There are so many questions that I need answered.
Just not at this very moment.
I bury my hands in the sand. I bring my palms together and scoop up as much of it as I can.
“You calling that escort to go to his room didn’t help much,” I finally say. Nicholas’ mouth drops open.
“What happened?” he whispers.
I prop up my head with my hand and rest it on my knee.
“It kinda killed the mood,” I joke.
He furrows his brows, looking perplexed.
“Dallas isn’t a bad looking guy,” I explain.
My lips form into a little smile that I can’t force off my face.
“What are you talking about?” Nicholas asks.
I don’t respond. He turns his body toward mine, grabbing me by my shoulders.
“Don’t tell me you were thinking of…what exactly? Actually, going through with it?”
I shrug, reveling in his jealousy. “I was expecting some troll but he and I had real heat. Besides, I haven’t had sex, proper sex, in a long time.”
“You wanted to fuck him?” Nicholas asks.
“Yeah, maybe.” I smile.
“Don’t you know who he is?” he says, shaking his head.
“No, I don’t. That’s the problem. You didn’t tell me anything about him.”
“That’s because I wanted to protect you. I called this whole operation off.”
I shake my head and turn away from him.
He forcibly turns my face toward him.
“What happened?” he asks.
The fire in his eyes is still there but it no longer feels like just jealousy. It’s something more than that.
I go over the broad strokes.
“You’re lucky that you slipped out of there when you did,” Nicholas says.
This irritates me.
“I don’t need you to tell me that. I’m not an idiot.”
“I wasn’t implying that you were.”
Shaking my head, my eyes follow the seagull that wanders around the edge of the water looking for a snack.
When he puts his hand on my arm, I brush it away.
“I didn’t want you to go because I was worried that something might go wrong and then…” Nicholas’ voice trails off. “I didn’t want anything to happen to you.”
“What do you care?” I ask. “I’m just your employee.”
“Why are you making this so hard?”
“Because you make me angry,” I say. “You put me into an impossible position. You refused to let me go back home and be there for my brother.”
“That wasn’t fair,” he says.
“You can say that again.”
I don’t know if he really doesn’t understand or if he is just trying to be difficult, but the emotional rollercoaster that I have just experienced is all because of that choice.
“It wasn’t really a choice. It was an unfair thing to ask me to do,” I continue. “You know that. I don’t have any other family but Owen. My mother is an asshole. She doesn’t care about me or anyone else but her. She won’t be there for him, and even if she were, what would she say? He’s all I have.”
“I’m sorry,” Nicholas says quietly.
“When you suddenly and arbitrarily, mind you, decided that suddenly I wasn’t experienced enough to do this job, I had to prove you wrong. I’m sorry I snuck out and stole your car but I did what I needed to do. I don’t have a fucking job anymore and you are going to pay me my first paycheck if it’s the last thing you do.”
The words fly out of my mouth without much editing for content, meaning, or impact. It’s almost as if they have a mind of their own.
“I was never not going to pay you,” he says.
I let out a mocking chuckle.
Nicholas scooches over to me. Our arms touch. He turns his body to face mine. Placing his finger under my chin he turns my face toward his.
“There is still a lot you don’t know about me,” he says.
I meet his eyes and don’t look away.
“But I always pay my debts.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Also…” He leans over and kisses me.
My mouth opens up to welcome him inside before my mind can stop it. He buries his hands in my hair. Shivers run down my body each time he tugs.
His lips are soft and powerful, devouring mine. Our tongues touch and intertwine. His hands make their way down my neck and to my back. They look for a way to my flesh, but I’m sitting on the bottom of my coat.
His hands find the belt and unwrap it moving quickly. When he pushes the sides of my coat off my shoulders and away from my body, he realizes that underneath I am dressed in that lingerie that he had showed me on the hanger.
His mouth waters and he licks his lips.
He positions himself right in front of me, and I spread my legs slowly for him.
My nipples get hard from the way he looks at them and the wind feels nice against the crease in between my thighs.
I’m completely exposed, surrounded by only the strings of the crotchless bikini, and now also somewhat covered in sand.
“Oh, wow,” Nicholas whispers, taking off his own shirt. I run my fingers down his hard body, pausing briefly over each washboard ab.
Nicholas leans over and picks up my leg.
“Lie down,” he says. “I want you to enjoy this.”
I do as he says and close my eyes.
His lips make their way from my toes up to my knees. Then up around the outside of my thighs before dipping down on the inside.
My body throbs for his. I arch my back and open my legs even wider.
Touch me. Touch me down there. You know where, I say silently.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he does the same thing up my other leg. When he reaches the inside of my thighs, his kisses get more frantically. My body burns for him even more. He reaches up, taking one of my breasts into his hand.
The other remains down below.
“I want you,” I say. “Now.”
He leans over me. His substantial package presses against my pelvic bone. I wrap my legs around him.
“Are you taking birth control?” he asks.
I was, but I’ve given it up. They always made me feel kind of off and bloated and I haven’t been having sex with anyone to make them worthwhile.
“No,” I say.
“I don’t have any condoms,” he says.
He tries to kiss me again, but I stop him.
“I can’t have sex without protection,” I say.
That’s a rule I haven’t broken since I became old enough to have sex.
I’m terrified of getting pregnant by accident or possibly getting some sort of disease. No matter how aroused I have felt in the moment, I have never broken this rule.
When, or rather, if I ever get pregnant it will be because I want a child. There are enough unwanted children in this world and I know that I couldn’t handle a baby that I didn’t really want to have.
“I don’t want to have sex without using anything either,” Nicholas says, lying down next to me.
I turn on my side, laying one leg over the other and propping my head up with my hand. He mirrors my position. Scooping up a handful of sand, he slowly releases it onto my thighs.
Some of it blows away in the breeze, but most of the grains land and either go down the front or the back of my body.