the images came hot and fast—sweat, sex, the groaning pleasure of him on top of her, inside her. Then after, a light breakfast in bed, him feeding her luscious red strawberries, before pulling her down into the sheets to wear her out again. Adah dipped her head to press a burning cheek into the relative coolness of her shoulder.

  “I wish I could,” she said. “But I have to go.” Before I do something I should regret. She stood up, brushing off the back of her shorts. “Enjoy your swim. I’m sure I’ll see you again.”

  “I am, too,” he said, his tone low and teasing. “If you want to take the initiative, know you’re welcome to visit me here anytime you like.”

  “Um...thanks.” She would definitely not be taking him up on that invitation.

  “Are you on the island for much longer?” Kingsley asked the question just as she turned away.

  More than enough time to get in trouble with you again. “Another five days,” she said. “Not much more time.”

  “Good to know,” he said. “I’ll see you soon. Friend.”

  The word was loaded with sensuality. And that both frightened and excited her.

  She rolled her eyes at her own idiocy. Get a grip, girl!

  “See you around, Kingsley.”

  Chapter 5

  He still wanted her.

  Kingsley finished the reports his assistant had suckered him into reviewing before leaving for the beach and his freestyle kite-surfing event at Hi-Winds. Adah stayed in his mind the entire time. The way she’d looked jumping over his fence, chest heaving with fear as she glanced over her shoulder toward the no longer visible pack of dogs. And when she’d seen him, it was like she was facing the dogs all over again, her face twisted in shock.

  She wasn’t for him, this woman who couldn’t give him any of what he wanted.

  But he still wanted.

  On the beach the sun was at the perfect height, and the morning winds pawed at his skin, warm and friendly. He had loved taking part in the long-distance kiting the day before, a chance to skim across the sea and sky with friends and competitors he hadn’t seen in a year or so. But today was his favorite event. He had to beat his friends to take home the money and the trophy. The $5,000 prize money didn’t impress him. He had that much in his spending cash for the week. It was the physical challenge of the kite and the water, the pull on his muscles and on his senses, adrenaline sparking through his body like sex, and the view like no other.

  Kingsley prepped for his event, stretching and curling his toes in the hot sand as he watched the water, where his closest competitor performed a reverse somersault and landed upright. The crowd cheered, wild and congratulatory. Yeah. He needed to get his head in the game and off Adah.

  When it was his turn, everything in him focused on controlling the parachute in the air and keeping the board balanced. He was all in. His body responded like it was meant to, breath controlled, the shock of landing on the water reverberating through the kite board and into his knees. His breath rushed out.

  Yes.

  He harnessed the wind under his parachute again and flew up. One breath in, then higher. Muscles tight. The sweat pouring off him, seawater salting his lips and tongue, and then launched into the double flip he’d been practicing all week. Breath out. The shock of the landing. Applause. Kingsley grinned as
he sailed across the water, then up into the air as the wind came back for him, maneuvering him neatly above the shimmering water close to the beach, the deeper blue as impenetrable as a certain woman’s gaze. And he slipped, looking over the gathered crowd to see if she was there.

  But no. A beach full of pale bodies. No Adah. His arm twitched, and he felt himself losing control of the kite, his body jerking hard in the air as the wind pushed him farther out and away from any possible sighting of Adah. He had to get his mind off her.

  Kingsley drew in a hard breath and got back to business. A flash of pale under the water caught his eye—a shark—and he frowned, tightening his grip on the kite straps and fighting the instinctive surge of panic. Now he had another reason to keep his head in the game. He landed on the surface with a splash, grunted when the kite tugged at his harness. He yanked the brake line, feeling the answering roll in his shoulder muscles, the flexing and undulations of his back as he got the kite closer to the beach.

  Max, one of the guys who’d gone up before him, grabbed the leading edge of the kite and guided it to the sand while Kingsley kicked off the board to the renewed applause of people watching.

  “That was cool! I didn’t know you perfected that triple flip you almost killed yourself over last year.” Max offered up a fist bump. “Nice going.”

  “Thanks!” Although it hadn’t been a necessary part of the competition, Kingsley had obsessed about pulling off the triple. He’d damn near fallen on his head a few times while he was practicing it. But out on the water, it had felt effortless, a symphony of his muscles and breath working together to produce one of the best moves he’d ever done. Now that the challenge was met, what was next? A thought of Adah flashed in his mind.

  “Good luck out there, Max. The wind is nice, but I spotted a shark. Far out but still there.”

  Max cursed. “Those things freak me out.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Kingsley muttered.

  When he’d seen the shark, a cold fear had come over him. It wasn’t his first time seeing one while up in a kite, and he didn’t want this to be his first time getting bitten by one. He preferred his limbs right where they were, attached to his body.

  “You were really great out there.”

  A trio of women walked up to Kingsley. Max gave him a look before lifting his hand in a wave.

  “See you later, man.” He seemed to enjoy the bikini-clad backsides of the girls as he walked away, grinning and giving Kingsley the thumbs-up behind their backs.

  Kingsley accepted the compliment from the women with gracious thanks and continued rolling up his kite. He felt their eyes on him, all three of them, hungry like the shark he’d managed to avoid in the water.

  “We’d love to buy you a drink,” one of them said.

  They were all pretty, dressed in colorful bikinis that showed off their shapes and newly acquired tans. It didn’t seem like one was trying to get him more than the others; instead all three women seemed intent on pursuing him. He hadn’t been offered a foursome in a long time. Kingsley thought about Adah and the flash of her eyes, her soft body and the fit of her hand in his while they were snorkeling together.

  “Sure,” he said. “Where do you have in mind?”

