Sofia suddenly broke the surface, letting out a cry. She smoothed her hair away from her face. “You!”
He approached the pool’s edge. As the water swirled around her, he caught a glimpse of her nude breasts, honey brown with dark chocolate nipples. His brain slowed, laboring to process this information. Sofia was naked...in his pool.
Their eyes met and the negotiations began. How were they going to play this? Should he be a gentleman and walk away? Offer her a towel? Should he wait for her cue? Chin raised and eyes focused, she didn’t seem shy. Her breath had steadied. She wasn’t even blushing.
Jon felt like he was under her spell.
“If I’d known this house came with a naked woman in the pool,” he said, “I’d have bought it on the spot.”
She didn’t laugh. She kept her eyes on him, and he could just hear the old wheels grinding. She was making up her mind about him. He stayed quiet, not wanting to tip the scale in one way or the other. This was her decision to make. He’d do whatever she asked.
She asked for nothing. Jon watched, fascinated, as she swam over to the ladder and climbed out, silver water pouring off the slope of her back. She came to stand before him, her skin baked to rich terra cotta by the sun. He could’ve fallen to his knees. He could’ve died right there. Sofia...finally...of all the times their paths had crossed, she’d worn so many protective masks and he’d never had a glimpse of this woman.
“Hello, stranger,” he said.
She grabbed his tie with her damp hands and deftly loosened the knot. “Do you always travel dressed like this?”
“I left for the airport straight from a meeting.”
“Poor you.”
“Did you have a nice day, dear?” he asked.
The tie fell silently to the slate tile. “You know what? We’ve talked enough, you and I.”
She’d get no argument from him.
She stripped him of the jacket and the shirt underneath, all the while laying down the law. “This is a temporary thing. Okay?”
“More than okay,” he replied.
It wasn’t remotely okay, but Jon knew better than to show his hand. Besides, he had mastered this game. She had no idea who she was up against. She didn’t want to talk? No problem. He gripped her by her slippery waist, lifted her off the ground and tossed her into the pool. She landed with a splash. He undressed and dove in after her. In no time, he had her cornered. The water was cool but the heat between them was rising.
She rested her palms on his chest and brushed her lips against his. Jon took his time with their first kiss. He wanted her to know what she’d been missing—and for what? She whimpered under his kiss. He growled when she wrapped her legs around his waist and rubbed her soft nakedness against his body. They broke the kiss and went back at it harder. Stealing a second to gasp for air, she whispered his name. He reminded her of the rules. “No talking.”
He pulled her under water and there he cupped her breasts and teased the nipples with his teeth. He would’ve gone at it forever if his lungs weren’t on fire. He had to get her out of the pool and onto a bed. Conveniently enough, there was a bed located only steps away.
Stretched out on the canopy bed, they managed to say a lot without words. Let me see you. Touch me. Grip here. Wrap your fingers. Tighter. He left her only to get a condom in his wallet. She was holding on to the bedposts when he got back. Ready for him. Jon kneeled between the V of her legs, and she closed her eyes. He waited patiently until she opened them again, looking at him questioningly through lowered lashes.
He shook his head, no. She didn’t get to hide.
When he had her attention, he ran a finger along the opening between her legs. She arched her back. Breaking the rules, she murmured, “Jon, please.”
But words weren’t necessary. There was nothing he couldn’t read in her eyes. They were pleading with him.
Jon climbed over her, kissed her full on the mouth, then brushed his fingertip over her lips so she could taste her own arousal. He had wanted to bring her to this point since the day they’d met—the point of shameless begging. He wasn’t going to waste the moment. He ran his palms along the wet skin of her thighs, coaxing a moan from her parted lips.
“I got you, Sofia.”
Her eyes narrowed, telling him she’d caught the nuanced meaning of his words. I got you. He eased himself inside her. Her fingers tightened around his arms and she let out a cry. Jon held it all in. He didn’t move. She was hot and tight around him, and he could not move. Then she rolled her hips back and he was underwater again, sinking, fighting to break the surface.
Chapter 13
Everything hurt in a tender way. Cradled in Jon’s arms, Sofia knew where they were. How and when they’d moved from the backyard to the master suite was a mystery. She lifted the comforter and scooted out of bed. She looked around for her clothes, then realized that she hadn’t been wearing any. This was going to be the walk of shame to top them all, even if only a few steps down a hallway. On tiptoe, she rounded the bed, bumped a knee against the dresser and blindly searched for the doorknob.
“The bathroom is the other door,” Jon said, his voice groggy.
“I know.” She found the doorknob and opened the door slightly, letting in a triangle of light. “My stuff is in the other room.”
Jon rolled onto his back and stretched. “Your stuff will be there in the morning.”
That was a good point. And yet she clung to the doorknob. This was how things got complicated. You stayed a night or two and never wanted to leave. That was the opposite of fun.
“Sofia, don’t go.”
She loved the way he said her name, drawing it out, leaning heavily on the f and making it his own.
“Come on.” He lifted the comforter, inviting her back into the cocoon.
