by Whitley Cox
Both experiences were life-changing—especially the diving. I’d never been afraid of heights, per se, but I couldn’t say I went out of my way to look over a ledge or down into a ravine. So as safe and exhilarated as I felt with the wind in my hair and nothing but air and sea beneath my toes as I was tugged behind the speedboat at warp speed, donning the mask, regulator and tank and then bailing over the side of the boat into the cerulean sea was much more my cup of tea.
Weightless, refreshingly cool and with a whole new world to explore, I was in awe. Although Tate had said he had planned to take Mr. Parker Ryan spearfishing, I had politely declined after giving it great thought. Much as with the mahi-mahi, I did not want to be responsible for any lives lost on my trip.
No dead fish.
I wanted to see life, wanted to experience the intensity of a school of ten thousand fish swarm around me in a tornado of silver scales and wary eyes, darting around as a united mass the moment a barracuda or reef shark came skulking by. No, I wasn’t a vegetarian, and yes, I would probably order the mahi-mahi later that night, but I had never felt more alive on this trip in all my life. I’d never been so adventurous, so brazen, so . . . uninhibited, so like hell was I going to be responsible for taking another life when I was in the process of reinventing mine.
Chapter Eight
It was day six, and we’d finally managed to get out for that hike he’d been promising me. Hopping in his Jeep after another glorious morning of swimming, sex and breakfast cunnilingus, we parked at the base of the mountain, tossed on our sunglasses, SPF and backpacks and set forth up the trail.
We’d reached the top of The Belvedere Lookout, having made good time, and even though I was slightly out of breath from the trek, had I not been, the view alone would have done the job. It was stunning. You could see everything from the viewpoint, the entire island, in all its heart-shaped beauty.
It was busy at the top, loads of eager-beaver vacationers trying to snap that perfect shot, while at the same time avoid having an unknown person photo-bomb their attempt at a postcard-worthy photo (weren’t we all?). Sunset was the best time to come, Tate had said as we meandered around the top, dodging other weary but bright-eyed hikers, as it painted the sky into a rainbow of reds, oranges, pinks, yellows and purples. But if you wanted to hike (which we did), that was best done in the daylight. He promised that another night we’d drive up and enjoy the sunset. I didn’t really care either way; I was on top of the world and feeling amazing. The hike had been exhilarating, awakening muscles and challenging my lungs in ways I just didn’t experience doing the front crawl every morning in the pool. And the reward at the end was totally worth it. We were at the pinnacle of paradise, and I couldn’t imagine experiencing it with anyone else. My heart felt light and my mind clear as I swept my hair off my neck and dabbed a towel on my chest to mop up the thin layer of sweat that had accumulated.
“Tell me about your family,” Tate asked, handing me a water bottle out of his backpack.
“Thanks,” I replied, taking a healthy swig from the bottle, running the back of my wrist over my mouth.
We wandered over to the edge and elbowed our way to the front. The din of marveling and awestruck tourists along with the snap and click of cameras filled the warm breeze, while the unfettered view of the Opunohu Valley left many others in introspective silence. I was one of the quieter ones.
“So? Your family?” he asked again.
At this point, I’d pulled out my own camera and was adjusting the lens and specs to account for how bright it was. “What’s there to say?” I finally said, moving to the left just a smidge and out of the shadow of a big tall blond man behind me. He looked part mountain, part man. “Mom was sixteen when she had me. Never met my dad.”
Obviously that was not the answer Tate had been anticipating, because his eyebrows nearly shot clear off his tanned forehead. “Oh.”
I couldn’t hide the wry smirk that tugged at my lips as I continued to take pictures. That was most people’s response. They were left stunned silent, unsure of what to say next.
“It’s okay,” I said, checking the last couple of my shots on the screen. “It’s not that big of a deal. She did the best she could.”
“Like you don’t know who your dad is? Or he never wanted anything to do with you or your mother?”
Slanting him a side-eye, I moved over to another spot at the lookout, closer to the little souvenir stand, and started taking a few snapshots of the stand itself.
“As in she doesn’t know who he is. He could be one of three or four guys. My mother was . . . generous with her affections as a teenager, beautiful and a wild child. My grandparents both worked long hours and weren’t really around much to keep her on a clean and even path. Depending when I ask, I was either conceived at a pep rally, in the projection room of a movie theater or the back of a Ford pickup. Or my favorite, in a hot tub where there was nothing but hand stuff, but apparently his seed was just that potent.”
Tate snorted beside me, and I just rolled my eyes.
“But either way, my mother never told any of the men. I’m not sure she was able to find them after their night of reckless coupling, and so I was raised without a dad.”
“What about your grandparents? Did they step up?”
“Kind of, after the shock of it all wore off. They’d initially kicked my mother out, but after I was born and they found us living in pretty much squalor, they took us in. Though they were quick to point out that they would not be used as a babysitting service and my mother had to get a job and pay rent—which she did.”
Tate motioned for us to start heading back down the trail, and I nodded, stowing my camera in its bag and then slinging it over my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice softer than I thought I’d ever heard it, full of remorse and pity.
