by Melody Eve
“Making you forget. If the sight of my cock can lead you back to thinking about your cheating ex, I’m doing something wrong.”
“It’s not you, it’s me.”
“I’m beginning to believe that’s true.”
“Are you giving up that easily?” I tease praying that he isn’t. As much as I fought the idea of forgetting, I’m enjoying it when it happens.
“No. Never. I’m not a quitter.”
Thank God. “Good.”
“Good, huh? So, you’re warming to the idea of forgetting?”
“I was never totally against it. I’d planned on using this trip to get David out of my system in a different way, that’s all.”
“A different way, how?” He hands me the loofah and squeezes more soap onto it. I hold it in my hands in front of me between my breasts.
“Alone in my room drinking myself into oblivion and passing out until I woke up and started over. Maybe reading a book and getting a tan if I could drag myself outside.”
He shudders, and I laugh. “What, too graphic for you?”
“Too pathetic. That man didn’t deserve you. Don’t punish yourself for being too good for him. Celebrate the fact that you got out before it became official. Obtain revenge by showing him how much you don’t need him, how much better you are without him. That’s power, that’s pride, that’s lifting your chin up and flipping him the bird, my love. Not hiding in a dark room making yourself ill and sallow.”
My love. That didn’t go without notice. “You’re right, thank you. I needed that.”
“You’re welcome, and I know.” He is so cocky but in the best way.
“Do you need help?” He nods at the loofah in my hands. I haven’t moved since he put it there. I start rubbing it along my arm in a feeble attempt to wash myself. He watches with one eyebrow raised until he can’t stand it anymore. “You need help, give it here.” He crooks his finger, and I pass him the loofah.
“I’m weak from the sun.”
“You’re weak from being drunk.” He turns me around to wash my back, and I drop my head until my chin hits my chest.
“You sound angry.”
“I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with myself for not taking better care of you.”
“That’s silly. I’m a grown woman, and I can drink as much as I want to.”
“You may not.”
My head snaps up, and I turn around. “What do you mean, I may not?” I have the overwhelming urge to say you’re not the boss of me like a six-year-old, but I hold my tongue.
“I mean that if you’re drinking with me, I should be watching over you. When people drink too much, they do stupid things, and I will not allow you to do stupid things. So, in closing, you may not drink as much as you want.”
I feel my eyebrows knitting together in a deep frown. It makes my head hurt and my burned skin sting. “That sounds very much like a controlling statement, Roman.”
“Yes, it does. That is because I am a controlling man. Now turn around and let me finish washing you so I can slide my cock into your sweet pussy and rid myself of this morning condition.” He looks down. I look down. We look back at each other, and the dark, dangerous seduction in his eyes silences any further complaints about his bossiness.
I turn and wait while he makes little circles all over my skin with the loofah and rinses me from head to toe with the hand-held shower sprayer.
When I’m about to ask if I can sit down, he guides me to the glass wall and gently pushes my front side up against it nudging my feet apat with one of his in a manner that reminds me of a cop show where officers are frisking drug dealers.
I turn my head to the side and press my cheek against the foggy glass. I feel his hands on my hips gliding up my sides and around between the glass and my body cupping my breasts. His heavy cock presses against my lower back, and he kisses the space on my shoulder where it meets my neck. “You’re so fucking beautiful all wet and soapy. I want you in my shower every morning.”
My pulse roars in my ears, and my legs wobble. I could get used to this every morning on vacation. He bites my shoulder lightly and bends his knees kissing along my spine until his cock is lined up with my seam. He slips his hand down my ass and then uses it to guide himself in. He is slow and precise in his penetration until he is filling me so full I’m forced up onto my tiptoes.
I moan when he stops moving. I want him to take me hard and rough, pull my hair, say dirty things to me, and tie me up again. I’m shocked at myself. I’ve never been sexually curious or kinky. I’m vanilla, missionary, boring all the way, but Roman has awakened my inner minx, and I think I like her.
