Jamison
Idecided to walk the cement path between the resort and the beach back to The Bronte—the broody Bronte, as I’d heard it referred to. It fit. I felt broody as hell.
The sky was a black expanse over the ocean, the dark waves washed up on the pale sand.
I had the strangest urge to take my shoes off and put my feet in the water.
But there was no reason to, other than some random inclination.
Stopping, I shoved my hands in my pockets and breathed in the brine on the wind whipping my hair across my forehead and my shirt against my stomach.
“Hey,” Mike called, jogging to my side.
I gave him a half-smile, but it faded when I saw the crease between his eyebrows. It seemed I’d pissed off more than just Sadie today. “What’s up?”
“You tell me. Are you okay?”
Scoffing, I said, “Why?”
“You seem off. I didn’t expect you to be the chattiest person at the table, but—”
“I’m tired. My flight was so fucking early this morning. Gonna call it a night.”
He nodded slowly. “So, you’re good?”
“I will be tomorrow.”
Scraping the toe of his shoe on the sand-covered cement, he spoke down to the ground. “Mom seems to be doing okay.”
“Yeah, just normal Mom stuff. She seems good.”
“It’s hard not having Dad here, right?” A flash of memory superseded over the grown man in front of me, replaced by his nineteen-year-old self, hunched and small, as we waited in the family room of the hospital to receive the worst news.
I breathed in a deep breath and waited for the wash of grief to settle to something I could behave normally through while it shifted inside of me. “These big life events are always hard.”
It was an understatement. At my law school graduation, I’d had to go completely numb in order to make it through the day. But just like then, I wouldn’t breakdown. I would be the solid footing Mom and Mike needed, and they’d never know how the weight of it buried me.
“That’s probably part of it.”
“Part of what?”
He tilted his head to give me the same look he gave me when we were kids and he was fed up that I wasn’t sharing the Nintendo 64. “You were rude.”
I rolled my eyes. “When was I rude?”
“Sadie doesn’t have to announce her allergy to the fucking table.”
“Right,” I conceded even though I felt my shock and outrage were very justified. “Sure, that might be part of it.”
“Can you be nice to her?” His brows pinched together and his eyes grew soft in a way that reminded me of our dad. “I think she’s more sensitive than usual.”
I straightened, and squared my shoulders, unsure if I was feeling protective or defensive. “What do you mean?”
“She just got out of this thing with this guy who really fucked her around. I think she might be kinda tender—”
”—Yeah, sure,” I mumbled as everything clicked into place.
A boyfriend explained why she hadn’t responded to my texts for a couple of months, and it might even make her attitude toward me make sense.
I still wished she had talked to me. If she didn’t want anything to happen between us while we were here because she was still going through a breakup, it was a lot simpler to say than to be weirdly antagonistic.
”—And you were borderline an asshole—”
“That’s bullshit, no I wasn’t,” I interrupted.
He started ticking my offenses off on his fingers. “You didn’t even say hello to her when she came to dinner. No matter how much we tried to pull you into a conversation, you wouldn’t if you’d be talking to Sadie. And then obviously, the whole allergy thing.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ, I was concerned.”
“That would be fine if it weren’t for everything else.”
I held up my hand to stop him from talking. “Mike, I will be so fucking nice. Okay?”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders up to his ears. “Good. We can order you an Uber for tomorrow—”
“I have a rental.”
“Oh cool, I’ll send a group text so you and Sadie can coordinate riding together.”
Swallowing, I wondered if she’d want to share a car with me. I’d find a way for her to have an out so she didn’t feel forced. “Sounds good.”
He half-turned then faced me again. “And don’t worry about the lessons. It’s like basic slow dance stuff. It’s not meant to be super intimate.”
I nodded, unsure of how to respond to that.
“Also, sorry if this was a surprise. It’s not like I thought you’d get yourself lessons, but I also didn’t think you’d have a big opposition to it.”
“No, it’s really no problem.” For the most part, it wasn’t. I liked to dance. Dancing with a partner who’d rather have nothing to do with me sounded less fun.
He jogged away, leaving me to continue back to my room with my head down.
I followed the walk to the beach entrance of The Bronte when I came to an abrupt stop as a memory of Sadie and my last hang out popped into my head.
She’d said something about the future and wanting something meaningful.
And I’d said that I was already living the life I wanted to live, and that the work I was doing was meaningful enough for me.
Had she been talking about the guy?
This was exactly what pissed me off about other men.
I was very clear about only wanting casual relationships, that the women I spent time with should date other people and when our time ran out there wouldn’t be any hard feelings.
I wished them well. Hopefully they enjoyed their time with me as much as I’d enjoyed being with them.
Not that I was a huge ladies’ man, I liked consistent friends with benefits sort of relationships.
It was when other men promised something they couldn’t deliver on that I hated. Which was why I offered casual only. Who would want to be with someone as broken as me? I wasn’t trustworthy with anyone’s feelings, and I’d hate myself if I hurt Sadie.
Whoever this guy was, he’d given her hope for something more, and if he wasn’t willing or able to provide that he shouldn’t have lied.
It wasn’t a relief exactly to learn that she’d had been seeing someone.
Even with how much Sadie was pissing me off—and sorta hurting my feelings—there was no denying that I wanted her in my arms. I wanted her smell on my clothes.
I wanted to make her laugh. I kinda wanted to beat the shit out of the guy that had broken her heart.
How do you have a woman like Sadie, and fumble?
She was fresh air and wit. And she was cute as hell.
I literally had her in my phone as Cute as Hell Sadie. Some lucky dumb bastard fucked it up.
If I were a more selfish person, I’d want to be with Sadie.
I continued to the elevator and rode it to my floor.