Shaking my head, I gave him a stern look. “I don’t need your pity. She tried her best, my mother. She worked three jobs, finally just got her GED a few years ago. And as much as she’s a bit of a partier now because she spent her twenties holed up with a kid, she was a good mother. She tried. She didn’t do drugs, didn’t drink. I was never hungry, never without a roof over my head or clean clothes. I graduated high school and then college. I was a lot better off than a lot of teenage-pregnancy babies. Apparently the year I was born was one of the worst years for teenage pregnancies. Something like twelve girls in my mother’s school became mothers before they turned eighteen.”
“Where did you say you were from again?” he asked, awe and disbelief in his tone.
“Bumpkinville, Mississippi,” I said sarcastically. The real name of the town was irrelevant. There were so many of them along Route 61 that they didn’t even make it onto most maps. We had one high school, one grocery store and one bar. That was it.
“Really? I can’t hear any accent.”
“Good.” I grinned back at him. “Then the thousands I spent on a speech coach paid off.”
“Running from your past, eh?”
“You pretty much left wherever in Canada you’re from and set up camp in a remote part of the world. Obviously your past wasn’t that rosy, either.” I knitted my brows together into a scowl. How dare he say I was running from my past? He didn’t know me at all.
“I never told you I was Canadian.” There was humor in his tone but not in his eyes. He was trying to get me to crack my shell, let him in, tear down my walls.
Never.
“The fact that you end nearly every question with an upward inflected ‘eh?’ betrayed your origin,” I said dryly.
“I’m from Victoria. It’s on an island close to Vancouver and Seattle. Beautiful city, and I’d live there again in a heartbeat. I’m not running from anything. I had a fantastic childhood. My mother and uncle were incredible role models. But I can do more good on a global scale here. But enough about me, we’re talking about you.”
“Not anymore we’re not.”
“Come on, Parker. Just because this
arrangement is only a ten-day fling doesn’t mean I don’t care about you or want to get to know the woman I’m sleeping with. You’re more than just a piece of ass, to me anyway. I might be just a piece of ass to you, but to me you’re more than that.”
I stopped in my tracks and spun around to stare at him while my breath jammed up in my lungs, and I’m sure that stab to my abdomen was the bottom of my stomach giving way.
He moved into me.
“I like you, Parker.” His arms encircled my waist, and he pulled me tight against his hardness, the heat and draw of his body making me dizzy.
I was a moth to a flame. Despite the risk of being singed and rendered flightless, I was drawn to him. Drawn to the heat of his body, his intensity, his fire and passion. He wasn’t just a piece of ass to me, he was a breath of fresh air, he was . . . mine.
“And admit it.” His eyes held a seriousness to them, fathomless pools of sage that seemed to glow almost gold in the late morning light, but he also looked like he was trying to hide a smile. “You like me too. I’m more than just a piece of ass . . . although I do have a great ass.”
I made a noise in my throat that was somewhere between a snort and a giggle. But nothing else was able to come out, because his mouth slanted over mine, and that was the end of the conversation. Before I knew what was happening, he was running off the trail, through the thick green brush and into the jungle, with me in a front piggyback, my legs wrapped around his hips and arms around his neck. We were both out of breath by the time he stopped, even though I hadn’t been the one exercising.
Tate rammed my back up against a tree and then went to work on my clothes, shucking my sky-blue tank top, followed by my sports bra, which wasn’t easy to remove. My shorts were next. Then it was his turn. We were frantic, much like the first time we’d done it, desperate for skin-to-skin and each other, wanting nothing more than to have a connection to another person, to feel the rhapsodic glee that comes with orgasms and the feeling of being needed, claimed, possessed. And if there was anything Tate McAllister did well, besides run a hotel, make oodles of money, save refugees and fuck like it was his last day on earth, it was possessing me, mind, body and soul.
I let out a gasp followed by a mewl as he sheathed himself inside me, pushing my thong to the side, not even bothering to check if I was wet or not. He knew my body, he knew I would be. I was a walking slip and slide when the man was around.
“You’re more than just a piece of ass to me, Parker,” he grunted, his teeth and stubble raking their way across my collarbone as his fingers dug deep wells into the plump flesh of my ass, holding me up and pounding me against the tree. “Say it.”
Say what? My head tilted back, and I noticed gray clouds rolling in with ominous intent, dark and foreboding, threatening rain of the torrential kind and possibly some thunder and lightning too.
“Say it!” he demanded again. “Say I’m more than just a piece of ass to you. Say I’m more than a fling.”
“God, Tate . . .”
“Say it, Parker, or I’ll pull out right now. I know you feel it, too.”
“Tate . . .” His name was but a whisper past my lips as his body coaxed me to the brink but left me teetering on the edge. He knew exactly what he was doing. The man was a master, and he was going to tease me until I said what he wanted to hear or I passed out from sheer exhaustion.
“Say it, Parker!”
Every cell in my body felt it. It was more than just a fling, of course it was. I’d never been with a man like Tate McAllister, a man who made me excited to start every day and treat each moment like an adventure. But the fact of the matter was, this was just a fling. I was only here for ten days; after that I would be leaving and going back to reality, and he’d have his tropical haven and the next heartbroken guest to breathe new life into.