“You like this?”
I nod my head against the glass and whimper.
“Do you want more?”
“Yes, please,” I beg. I’ve never begged for sex before this trip. Roman has made me beg repeatedly. He bends his knees dragging out of me slowly only to impale me on the upthrust pressing me flat against the glass. “Oh God,” I gasp feeling him like a second skin against my backside. I claw at the glass wishing for something more substantial to grasp at but in the same moment not giving a shit.
“You’re so tight, you feel like you’ve never been fucked properly,” he growls in my ear sliding out again.
“Until you, I hadn’t,” I say on a gasp.
“You have no idea how happy that makes me.” He withdraws from me sliding my wet body around between his and the glass to put us face to face. “We’re going to bed, up,” he commands slipping his hands under my ass and lifting me up. My arms are around his neck, my legs around his waist, and his mouth is on mine. He walks me back into the bedroom where we fall into bed together in a tangle of slick, wet limbs.
He kneads my breast deepening our kiss and consuming me. I whimper, all signs of my hangover gone, and arch my back needing him to fill me again. He wastes no time complying when he sits up and places me in his lap straddling him. He impales me so deeply I feel every cell in my body wake up and take notice of the warmth spreading through me.
“I want you so bad,” he murmurs against my neck, and my brain says you have me, but the thought never has a chance to make itself known. His hips thrust upward, and his hands are under my ass lifting me, encouraging me to move. I do and so does he, meeting me with a forceful thrust each time I sink down around him. He leans back supporting his weight with his arms and holds my eyes as my orgasm builds electricity swirling between us until I can’t hold on any longer.
“Look at me, Aria. Don’t close your eyes, don’t look away,” he commands. I hold his gaze and drown in his lusty liquid-gray eyes when the sparks ignite my core and explode inside me. I cry out and dig my fingernails into his thighs right before he roars, coming long and hard.
I collapse against his slick chest, and he drops to the mattress with me draped all over him. We pant and smile, and he pushes my hair away from my face when I raise up to look at him. “You’re a triple threat, you know that?”
I prop up my chin in my hand. “What do you mean by that?”
“You’re unassumingly gorgeous, modestly intelligent, and naturally skilled in bed.”
“Modestly intelligent?”
“Yes. You’re smart, but you don’t have to prove it to everyone you meet.”
“How do you know I’m smart?”
“You’re hanging out with me, aren’t you?”
I swat his chest and giggle.
“Quadruple threat, you’re playful as well.” He pulls me back down, my cheek to his chest where I breathe in the scent of woodsy soap and a pinch of perspiration. The perfect combination of man and effort.
“I’m glad you approve.”
“Mmm, I more than approve. I am beginning to require your attention. Pretty soon you’ll be an addiction, and I’ll never let you go.”
“Roman,” I say with a warning in my voice.
“You can’t deny what’s happening here, Aria.”
“I told you I’m not ready for something s
erious. I’ve only been broken up with my fiancé for a week. I need time, and this was supposed to be fun, a way to forget, you promised.”
“I did, you’re right. Sometimes things change, though. Don’t close the door on the possibility of us.”
I close my eyes and sigh. There is no ‘us’ as much as I’d like to dream about it, rebound flings on honeymoons after a big break-up don’t work. I’m sure there’s a scientific study to prove it somewhere.
The sound of flesh smacking wet flesh rings through the air, and a burning sting zips through my right ass cheek. He spanked me! Worse than that, I think I liked it.
“What the hell was that?” I say sitting bolt upright.
“Time for breakfast, up you go.” He sits up with me still in his arms and rolls to the side sliding out of me and off the bed in one grand swoop. I lay flat on my back abandoned as he goes about dressing and brushing his teeth.
A while later he returns to the bedroom. “Are you going to lay there all day or join me?” he asks. There’s something in his voice that’s different. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s there, and it tugs at my heart.
“I’ll join you, but I need to go back to my room and change.”