When the doors opened, my phone buzzed in my pocket, but it couldn’t draw my attention away from her pausing outside of her room to pull her own phone out of the pocket in her swishy skirt.
Her hip jutted out the way it did when she was annoyed, and the hem of her skirt rose a little on one side ending at her mid-thigh.
I bit down on my lower lip at the curve of her calf and the shape of her ankle.
What kind of pervert found an ankle sexy?
Not me.
No way.
Maybe I missed her. It had been months since she’d last talked to me, and I didn’t even try to connect with anyone else.
I just kept thinking about Sadie.
She typed out something before my pocket buzzed again. Retrieving my device to see two notifications, one from Mike (Best Brother Evah)—June had updated his name at some point—and the other from Cute as Hell Sadie.
She must have heard me approaching because she looked over her shoulder and then clenched her jaw, causing me to roll my eyes.
And that seemed like the exact opposite of “being nice,” but it was annoying to be blamed for someone else being a jackass.
And I missed the way her face usually lit up when she saw me—she had a smile that made me feel like we were the only two people on earth.
Leaning her back to the wall framing her door, she waited for me to take a few steps closer. “Are you a good driver?”
I raised my eyebrows in question, not quite trusting myself to reply with a non-shitty comment.
“Like is it generally safe to be in the car with you behind the wheel?”
“Generally speaking, yes.”
“So, I’m not going to spend the entire trip holding the ‘oh shit’ handle?”
“Do you need a signed affidavit from my past passengers?” I leaned back against my closed door.
“No, I’d rather not have legal documentation of who else you’ve given a ride to.”
A muscle twitched in my jaw. “Are we talking about cars still?”
For the barest moment, something vulnerable flashed across Sadie’s face—a softening of her eyes, a pout of her lower lip, the deflation of her chest. For just a moment, her anger was gone and underneath it was hurt. It gripped tight around my heart, tugging me to stand straight.
“Sadie.” I took a step toward her, but she backed away, and I froze. Not letting myself pull her to my chest and promise . . . to what? Find the guy who had hurt her and beat the shit out of him? Duel for her honor?
I felt so disgustingly impotent.
And a little pathetic. She’d spent the past few hours being an absolute asshole to me, and the second she was even a little sad I was ready to forgive her for everything. No forgiveness needed, it was completely forgotten.
She looked down at her painted blue toenails curling in her sandals. “Just don’t hurt me.”
“Never,” I promised, still unsure if we were talking about cars. “Will you just talk to me? If you’re done with the physical aspect of our relationship, that’s fine. But we’re friends. We don’t have to be shitty to each other.”
A humorless laugh left her lips and floated in the quiet of the hallway between us. She touched her key card to the door lock turning the indicator light green with a beep. “Whatever, Gene.”
The culmination of the last twenty-four hours came to a head, from booking a last-minute first-class flight to arrive in time for everyone else, to my brother insinuating how he wished our dad could be there which felt easier to ignore when it was unsaid, to the uncomfortable vulnerability of asking her to clear the air and having it shot down instantly.
Every shitty comment Sadie had made. Every sneer.
Every time she said my name like it was the butt of a joke.
It all boiled to the top, and I lost the battle with my impulses.
Snaking an arm out, I barred the entrance to her room.
Our bodies were so close, I could feel the heat coming off the bare skin of her shoulder.
So close that if I leaned down even a little I could brush my lips there.
She pulled in a breath, pressing her breasts against the V of her neckline.
Something primal scratched at the doors of its enclosure, begging to be let out—I wanted her so fucking badly, I had to resist the urge to run my teeth down the slope of her neck.
She glared up at me out of the corner of her eye.
In a near whisper, I forced my voice calm. “I’m going to need you to call me Jamison.”
Tilting her head, she squared her shoulders. “What don’t like”—
“I don’t like the way you say it,” I interrupted.
Her eyes dropped to my mouth. There was a breath of silence. The barest breath of space, and her body swayed the slightest bit in my direction, before she blinked, snapping her eyes back to mine. “I’m sorry, I’m just taken aback, because I don’t even know your actual name”—
I cut her off by taking hold of her hip and pressing her back to the wall.
My mouth landed on hers rougher than I’d ever kissed her before.
I swallowed her gasp before her hands trailed into the hair at the base of my skull and pulled me to her.
Her back arched, pressing her body even tighter to mine.
Into the kiss I poured all the irritation and pain she’d caused me over the past day, as well as every moment I’d missed her over the past few months.
She took it all and gave it back. An echo of desire and pent-up anger.
Hooking her leg around my hip, she rocked against my erection. A groan rumbled from deep within my throat.
I needed her. Every breath was full of her. It was like she was sinking into my cells carried on the oxygen filling my lungs. I just wanted more of her. I wanted to give her more. Let her have everything, even as I knew I wouldn’t be enough.
I couldn’t give her enough.
One of her hands moved down my chest to wrap around my waist, and she let out a frustrated whine as if no matter how she tried there was too much space between our bodies.
I gripped her thigh, my fingers digging into the bare skin of her leg.
I was about to pick her up and bring her to my room, when the elevator doors opened and the sound of a family with young children filled the hallway.
Sadie and I pulled apart, no longer able to pretend we were somewhere private instead of the somewhat hidden alcove around her hotel door.
She breathed in deeply, the daze in her blue eyes gradually fading. It was very quickly replaced by an outrage that didn’t seem entirely directed at me.
Turning back to her door, she dug into her skirt pockets and then held her hair away from her face as she looked on the carpet by her feet. She snatched her key card up from where she’d dropped it.
She didn’t look at me, didn’t say anything to me, just mumbled, “Oh my fucking God,” and disappeared into her room.
Leaving me to wonder, just how much I’d fucked everything up.