What could she do? She was feeling groggy herself. The open door had let in a draft. She was naked and cold. Her legs were stiff with fatigue. How could she make it down the hall to her room? It would take only two steps to make it back to him.
She released the door handle and dove back into bed. He kissed the back of her neck, the rough stubble of his cheek chaffing her skin. “Tomorrow, bring your stuff in this room, and I’ll bring mine.”
She closed her eyes and told herself she was too tired to argue. They could talk about it in the morning.
* * *
In the morning, Jon was half-naked at the foot of the bed. Freshly showered and shaved, brown skin like toffee, a white dress shirt left open over boxer shorts. Eyebrows drawn, he was scrolling his phone. Sofia couldn’t fight back a smile. Could she wake up to this view every morning?
“You got a head start,” she said. “That’s not fair.”
He looked up from his task and gazed at her for a long moment. Then he tossed the phone onto the nightstand and climbed on top of her, light and quick. He caught her chin between his teeth. When she turned away, he went after her ear, pushing her hair out of the way. Sofia squirmed as her whole body awakened to pleasure.
“Aren’t you going to be late for whatever you’re dressing for?” she asked.
He trailed kisses down her neck and asked what her plans were for the day.
“Now that you’re back, my staycation is over,” she said. “I’ll be checking out of Hotel Gunther today.”
Jon rolled onto his side, relieving her of his weight. Immediately, though, she missed it.
“That wasn’t what we agreed to,” he said. “You’re moving your stuff in here.”
“Did I agree to that?” she asked.
“Silence is acquiescence,” he said.
Sofia hated to admit it, but she loved the sexy lawyer talk.
Jon reached over her, grabbed his phone off the bedside table and called his office. “I won’t be in today or tomorrow. See you Monday.”
He hung up and tossed
the phone across the bed, out of reach. “Now,” he said, those brown eyes bright with mischief, “we can staycation here or get out of here, go to the beach or down to the Keys. You decide.”
He nuzzled her neck and said he’d like to lick salt off her skin. The decision had been made.
* * *
He asked for a couple of hours to get organized and headed out with a shopping list. Sofia kept busy with laundry, dumping her bathing suit, sundresses, T-shirts and cutoffs into the washing machine. She showered and shaved and folded her dry clothes into her weekender bag. Anything to avoid the question: am I really going away to Key West with this man? The YES hiding in the tall grass of her mind would scare the daylights out of her, so she avoided it.
He returned with a gym bag stuffed with clothes and supplies, courtesy of CVS: sunblock, mosquito repellant and a large box of condoms.
She pulled the box out of the thin plastic bag. “Any chance we’re going to spend time getting to know each other on this trip?”
“That’s all we’re going to do.” He opened the refrigerator door and frowned at its poor contents. He pulled out her last box of wine and tossed it in the trash. “Let’s start now.”
“Oh?” Sofia hopped onto the kitchen counter and swung her bare legs.
“Why did you and Franco break up?”
Sofia coughed, her throat tight. “Excuse me?”
“I understand there was a breakup and a cover-up,” he said, still engrossed with the refrigerator. “But I don’t know why you two lovebirds broke up in the first place.”
Lovebirds? “Why are we talking about this?”
“I want to know the full story. Otherwise, it’ll drive me nuts.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” Sofia hopped off the counter. “It’s the same lame story. You fall in love. You fall out of love. Case closed, counselor.”
He shut the refrigerator door and studied her, his expression inscrutable.
“We really should get going,” Sofia said. “Traffic is going to build up.”
* * *
Speeding along the Seven Mile Bridge, Sofia felt uneasy. The strip of concrete stretched over the channel where the ocean and the bay mingled. No matter how many times she’d made this trip, it left her unsettled. With the top of the convertible down, she felt weightless and unanchored. She worried she might fly away.
“You okay?” Jon asked.
They hadn’t spoken much, but that was his fault. Why would he bring up Franco after their first night together? Why would he question her about her past while she was holding a box of condoms? It was rude and tactless, to say nothing else.
A motorcycle sped past them, recklessly close.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” she said.
He kept his left hand on the wheel of the Porsche and reached for her with the right, linking his fingers with hers. “Don’t worry.”
Sofia closed her eyes. They were speeding away from their city and their exes, and she hoped they could leave it all behind. It was as scary and exciting as crossing a bridge, and yet they made it across.
* * *
“We’re booked.”
“That’s right,” Sofia said to the front desk clerk. “I booked your last available room online.” They were hungry, hot and worn-out from the trip. Sofia knew a great place for conch fritters but they first had to settle the small matter of lodging. “I have a confirmation number and everything.”
Desperate, Sofia searched for the confirmation email on her phone. The bed-and-breakfast had appealed to them straight away. Its gingerbread style with a sloped roof and shuttered windows was charming. Located on the south end of Duval Street, it was a short walk to the beach.
The clerk shook her head. “That might’ve been a computer glitch.”
“Not one single vacancy?” Jon asked.
The clerk was in the throes of an allergy attack. She dabbed her watery eyes with a tissue. “There’s one, but—”
“We’ll take it.” Jon reached for his wallet.