  He was a single and completely available man. He didn’t have a wife or girlfriend to stop him from taking these women up on whatever it was they were offering.

  “There’s a bar at the Sundowner.” A hotel not too far away. “They have great drinks and big beds.” The third one spoke up now, the curviest of her friends, with a tilted mouth that reminded Kingsley a bit of Adah. He clenched his jaw tight. He didn’t need to think about her. She was as good as married and off-limits.

  “Okay. Why not?”

  He exchanged numbers with the women and agreed to meet them at the hotel bar that night. The rest of the tournament was an exercise in frustration. He alternately congratulated and criticized himself for agreeing to meet the women for what was guaranteed to be a confusing foursome. But he couldn’t have Adah. Not in the way he wanted. Not in the way she obviously wanted. There was no point in torturing himself by letting the hard, pulsing ache he had for her go to waste.

  * * *

  He got to the bar early and sat drinking a beer and chatting with the bartender. The beer was soothing on his tongue, and the conversation was easy on the brain. He ignored the occasional clench in his belly that told him he wasn’t so much anticipating as dreading the arrival of the three women.

  This was what he wanted. Kingsley tried to tell himself that with every sip of his beer, his gaze slipping past the bartender to the mirror reflecting his own ambivalence back at him. He looked calm enough, but in the mirror, he saw his fingers tap impatiently on the bar, his lips tighten in disgust when he thought of what would happen with the women upstairs in one of the hotel beds. A date like this would be any other man’s ultimate fantasy. But...

  He blew out a breath.

  Kingsley saw the women coming up to him in the mirror before they spoke.

  “We’re glad you made it,” the curvy one said.

  They were all similarly dressed again. Tube dresses in different pastel shades, high heels, hair long and loose around their shoulders. From the look of them, he sensed they would be interchangeable in bed, deliberately so even as they tried to outdo one another in pleasing him. He’d been there before. Suddenly he made a decision.

  “I actually came to tell you in person that I can’t stay.”

  He internally winced as their faces fell as one. “Something else came up, and I didn’t want to be rude,” he said.

  The one who’d approached him first looked the most disappointed. She came close and dropped a hand on his thigh, blue fingernails sinking into the thin denim of his jeans. “Are you sure? We have plenty to drink, and eat, upstairs.”

  The one who reminded him of Adah, lush-hipped and a mouth that hid its own smiles, wrapped her arm around her friend’s middle and pulled her back. “We’re disappointed, but we also understand—right, Katya?”

  The third one nodded and looped her arm through the first girl’s. “You’re missing out,” she told Kingsley as she licked her full bottom lip and tipped her shoulders back to emphasize her breasts.

  He tried to look regretful. “As tempting as you all are, I can’t. There’s something else I need to do tonight.”

  That something turned out to be standing in his kitchen and drinking another beer. Hours later, he stood looking out his kitchen window and wondering what Adah was doing at that exact moment. If she burned like he did. He pressed the beer bottle to the center of his bare chest and sighed at the coolness of it, imagined that it was the touch of her lips on his skin. He hissed in reaction when the bottle brushed across his nipple.

  No. He wasn’t doing this right now.

  But his hardness pushed against the front of his jeans, demanding relief. He gripped the beer bottle in his fist instead and rested it on the counter. His sex throbbing, Kingsley stared out into the dark evening and wished he was a less honorable man.

  * * *

  Kingsley stretched out on the beach, a thick blanket separating his skin from the fine-grained sand while sunglasses covered his eyes and the sun warmed him through a glistening layer of sunscreen. He wasn’t scheduled to compete today. It was just a day for him to take it all in.

  He pillowed his head on his backpack and watched the dozens of windsurfers race across the water, their multicolored sails whipping against the background of the deep blue sky.

  Desperately needing the escape, he’d climbed out of his tangled sheets to watch the day’s competition. He couldn’t stop thinking about Adah. He’d dreamed of her—their limbs entwined, bodies joined, satisfaction exploding between them. Hours later, he still burned.

  “Hey, why aren’t you up there?” Max wandered down the b
each toward him, his board shorts and T-shirt flapping in the breeze. He pointed to a place farther out from the competition arena where kiters were just enjoying the air and showing off for one another.

  “Not feeling it today.” Even as he said it, Kingsley winced. He always felt like kiting; damn near everyone knew that. That was why he was on the island in the first place. But thoughts of Adah were keeping him earthbound.

  There was something irresistible about her, even after finding out about her impending marriage. It was a cliché straight out of one of his sister’s novels. Kingsley had been into other women before, but never like this. Maybe his obsession was so intense because he’d never gotten her into bed. Maybe.

  He sighed. “I’m a little sore from being on the water all day yesterday,” Kingsley told Max truthfully enough. “I need a break.”

  Although Max hadn’t known Kingsley long, Kingsley could sense the other man didn’t believe him.

  “What’s her name?” Max laughed. “Is it one of the girls from yesterday?”

  Something in Kingsley’s face must have told him otherwise because he gave him a knowing look. “Ah, another girl then. Someone from before.”

  Kingsley didn’t bother to lie. Adah was in his blood, throbbing through his veins into the seat of his sex. It wasn’t something he could hide.

  “It’s not going to go anywhere. She’s committed to somebody else.”

  “If she could only see all the girls trying to pull you on this island,” Max said. “She would jump on you in a heartbeat.”

  “This isn’t about scarcity, my man. If she wants me, she can have me. I’m pretty easy, and she knows it. She just doesn’t want to take what’s right in front of her.”

  “That’s not something anybody here will believe,” Max said. “She has to be crazy not to just snatch you up. Even I can say objectively you’re not bad-looking for a guy.”