Chapter 11
11
D P had just paid for his coffee when he heard his name. In the crowd of faceless strangers, Chaaru’s smile was like a rainbow hiding among thick clouds and his chest expanded as if to make more space for his thundering heart.
Despite his resolve to resist falling deeper into her lure, he felt like a starving man looking at a seven-course meal. Her skin gleamed against the peach-colored dress, the V of its neckline calling attention to her breasts. Black heels with straps tied around her ankles made her even taller. With every step she took, the linen tangled around her thick thighs. God, the legs on this woman and what he wouldn’t give to worship them.
She looked like a warrior woman from Mona’s daughter’s comics, all lean strength and long limbs. Sexy as hell and owning it. And damn if his cock didn’t come to instant attention.
Her braid danced on one shoulder, the edges kissing the tips of her breast. He could just imagine winding that thick length around his fingers while he lifted that sundress and plunged himself deep inside her and…
Cheeks flaming, he schooled his features into not betraying his lurid thoughts. He was working on getting used to life with her as a friend in the margins but it wasn’t going to happen overnight. He needed distance and time to loosen her grip on his heart.
A week in Cancun with her right now was pure torment, but canceling on Mona and Dom at the last minute wasn’t even an option.
“Hey DP,” she said, reaching him.
When he thought she might hug him, he lifted his cup and took a sip. It was mean-spirited and didn’t escape her notice, but right then, he felt as fragile as frayed rope.
Her smile dimmed, though her brown eyes took him in with her usual thoroughness. If it felt like they lingered a second too long on his shoulders, he told himself he was imagining things. “I thought you were getting here the day before yesterday with Mona.”
“I changed my flight,” she said, trailing a fingertip under his eye. The butterfly touch gone before he could savor it. “Not sleeping well?”
Swallowing a wave of longing, he shrugged. How were they going to survive the week with this tension strumming between them?
Moving closer, she lifted his coffee cup to her mouth and took a sip, her fingers cold on his skin. A drop of foam stuck to the bow of her upper lip before she licked it away. “Hmmm...” she said, smacking her lips. “Wait, that’s oat milk.”
“You ruined cow’s milk for me,” he said, still struggling to process her easy demeanor. Then there was her admission that she’d changed her flight. To coincide with his? “TJ won’t stop laughing at me when I ask him to pick up oat milk with the week’s groceries.”
Hooking her arm through his, she shuffled them forward. Their strides matched and he wondered if their heartbeats would sync up if she held him any closer. Could she tell that the stupid organ flipped out for her?
“TJ thinks if he tries anything that’s not mainstream, his balls might fall off.”
For the first time in weeks, he laughed. Hearing about his brother’s balls from her lips should have been strange. Instead, it returned them to their default. A surge of affection laced with gratitude rushed through him. He’d missed the simple comfort of being so easy with her.
“How’s Maggie?” she said, returning his cup to him after wiping the lipstick smudge from its rim.
She’d done this before too—grabbed his coffee, took a bite of his sandwich, fixed his tie, fell asleep with her head on his shoulder and yet, her actions felt different today. Like there was a whiff of possessiveness to it.
“Did you meet her new roommates and give them the big brother lecture? Did you demand a detailed tour of all her hang-outs to make sure they are safe? What did you two do Christmas morning?”
“That’s a lot of questions,” he quipped, not meeting her eyes. Realizing that, for the first time in years, he had to filter his thoughts before speaking with her. It made him feel like he was play-acting in his own life. “Maggie barely had any time for me.” Which was an outright lie. He’d avoided her because his clever sister would have figured out that he was nursing heartbreak in two seconds flat. Neither had he wanted her curious about his new plans.
“What did you do then?” Chaaru persisted, a probing glint in her eyes.
“Hung out with some friends,” he said.
Away from the accounting firm he’d inherited from his parents, and Chaaru, he had been able to take stock of his life. And he hadn’t liked what he’d seen. It wasn’t just this stalemate in their relationship that was the problem.
Somewhere in the last decade, he’d gotten stuck in a rut. Sexual encounters with women who held the same apathy for change as him, managing the family’s accounting firm, even down to ordering the same food from the same restaurant on a weeknight.
He was stuck in patterns he’d developed as a twenty-one-year-old coping with the sudden loss of his parents and the overwhelming responsibility of his much younger siblings. If not for Chaaru urging him, he wouldn’t have started dating in the last couple of years.
He grappled with this new realization as she chatted away about Mona and Dom’s celebrations, Kaasi’s interview with another company, and other mundane stuff she said she’d filed away to share with him. She told him about a new client—a household with two big IT incomes, who’d booked her concierge housekeeping services exclusively for eighteen months at an extremely profitable rate.
He congratulated her, frustrated by his own passivity for so long. When had he stopped taking chances in life? Why had he decided he preferred safe and easy over living fully?
“Do you remember we told Mona we’d share a room at the resort all those months ago?” she said, bumping his shoulder with hers.
He stumbled so badly that coffee splashed over his fingers and his chest. Luckily, it was lukewarm. “We did what?” he nearly screamed.
The prospect of sharing a room with her—and everything that would entail—set his body and mind off at extreme odds. One rejoiced at all the possibilities while the other was drowning in panic.
“That t-shirt looks good on you,” Chaaru said, her gaze clinging to his chest.
He grinned. “You bought it for me at that food festival.”
“I remember.” With a sigh, she dug in her backpack and pulled out a wet tissue. The tip of her tongue poking at her upper lip, she rubbed at the stain, her long, pink-tipped fingers inching close to the band of his black slacks.
Desire revved through him, the muscles in his stomach bunching. “That’s good,” he bit out, drawing her hand away from drifting.
He forced himself to take deep breaths while she threw the tissue into the trash. Her sundress hugged her ass, the cheeks doing a tango with each step she took. God, they were in the middle of an airport and he had a cock-stand.
“What were you saying?” he prompted when she turned, looking away too late.
She took his arm again, and they stepped out through the double doors into the busy thoroughfare outside.
Humid, cigar-scented air hit them, while tall palms swayed in the breeze. It was nearing dusk, but in the distance, he could see blue waves rippling with pink splashes of the sky.
They lined up in front of the taxi counter.
“When Mona was making reservations at the resort all those months ago,” Chaaru said, her words a little muffled as she dug through her bag, “we both agreed that we didn’t want to bring some rando. Especially, since the rest of the party is all good friends. Remember?”
“Maybe,” he lied, even as the memory came to him clearly.
They had been sitting at Mona’s dark mahogany dining table in her living room one evening, throwing out ideas for the celebration. Chaaru had been wearing a white dress shirt that hugged her tits and he’d been salivating like a puppy denied his treat. Mona had talked about all the romantic/adult activities she was planning and Chaaru’s face had lit up. His heart had sunk to his toes.
The thought of spending an entire week witnessing Chaaru and whatever chump she was seeing then made him want to throw up. So he was the one who had suggested it. Past DP was a moron who had a lot to answer for.
A sudden flurry of laughter behind him brought him back to now. The queue got a little rowdy, shuffling him closer to her.
“Anyway, Mona asked me before she left,” Chaaru said, her eyes overly bright, “if she should get us separate rooms since we-”
“We’re…what?” he said, sounding brusque.
Her large brown eyes held his, no recrimination or complaint in them. The corners of her lips drooped, fanning out into faint lines. “Breaking up our friendship,” she said blandly.
He thrust a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to do.”
She nodded, and in a move that sent his heart racing, bent her head and pressed it to his chest. Her hands gripped his shoulders, fingers digging into his bunched muscles. “I told her we would share the room as planned.”
It was impossible to not touch her then. He clasped her nape gently, playing with the small hairs and the silky skin. “That’s not a good idea, Char. And I’m sorry that everything’s so messed up.”
She looked up and a new light danced in her eyes. “I thought we could give it a try.”
His throat dried up. “Give what a try?”
“Being a couple,” she whispered.
Feeling dazed, he looked around. Tall palm trees swayed and bucked as the breeze gathered speed and intensity. Everywhere he looked, families and friends were laughing and hugging, a symphony of Spanish flowing around them. In the distance, the ocean glimmered like dark jewels in the waning light of dusk. The world was running as usual even as he was being turned upside down.
Heat flushed up his neck as he caught her gaze. The wealth of longing he spied there made him swallow. “What do you mean?”
“If I’m going to lose you to SFO and new adventures,” she said, hesitation written on her expressive features, “I thought we should have this week together.”
“That sounds like a fucking consolation prize,” he bit out.
Usually, he didn’t swear. It had always denoted to him a certain lack of control in a person. But he was at the end of his tether. And for just a second there, he’d thought she’d meant more.
Like forever more.
God, but he was so gone for her that even a week with her sounded like a taste of paradise.
She grinned, and it was like a female predator lazily fanning itself before pouncing. “I’ve made it a mission in my life to never do anything to please someone else. Especially a man,” she said, eyes shining with resolve. “You know that.”
“Why?” he said, through a throat thick with desire.
She pulled back and studied him. “That moment in the asshole artist’s bedroom, did I imagine it?”
“No.” The word rang with two decades of wanting he couldn’t hide. Didn’t even care to, at this point.
“Isn’t that reason enough? I want to see if it can be better and richer than what we have. If…” she shivered.
Only then did he realize how scared his lioness was. No, not scared. Terrified. Still, she was making her move. And while he didn’t understand the source of her fear right then, that she did this to herself because of him was unacceptable.
His love for her was so complete, so much a part of him, he couldn’t bear her unhappiness or her fear, in any shape or form.
“I haven’t made concrete plans regarding these new adventures that Maggie clearly told you about,” he said. It wasn’t a complete lie but not the full truth either. “You shouldn’t do anything driven by fear.”
“I learned about it only ten minutes ago from Maggie,” she said, tracing the design on his t-shirt with a finger. “If you open my suitcase, you’ll see I came fully prepared to seduce the hell out of you. Also, I’ve been dreaming of you ever since you eye-fucked me that night.”
That he was the subject of her fantasies set his entire being on fire. And suddenly, he understood the change in her. She’d come prepared to take him on. Anticipation wiped out common sense, routing all his blood south.
He rubbed his finger over his eyebrow, every muscle in him bunching with anticipation. “You have, huh?”
Lower lip caught between her teeth, she nodded.
A slice of sanity returned. “I have two conditions.”
Her pout was instant and adorable. “I don’t like conditions.”
He pulled back slowly, her defiance fueling his determination. Keeping his hands off her shoulders felt near impossible, but he persisted. “Then I’m afraid this will never happen.”
Her nostrils flared. “What conditions?”
“What happens in Cancun stays in Cancun. We don’t have to continue anything when we get back home.”
Thick shapely brows tied into an endearing frown. “That sounds like a get-out-of-jail card.”
He fought the urge to kiss the suspicion out of that luscious mouth. “Yes, for you.”
“Or you’re already regretting this and it’s for you,” she said, that frown sliding back into place. Something painful crept into her eyes and her spine went straight. “That day, I shut you down before you could say more. I don’t even know what you want from this.”
An awkward pause sprang to life and DP realized she wanted him to elaborate. Vulnerability shone in the slack set of her mouth. If he knew one thing about Chaaru, it was that loving someone had scarred her badly once.
And to lay their precious friendship on the line in pursuit of something she considered herself a failure at...that told him how much she did want this.
Tenderness and desire twinned through him. But right then, surrounded by strangers, there was no way he could spring nearly twenty years of feelings on her. Neither did he dare believe that she would want this when they returned to real life.
“Can you put thoughts of future aside and give me this week?” he said, reaching for her hand.
A rough exhale left her lips. “Okay. What’s your second condition?” A little of her usual sparkle returned to her eyes. She dragged the tip of her pink nail down his neck. “And why didn’t I know that you drive such a hard bargain?”
Pleasure fisted his gut tight as she pressed her thumb against his Adam’s apple. “This week, you’ll let me do whatever I want with you. To you.”
A little of huff of air escaped her before she said, “Jesus, DP.”
“Yes, or no?”
Pink streaked her cheeks. “Where’s all this coming from?”
He tapped his temple. “I have years’ worth of fantasies to live out in one week.”
Her lush mouth fell into an O.
Leaning forward, he kissed the corner of her mouth and felt her stiffen against him. Slowly, she let him take her weight. Softness and strength, she was all his dreams spun into reality. Somehow, he stopped himself from devouring her there and then and nuzzled her jaw instead.
There was sex and then there was full out kissing. He’d always avoided indulging in the latter for it felt more intimate than fucking. An expression of love and yearning instead of just lust. If he kissed Chaaru like he wanted to, he wasn’t sure he could stay whole. His passion and longing would pour out of him, rendering him hollow. He might as well give up his soul into her keeping.
While he would make her every fantasy come true this week, not kissing her was the only self-preservation left to him.
He wiped the lip gloss he’d smudged with his thumb. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“I do,” she said, the hoarseness of her words a stroke against his thickening cock.
“Wonderful,” he said, kneading her hips with a firm, hungry touch. “I’m going to ravish you and ruin you so thoroughly that you can’t think straight for days after.”