“Wait one minute,” she said. “It’s a long-term stay suite. It comes with a kitchenette and a private balcony.”
Sofia put away her phone. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“Long-term stay,” the clerk repeated, more slowly this time. “We don’t book it for less than one week, seven nights.”
It was Thursday, and they planned to return to Miami on Sunday afternoon. They had three wondrous nights ahead of them—if they could book a room.
“We’ll book it for seven, stay for three,” Jon said. “Any objections?”
The clerk blew her nose. “All I need is a credit card.”
Jon slid a platinum card across the desk.
“I’ll throw in one night free,” the clerk said cheerily. Then she sneezed up a storm.
With keys in hand, they followed a porter across a courtyard to the stairs leading to their second-floor suite. Jon stepped aside at the landing so that Sofia could go ahead. Sofia turned to face him and touched his arm. “We’ll split the bill.”
He took her hand off his arm and rested it on the iron stair rail. “We’ll talk about it later.”
By “later,” she guessed he meant never. So after lunch, while they were hanging out at the hotel courtyard for beer and live music, Sofia slipped away to the front desk to settle their bill. A new clerk, bright-eyed and allergy-free, pulled up their account.
“Suite 210? There’s no balance.”
“Are you sure?” Sofia asked. “We were supposed to pay the balance at checkout.”
The clerk reviewed the account once again. “No balance, as of one thirty-five this afternoon. You’re still responsible for any in-room entertainment and mini-bar products you enjoy during your stay. You’re welcome to settle those fees at checkout.”
Sofia drummed the counter with her fingertips. At one thirty-five they’d been at lunch, chomping on conch fritters. When had the sneaky bastard found the time?
Jon was at a table under the shade of an almond tree. A longneck beer bottle was waiting for her. She confronted him, hands on hips.
“I know what you did.”
He grinned, flashing a row of straight white teeth. “Then I know what you tried to do.”
“I can afford to pay my way, you know,” she said. “I can’t have you paying for everything.”
“Does that mean you don’t want this beer?”
“Jon...”
“This trip was my idea and my treat. Plain. Simple.”
The band started playing “Margaritaville,” as likely mandated by Key West local laws. Sofia took a sip from the bottle and willed herself to calm down. There was nothing she could do about the hotel tab without coming off as petty. While she mulled this over, he rested his Heineken bottle on the table, drew her onto his lap and threaded his cold hand through the slit of her dress. She relaxed against him, sang along with the band and tried to put the whole business out of her mind. They hadn’t come all this way to argue. Still, she had one last question.
She wrapped an arm around his neck. “Just out of curiosity, when did you settle the account? We were never apart.”
“Since when are you this interested in transparency?”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“You have your secrets. I have mine.”
She didn’t get what he was alluding to, but the set of his eyes tipped her off. She jerked upright, nearly toppling backward. “This can’t be about this morning. Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
Sofia jumped off his lap and headed for the stairs. She locked herself in their suite’s bathroom and turned on the shower. Her anger was reaching its boiling point, and she wondered while undressing how much it would cost to Uber back to Miami.
She understood new couples usually had a “talk” about their
exes, but this was taking things too far. First of all, they weren’t a couple. Second of all...he could go to hell.
Jon knocked on the door. “Sofia, I’m sorry. Are you crying?”
Crying! Was he kidding? Sofia wrapped a towel around her bare breasts and swung open the bathroom door to confront him, dry-eyed.
“Jon, I don’t have the words to describe how big of a jerk you’re being right now!”
He didn’t back down. “I’ve answered all your questions about Viv. I told you the truth even when the answers didn’t exactly make me look good.”
Viv? Is that what he called her? Was that short for something sultry like Viviana? “I want to know what you’re hiding,” Jon said.
“I’m not hiding anything,” Sofia retorted. “I didn’t like the way you sprang the question on me, that’s all.”
“Granted,” he said. “I was bullish with it, but it’s eating me.”
“Why? What does it matter?”
“I hate that you’re so protective of him.”
A tap on the bedroom door put an end to round one. A woman called out, “Housekeeping!”
Jon went to the door. “Come back later. My girl is getting dressed.”
As far as Sofia was concerned, those words...my girl...put an end to the whole fight. But he didn’t have to know that.
* * *
The Key West sunset was a natural attraction and, over lunch, they’d planned to watch it along with every other tourist on the island at Mallory Square. But what was meant to be a romantic excursion had turned sour. The walk to the square took longer than it should have. They dragged their feet, burdened by the silence between them. Bicycle taxis whizzed past them. They arrived just in time to the waterfront plaza. Every single juggler, fire-eater and accordionist in the Lower Keys had showed up to entertain the masses. Sofia shivered when Jon placed a hand on the small of her back, guiding her toward the seawall for a better view of the one spectacle that was absolutely free. Cell-phone cameras snapped all around them in a collective effort to capture the ephemeral beauty of the moment: the sun sinking into the Gulf of Mexico in sheer washes of orange and pink, leaving behind a deep lavender sky. Sofia turned around and buried her face in Jon’s chest. She couldn’t shoulder the weight of their silence anymore. If she had to cave, she’d cave.
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