“Yes,” I finally sighed, deciding to give him what he wanted. It wasn’t a lie. I felt it all, too. But the way he kept his own walls up, his unwillingness to stay the night, to invite me to his place . . . it was all just as temporary to him, too, even if he didn’t want to admit it.
“That’s right!” A snarl of satisfaction had him picking up speed and hammering into me harder, measured thrusts born of the triumph that shone in his eyes. His pelvic bone rubbed against my clit while his cock massaged that sweet spot deep inside me until I was a quivering mess, ready to let go and drift off up into the ether, hoping, wishing that Tate would come with me.
He bent his head low and latched onto a scarlet nipple, drawing the bud into the wet heat of his mouth, while letting his stubble prickle and torture my pale areolas. They were already hard and tender, so the soft bite of pain and deliberate tug were all I needed to shoot me clear over the edge. I gripped his cock like a fist and tumbled backward over the cliff, freefalling, holding on tight to Tate and encouraging him to join me.
Pleasure surged through me as the orgasm took hold, ripping around my body, taking no prisoners and giving no quarter. There would be no mercy shown this afternoon. This climax was out to destroy. My hands dove into his hair and I tugged on the ends, wanting to cause him just a touch of pain. I knew I’d succeeded when he inhaled harsh and quick and delivered a saucy pinch to the bottom of my left butt cheek. Even mid-orgasm, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re going to be the end of me, Parker. I lose my head when I’m with you.” His cadence was waning. He was getting close. I felt a quake pass through him, followed by a shudder, and then he stilled. His entire body went rigid, muscles flexed, body taut. He grunted and let his head fall to the crook of my neck while sharp teeth nipped and grazed my skin and made me mewl and beg for more. I milked him, squeezing myself tight around his pulsing shaft, feeling every rush of his seed as he filled me. The pressure of his release against my sensitive walls was enough, and with the toss of my head and a low groan, I leaped off the cliff one more time.
“I’m going to book you an appointment later today, okay?” Tate said when we’d spiraled back down to earth and claimed our clothes, dodging golf-ball-size raindrops as we hightailed it back to his Jeep.
“What kind of an appointment?” I asked. The rain was picking up, and I was starting to fear for my camera, even though the case was waterproof.
“You’ll know once you get there,” he said solemnly. “I think it could help you. Sort out some of your issues.”
He was being evasive again, and it irked me. What kind of issues did I have, exactly?
“If when you get there you don’t want to do it, you can walk right out and come punch me.”
I barked out a laugh, and he just flashed me a smile that made me want to tear off his clothes and ride him again. But then his brows met in the middle again.
“I want to help you, Parker, and I think this appointment might be able to do just that.”
We reached the Jeep and piled inside. It was a soft-top, so Tate hastily unrolled the canvas before the rain soaked the interior too badly, and then we were off, rosy-cheeked, drenched and ready for our next adventure.
I changed out of my wet hiking clothes and into something a little more comfortable and beachy. It was still raining pretty hard, so the inside of the hotel was buzzing like a sunscreen-scented beehive with people in every imaginable corner. It made me quickly realize how busy and populated the resort really was. When it was sunny and warm, people were much more scattered, and the property seemed less full. I walked down the hallway past the pool and the soundproof room, around the corner where I waved at Janessa behind the desk and then to the left where a door marked “Allison Sheffield” had me coming to an abrupt halt and getting ready to knock. All sorts of “help with my issues” scenarios raced through my head. Was she some special massage therapist? Reiki? Hypnotist? I honestly had no clue.
I hadn’t even knocked when the door swung open and a woman wearing light linen pants and an understated short-sleeved pink blouse smiled widely at me. She was probably no more than three or four years older than me, with wavy brown hair tha
t fell just below her shoulders, a classically symmetrical round face with peachy cheeks and naturally long lashes that encased dark chocolate eyes.
“You must be Parker?” she said, a delightfully soft British lilt flowing at me like a melodic hum.
I nodded. “Yes, I am.” I stuck my hand out. She took it with a knowing smile. Her hands were soft and delicate, with long fingers and beautifully shaped nails.
“Well, welcome. Come on in, won’t you? Have a seat, and we’ll get started.”
I followed her inside the room, which at first glance appeared to be an office, but upon further inspection looked more like a therapy room, with two mirror image couches facing each other, a couple of other chairs and a bookshelf that housed works by Freud, Jung, Erickson, Morgan, Skinner, Chapman and Joannides. She took a seat on one of the cream-colored couches and motioned for me to do the same. But I’d stopped mid-stride and was just gaping around the room. Diplomas and certificates, one from Cambridge, another Oxford. I think she’d gone to Brown and done something as well; it was too far down the wall for me to know. She was a shrink. Tate had sent me to see a shrink!
Shaking my head, I started to back up. “Uh, I think both you and Mr. McAllister may have been mistaken here. I don’t need a shrink.” My hand was on the doorknob now.
She shrugged. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, okay. You don’t have to sit and talk with me. We could just stare at each other for an hour. Or we could talk about whatever you want to talk about, work, your life, nail polish, your favorite food or cooking show. Or you can go. Totally up to you.”