“Well, look what we have here,” I said, rocking back and forth on my bare feet, hands stuffed into the deep pockets of my silk pyjama pants. “Good fucking morning, teach.”
Three naked girls with huge fake tits that bounced along the surface of the pool like floatation devices giggled and splashed each other as Ronan, dressed in only a burgundy velvet robe with a gold sash and lounging on a neon-pink unicorn floaty, dragged his fingers along the water and tilted his trendy black sunglasses toward the warm morning sun.
At the sound of my intrusion, he craned his head up and nudged his sunglasses to the bridge of his nose, eyeing me over the dark frames. The corners of his mouth curled into an easy smile, quickly masking his surprise.
“Well, hello there…” he squinted a little, “…you.”
I sucked at my teeth before gritting out, “It’s Delaney.”
His forgetting not just about our deal, but my name sent a jolt of anger into my chest.
“So you weren’t hungry this morning?” I asked, trying to keep the irritation from my voice; I knew he fed on people’s irritation of him like a vampire on blood.
“Oh, I was plenty hungry this morning,” he replied, fingers reaching out to pinch a girl’s nipple.
I rolled my eyes when she hitched her breath dramatically and arched her back. Ronan’s finger twisted into her wet hair and dragged her to his unicorn floaty to kiss her. The wet, sloppy slurping noises made me want to gag.
“When’s my turn, Ronan?” a redhead protested.
“How much does he pay you to say that?” I asked her, but she only shot me a “fuck you” glare.
“She’s so mean, isn’t she?” Ronan said to her, his eyes darting to me with a mischievous flash. “And she has such a filthy, filthy mouth.”
Ronan kept his attention on me even as the other two girls started kissing, their wet bodies obnoxiously slithering against one another as if they were each on a slip and slide.
“The water’s nice,” he said to me, his voice low as the girl’s long nails slipped inside the parted front of his robe.
“We were supposed to meet this morning at breakfast,” I said, telling myself I needed to keep this short and to the point. “You were going to teach me. And you forgot. I only came to find you before I leave to tell you that that’s a dick move and that you’re a dick.”
Ronan’s hips hitched as the woman’s hand moved further south. He arched his back with a contented groan and stretched his arms overhead to rest his head in his hands.
“You missed it, love,” was all he said just as I was about to leave.
I narrowed my eyes in well-deserved suspicion. “Missed what?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Obviously fucking not.”
I tried to ignore the twitch of Ronan’s lower abs just visible above the gold sash which dragged carelessly in the water. The woman’s arm moved slowly as if she was in no hurry, as if she were used to spending hours out in the sun jerking Ronan off. I blushed when I realised Ronan was grinning, having caught me looking. Or maybe I’d already been blushing. I resisted the urge to tuck a strand of hair nervously behind my ear, knowing Ronan had eyes like a hawk for any signs of weakness.
“This was your first lesson,” Ronan explained even as his voice hitched. “The lesson was obviously this…”
Ronan’s voice drifted off as the other two girls stopped making out to swim over and slide their hands under the bottom of his robe up along each thigh. Ronan twisted his fingers into their hair but looked at me.
“Make people wait for you and they’ll think you’re worth waiting for,” he said, his voice tight. “That’s your first lesson.”
I rolled my eyes and turned around. Ronan was full of shit—he knew it and I knew it.
“Hey, come swim with us, Delaney!” he shouted after me.
I stuck up my middle finger over my shoulder.
“There’s lots of other lessons I have for you.”
“Fuck you, Ronan.”
I heard him laughing as I slammed shut the door to the patio behind me. Benson was coming along the garden corridor with a tray of bloody Marys on a silver tray.
“Anything I can get you, mademoiselle?”
“Actually,” I said, “is there a computer I could use?”
“Of course,” Benson said, “let me just deliver these to Ronan.”
I smiled as I relieved him of the heavily laden tray. “No need,” I said. “I’ll take these as well.”
Ronan
Maybe it was the gorgeous bright blue-sky weather. Maybe it was the itty-bitty, teeny-tiny sniff of cocaine. Maybe it was the lingering impression of her sumptuous lips on the inside of my eyelids like a dark spot from staring at the sun.
But I wanted to play.
I whistled merrily up the stairs to her bedroom, yellow measuring tape draped over my shoulders, roll of fabric under my arm, a pushpin like an irritated hedgehog in my hand. Her bedroom door was closed, but I barged in like a gust of hot summer wind.
Delaney was lying on her stomach across the messy bed sheets, her ankles crisscrossed in the air as she scrolled online on a laptop Benson must have loaned her from the library. On the bedside was a tray of my four missing bloody Mary glasses, three empty and only one still full. I vaguely noticed on the laptop screen an application form for some job. But first, having never applied to a goddamn thing in my entire life, I couldn’t be entirely sure that was what it was. And second, I was far more interested in the faint outline of her black thong visible through her pale pink silk pyjama bottoms and the eraser end of a pencil she was tapping against her lips.
When the door banged loudly against the wall, her head jerked back to stare at me with wide eyes that narrowed irritably when she saw it was yours truly. I clapped my hands like summoning a garcon at a fine Parisian restaurant and clicked my heels together.
“Strip!” I declared, whipping the measuring tape from my neck like a Spanish matador with a crimson flag.
Delaney rolled halfway over and the outline of her hips down to her narrow waist was a rollercoaster I wanted to ride again and again.
“What did you just say?” she said, her low tone meant to be intimidating.
I gestured vaguely at her pyjamas.
“Clothes,” I said, thumbing over my shoulder. “¡Vámonos!”
Delaney pushed herself up to sitting.
“Why the hell would I get naked for you?” she asked, crossing her arms defiantly over her chest.
I wiggled the measuring tape at her. “This is your second lesson,” I said. “A perfect fitting garment is the key to class!”
Delaney remained silent and I snapped my fingers impatiently. “Let’s see some tittays, love.”
Delaney snorted, her dark eyes fixed on mine. “You really never intended to help me, did you?” she said, suddenly quiet.
My easy, carefree smile almost wavered as her gaze seemed to penetrate my defences. It was I who suddenly felt naked in front of her. But thankfully being an even bigger asshole cures anyone of that strange affliction of wanting to see anything resembling the real me.
“Alright, alright. I was intending all along on getting you naked,” I said with a bored, disinterested shrug. “But I’ll still take your measurements if it makes you feel better about the whole thing.”