“No need, I had your things brought here. No sense in going back and forth for two weeks.” He straightens his tie in the mirror as he talks. His tie, why is he wearing a suit?
“Someone packed up all my stuff?”
“Yes. Your bags are in the front room.”
“I didn’t see them there.”
“You were begging me to have sex with you if I remember correctly, and then you fell asleep.”
“I did?”
“Yes. I don’t take advantage of women when they are intoxicated, so I put you to bed.”
“After you tied me up in the kitchen, you mean?” I add, so he knows I wasn’t that drunk.
“Ah, good. I was hoping you hadn’t forgotten that.” He turns to face me sliding his hands into the pockets of his slacks.
Nobody could be that drunk. “Why are you wearing a suit?”
“I have to finalize the purchase of the resort after breakfast, but I’m not going to have a chance to eat if you don’t get dressed.”
I roll over on my belly and groan talking into the mattress. “Isn’t vacation supposed to be relaxing?”
I hear him cross the room, the souls of his shoes making a soft crinkle against the carpet. Then I feel his lips pressed against my cheek, my ass cheek specifically, the one he slapped earlier. Heat spreads from where his mouth touched my skin straight to my core. How can I even be aroused after the past twenty-four hours with Roman?
I’ve had more and better sex than I ever have in my life, and I’m beginning to believe he was right about becoming addicted.
“Don’t be lazy, up you go,” he says rolling me over onto my back again. His eyes rake over my body unabashed taking his time to pause at my breasts, my navel, and my sex. Then he checks the time on his Rolex and frowns. “Fuck it, they’ll wait,” he says crawling up the mattress between my legs where, without warning, he hoists my hips up into his lap and buries his face in my sex. I gasp, my hands fly out to my sides where I grip the sheets and hold on trying to ground myself to something.
It’s no use, his sneak attack has me soaring, floating in a space between reality and ecstasy, seeing stars. He licks me back to front with the flat of his tongue, and I come quick and hard and then again and again. Thrashing my head from side to side, I’m about to beg him to stop, it’s too much. He is overwhelming me in every way, but I don’t have to. He stops and moves forward to rest his cheek on my flat belly.
“Aria…” he whispers, and I don’t want to hear what’s next.
“Roman, don’t.”
He takes a deep breath in and blows it out slowly before lowering me back onto the bed and standing up to smooth out his suit.
“I’ve got to go. I’ll be back in an hour, and we can spend the day together. Don’t get any big ideas about running off. I own this place now.”
I raise my eyebrows ready to make a sassy comment, but he holds up his finger to stop me while shaking his head.
He retreats into the bathroom to wash his face. When he emerges, I watch him collect a folder from the desk and leave without a goodbye.
A thought niggles in the back of my mind. Have I traded one problem man for another? Am I doing the right thing? Should I go back to my room and barricade myself in for the rest of the trip like I’d originally planned?
Have I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire?
Chapter 6
An hour later after deciding to stick this out, I shower and find my things in the living room right where Roman said they would be.
It’s two weeks, two weeks, and then back to my old life in the Windy City without sex or booze or dancing or fun. I may as well enjoy this while it lasts because like all things that are too good to be true, it won’t.
I dress in a long, lavender flowing skirt and a tank top, slip on a pair of flip-flops, and twist my hair up in a messy bun. My stomach growls while I smooth aloe on my shoulders and chest to help the sunburn. I go rummaging in Roman’s kitchen for something to eat. I make coffee in the little one-cup coffee maker and cut up some cheese and fruit to eat on his ocean-view balcony.
The smell of the water takes me to a happy place. I love the ocean and the beach, a lot, more than normal for a Midwestern girl born and raised in a landlocked state. I pull the rubber band out of my hair and let my messy bun free to dry in the wind.
It’s fancy out here, much fancier than my honeymoon suite. He has a tub with jets and a mini bar, a place to grill, and he can walk right off the patio and down to the beach any time he wants.
