Chapter Seven Oliver
I key us into my condo at Cove Marina. The cleaning service has been here. Granted, since I only use the place to sleep and store my belongings, it pretty much always looks like the cleaning service has been here.
“This is incredible.” Sienna walks around the living room with the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the marina and the bay sparkling in the morning light.
It’s sleek and modern, and its value represents almost the entirety of my savings.
On the walls are black and white close-up photographs of leaves and flowers my nephew took in photography club.
Does she like them? Does she see his talent the way I do? I want to tell her about the pictures and point out the dining room table is a slab of stone my brother-in-law found when he was traveling through South Dakota.
I can't bring myself to do any of these things because now that the chaos of the knife has passed and I have her at my condo, I can do it.
I can put an end to this incessant craving for her touch and her lips and the taste of her in my mouth. Once I have her, I’ll know what she’s like in every way and won’t need anymore, right?
Or would I have her once and not be able to live without more?
No way. Self-control is my banner. I live modestly. I don’t mess with alcohol, drugs, or sex. Fuck gambling and cell phone addiction. I'm a man of control.
If I’ve got that much control, then why not test it? Why not have sex with Sienna? Let her loosen me up and expand my understanding of intimacy.
“I take it you don’t cook?” she asks from the kitchen.
“What’s cooking? I haven’t heard that one before.” I feel my lips curling at the joke.
Sienna laughs. I hear her open the refrigerator. “At least you’re not going to suffer dehydration.”
While taking her bag to the spare bedroom, I get on the marina messaging app and order two omelets with peppers, onions, mushrooms, and cheese, two baskets of toast, berry smoothies, and coffee with four tablespoons of half-and-half on the side. “Breakfast will be ready in half an hour.”
Sienna pops her head out of the kitchen. “So, you do cook?”
I hold up my phone. “Cove has a full-service kitchen concierge.”
She comes to my side bringing with her the scent of jasmine along with something exotic. It reaches a primal level deep inside me. My dick swells with hunger to take her in my arms and experience her body in every conceivable way.
She peers at my phone. “Do you order all your food from the marina kitchen?”
“I go to the Salty Spoon a lot. When I’m on jobs, I eat whatever’s available." I resign myself to truth-telling. "You’re the first woman who’s been here. Aside from family, you’re the first,” I clarify as though it makes a difference.
“So you’re okay with me being your first?” she asks teasingly, holding my gaze lightly. No pressure on me to respond. No needing me to decide now. She’s reaching out to me like I’m a spooked horse and she’ll wait until I’m calm enough to come to her.
I’ll never calm down around Sienna. What would happen if I said “yes” to her offer right now? Would she let me kneel in front of her while she lies on the couch, so I can lick her pussy while she grabs my hair and screams out orgasm after orgasm?
She sits on the couch with her shapely runner’s legs up under her. I stay standing by the kitchen, keeping her out of reach until a decision is wisely made. “You really don’t mind that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing when it comes to sex?”
Shaking her head, she smiles a knowing smile that comes from all the studying she’s done of what's inside people’s heads. I've already accepted that she's seen inside mine and knows exactly how much I desperately want to fuck her.
I sit on the leather chair next to the couch. I’m still far enough away that I can stop myself from letting the fiend inside me take over. “If we do this, Darcy can’t find out. It’d be a direct violation of my contract.”
“I won’t tell her.”
I let out a long breath of surrender and freedom from losing a battle I never wanted to win in the first place. “How do we do this?”
“You start by sitting next to me.”
My phone vibrates. “Our food is on its way.”
“Good. I’m starved.” Sienna rises and steps past my chair. This time her legs brush mine slowly as she passes. An intentional touch. