Chapter 16 – Braelyn
brAELYN
My massage was amazing even if Roman didn’t stay for it.
I don’t know what happened in that shower or why he fled like that.
It’s not like I was going to jump him naked or anything, though I’ll be honest, Roman Fritz in nothing but skin-tight black boxer briefs is a sight to behold.
One I’ve ignored throughout our friendship, but him in the shower with water running down his muscles…
And I need to stop that now.
I think sharing a bed with him has scrambled my brain. You know, like everything freaking else in my life at the moment.
The sun is hot and the spa pool isn’t very crowded. It’s quiet and peaceful, and I’ve parked myself on a chaise under an umbrella while I wait for Roman. I slink down on the towel, a happy smile on my relaxed face. I could live like this forever.
On the flip side of that, I can’t live with Roman forever.
That’s something I’m going to have to figure out.
My apartment was Adam’s and now I’m essentially homeless and need to find something new that I can afford on my nursing salary.
I could stay at Roman’s as long as I need to.
I know this. But honestly, the sooner I can move out of his place, the better.
I’m starting to… well, I don’t know. Things feel a little different between us, and I can’t tell if my thoughts or even some of the feelings I’m having are real or rebound or bitterness or what.
I need to find my own place and start a new life by myself. I need to get myself back to a place where it doesn’t feel like the earth beneath my feet is constantly moving. I’m in an emotionally precarious place. Obviously since I freaking married Roman on a drunken dare and a whim.
I don’t want to do anything that can’t be undone or that I’ll regret.
Right now it’s not such a big deal. We’ll get a divorce when we get back, and that’ll be that. But… the way I feel with him lately isn’t as easy to abolish.
My eyes close and I try to relax, but it’s not happening.
I’ve taken all my chill and washed it away.
Now I’m unsettled and jittery with it. Slipping off my chair, I pull the brim of my Rebels hat lower on my head and slide into the cool water of the pool.
It only goes up to my waist and I dip down lower until it meets my chin.
Then I pace, back and forth, my arms moving like a wave, propelling me along.
I don’t know how many times I do this, but a tingling awareness, like someone is watching me, prickles the back of my neck.
I glance up to find I was right. Roman is leaning against a stone pillar in the shade, with his arms folded over his sweaty shirt and his sea glass eyes on me, fitted with an unreadable expression.
My heart gives a thump, and a weird, fluttery kind of nerves tickle my belly.
This is what I’m talking about. This reaction to him. What the fuck is it, and how do I make it stop?
“How long have you been watching me?” I ask, standing back up to my full height and letting the sun bake off the drops of water clinging to my upper half.
His eyes do a quick sweep of me. “Not too long.”
“Did you have a good run?”
“I did actually. It was enlightening. You seem a bit unsettled.”
“Just thinking about having to get a place now that I moved out of Adam’s.”
He frowns. “There’s no rush on that.”
I swallow and nod, my hands running along the top of the water, making swirly patterns with it. “I’m just glad he and I never bought a place together as we had talked about. It’ll make moving on easier. Hopefully, for both of us.”
“I doubt he’s moving on that easily. You’re impossible to let go of.”
He steps out of the shadow, toes off his sneakers, pulls off his sweaty T-shirt, and comes straight into the pool.
He goes under, only to immediately pop back up, and my eyes land on his nipples that harden, the goose bumps on his tanned skin, and the way rivers of water flow over his ink. My face heats, and I turn away.
Cold, wet fingers on my shoulder startle me, and my head snaps over.
“You’re getting more freckles,” he explains.
My breath hiccups at his touch, and I can feel my own nipples hardening in my bathing suit. Something he could very easily see if he looked.
“I freckle the moment I set foot in the sun. That’s not new.” I pull away from him and push through to one of the built-in loungers they have in the water and climb on it.
“How was your massage?” he asks.
“Good. It was nice. You could have stayed.”
He sighs and sinks back down into the water, but his gaze hasn’t left mine. “No, kid, I couldn’t. I was already struggling enough with you being naked beside me in there.”
Guilt gnaws at me. I didn’t mean to make him uncomfortable.
“I didn’t realize it would be that big of a deal.
I figured we’d be in the dark and have robes and drapes over us.
It’s not like you saw anything.” A memory flickers through my head, and I start laughing.
“Do you remember when I came to your grandparents’ compound for brunch, and you accidentally walked into the bathroom as I was pulling up my underwear? ”
The first smile I’ve seen on him all day hits his lips. My heart feels lighter for it as some of the tension and strain I was feeling evaporate.
“You mean when you yelled at me before slamming the door in my face because I barely caught a flash of your pussy?”
“Yes.” I laugh a bit harder. “That was horrifying.”
“You didn’t talk to me the rest of the day.”
I splash water at him. “I was embarrassed. I was only nineteen or twenty.”
“You were twenty. I was twenty-six. I was home visiting from Paris.” He splashes me back. “That was a rough day. I felt like such a pervert because I got hard over seeing you like that.”
I gasp and sit up straight on the sunbed, the plastic crinkling beneath my ass. “You what?”
He shrugs.
“You never told me that!”
He laughs at my reaction and sits on the curved end of the sunbed, lifting my feet and dropping them on his lap. “Damn right I never told you that. You never would have talked to me again.”
“Oh my god! That’s crazy. Have you gotten hard over me other times besides that?”
He gives me a stern look. “Braelyn, do not ask me that unless you truly want the answer and the repercussions with it.”
I hold up my hands. “Fine. I’m changing the subject.”
The waiter interrupts us. “Good afternoon. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?”
“We’ll each have a frozen margarita, and we’ll share a chicken quesadilla and an order of chips with guacamole, please.”
“Very good, senor.”
The guy leaves us, and I shift to my friend. “Truth or dare?”
He chokes. “What? Are we teenagers again?”
“You were never really a teenager when I was.”
“You never really acted like every other teenage girl,” he parries. “It’s why I could handle being friends with you.”
I preen a bit. “Nash helped with that. Maybe Skylar too, because I never hung out with other teenage girls much because they were all such bitches to her. But it got me thinking. Come on. Play with me.”
He cocks an eyebrow, and I arch one in return, not backing down despite the bold innuendo.
“Fine. Truth.”
I snicker. “Wimp.”
He flicks water at me again. “If you’re going to be judgy, I won’t play. Besides, I think we’ve gotten into enough trouble from dares on this trip.”
“Ugh. So temperamental, husband.” I roll my eyes, feigning annoyance. “Fine. What’s the biggest turn-on for you?” I ask because now I’m curious. Him telling me I made him hard that afternoon is something I never expected to hear.
“Confidence,” he answers easily.
I lean back on the sun chair but splash him. “That’s such a job interview reply.”
He tosses his hands up. “You can’t rate my answers, kid. If I said sexy nurses with pretty brown eyes and tons of curls, you’d hit me.”
That earns more water on his chest. “Now you’re teasing me.”
Something flickers across his face, and he shakes his head ever so slightly. “What about you?”
“Honesty.” My answer comes just as fast.
“Now who’s giving generic answers?”
I give him a meaningful look. “I think right now I’m entitled to mine.
You saying confidence is lame, considering you don’t do girlfriends.
You just fuck your way around.” Then something hits me because now that I think about it, I can’t remember the last time I saw him with anyone.
“When was the last time you went on a date?”
He laughs. “Nice try. My turn to ask. Truth or dare?”
“Dare.”
Our food and drinks are delivered and set on a table by the edge of the pool. He hands me my drink, but for a moment, our food is left untouched.
“Tell me something that’ll make me hard.”
Instead, it makes me blush and my breath quicken. “How will I know if I do?”
He smirks. “I could show you. But perhaps maybe I’ll just tell you.”
“You’re sitting in the cold pool.”
“Then it seems like you have your work cut out for you.”
Shit. “No way! This is a bad idea.”
He tilts his head and takes a sip of his drink. “You started this, kid.”
Oh my god, I so did. “Fine.” I bring my glass up to my lips and intentionally drag my tongue up the side of it and through the ring of salt before I take a sip from my straw, pointedly sucking hard on it.
“Mmm.” I lick my lips. “That tastes so good,” I say in my best porn star voice.
Then I give him a long once-over and lean in toward him, ignoring the smell and heat of his skin as I get closer to his ear.
“I bet you’d taste better. Would you like me to find out? ”
He shivers, his breath hitching, and hell, his reaction and the thought of making him hard are riling me up. I instantly pull back and take another sip of my drink until I give myself a freaking brain freeze. Anything to stop this reaction.
“Nicely done,” he tells me before glancing down into the water at his dick in his trunks.
“Why, thank you.” I bat my eyelashes at him, ignoring the static tension now prickling between us or how much I like the idea that I just made him hard. “Your turn.”
“To make you wet?”
I roll my eyes but mentally think, too late. Ugh. This is bad. “Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
I squint at him. “You look way too pleased with yourself right now.”
“Oh, I am. Pleased, that is.”
I smack his shoulder. “No more innuendo.”
“That’s the entire point of this game. Anyone who argues that is a liar. I’m going with truth again.”
And I’m steering us away from all the sexy stuff. “Damn you. Fine. What’s something you’ve never told me before because you thought it would be weird?”
He’s silent for a very long moment, his eyes blinking slowly as he thinks. He drags a thumb across his bottom lip and looks down at the water where his left hand that’s sporting his wedding band, which he rarely takes off except at work, despite the risk of getting found out, is.
“That you’re the only woman I could ever picture falling in love with or marrying.”
My heart thunders, and now I’m staring down at the water.
I know it’s likely because Roman isn’t the type of man who falls in love, and I’m not sure I could picture him settling down and getting married to anyone.
Not for real. But still. It’s hitting me, and it’s hitting hard. I don’t know how to reply to that.
“Truth or dare?” he asks, saving me from having to try.
“Dare.”
“Show me your favorite place to be kissed and let me kiss you there.”
Holy fuck. If I thought my heart was racing before. I should stop this now. I know I should. Hell, I never should have started it and I certainly hadn’t meant for it to go this way this fast.
But I actually go with the truth and it’s that truth right now that will save me. Save us.
I point to my forehead, and a smile curls up his lips as if he already knew I was going to say that.
Without hesitation, he lifts up from the curve of the sunbed and comes straight for me, his eyes on mine, and I inhale a shaky breath and hold it.
My hand clutches my drink, my other hand balling into a fist.
He lifts the brim of my hat, and just as he reaches my forehead, my eyes close.
His lips are soft and firm as they feather along my skin.
Then he’s pressing them deeper into the center, and his hand comes around to hold the back of my head.
He kisses my forehead, his lips holding still for the longest minute of my life, my body filling with a sweet ache and a sense of… longing?
Is that what this is? I don’t know. How can that be? I hate feeling this confusion. This unsettled, I don’t know what’s happening or even how I feel about it, sensation.
Then he pulls away and retakes his seat as if none of that happened.
“Truth or dare?” I whisper.
“Truth.”
I knew he was going to say that. And because we’re doing this and I’ve always wondered and I doubt he’d tell me otherwise, I ask, “Do you ever wonder what would have happened after if we’d kissed that night? If you hadn’t stopped me?” Or if I hadn’t been drunk or his dead brother’s ex.
His eyes pierce into mine. “I know exactly what would have happened. You just weren’t ready for it.”