I made the right decision not going back to my room. His is much better. And who cares if he has people watching me while we are here. It’s only for two weeks, right?
I keep telling myself that, but I know something’s happening here, something powerful, something deep and meaningful, something I might regret later.
I hope not. I want to spend what time I have with Roman letting him be in charge. I don’t want to worry about what’s going to happen when we go home. There will be no ‘we’ when we go home. It’ll be him at his fancy bank and me at my eclectic bookstore. Him with his fancy friends and me with my Netflix and a book. Him in his mansion eating gourmet food and me in my run-down apartment eating Lucky Charms because they’re magically delicious.
We are from different worlds—two people who happened to be in paradise for a while at the same time. That’s it.
I spear the last grape in my bowl and finish my coffee when Roman walks out onto the balcony. “You’re eating.”
“You’re observant.”
“I’m glad. I thought you might be too hungover.”
“Nope, I wasn’t as drunk as you thought, I guess,” I say lightly.
“Let’s not get carried away.” He loosens his tie and removes his jacket before sitting down next to me. “You look beautiful.”
I look down at my simple outfit and shrug. “It’s nothing much.”
“Not your clothes, you.” He caresses my shoulder and cups my cheek. “Color in your cheeks and on your shoulders…” He reaches out to run his fingers through my wayward hair. “Hair wild and blowing in the wind.” He taps my nose gently and smiles. “Freckles.”
I take his hand away from my face and gaze into his too-good-to-be-true face. “I’ve decided to quit fighting you on this thing and have a nice vacation. I’m still holding my ground about it being a rebound thing, but as long as we are here, I’m yours.”
“That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said since we met.”
A sly grin spreads across my face, and I lean back in my chair and look out at the ocean. “Really? So, when I agreed that I hadn’t been properly fucked until you, that wasn’t sensible?” Got you, buster.
“You’re going to get sassy with me, are you?” he says untying his tie.
Something about the way he yanks the tie makes me squirm in my seat. I catch myself and sit up straight jutting my chin out in a challenge.
“Maybe, what are you going to do about it?” I bat my eyelashes twice and watch him morph from a sexy businessman into a predator stalking his prey. The buzz in the lower part of my belly says he’s going to make me pay for that bit of defiance, and I can’t wait.
“Don’t think you can play me that easily, Ms. Savage. I’m the master, and you’re still learning the game.” He stands and slips his tie off folding it neatly. Then he leaves me there hot and bothered and disappointed beyond belief. How dare he!
What does he mean he’s the master? And what game is he referring to? I was just flirting hoping for a repeat of this morning out here on his patio, a little exhibitionism. I wasn’t playing at anything.
I wasn’t then, but I am now. He likes to control. I’ve witnessed it on multiple occasions. It’s time to take that away from him and see how he likes it.
I stand and strip off my tank top, step out of my skirt, and kick off my flip-flops. I round the table and push through the gate separating his patio from the sandy, sparsely inhabited beach. I’m still sporting a thong but absolutely nothing else. I don’t know if it’s a topless beach, and I don’t care.
I stretch my arms over my head scooping my hair into a fresh messy bun and wrap the rubber band from my wrist around it just as my feet touch the edge of the water.
“Aria!” Roman’s voice booms from behind me. I turn with a wicked smile and see him standing still in his suit pants and dress shirt holding up my top and skirt with fury in his eyes.
Bingo, now let’s see who’s the master and what game we’re playing. He catches my expression and lowers his gaze to my naked breasts. Right before my eyes, I watch him turn into a lunatic. Face red, veins bulging and pulsing from everywhere, he throws open the gate on the patio and storms through the sand in his thousand-dollar shoes and ten-thousand-dollar suit.
But I’m safe in the water, or at least I’m pretty sure I am. I wade out deeper feeling more secure but only for a moment. My eyes go wide when he storms into the ocean dressed from head to toe with the look of an enraged maniac on his face.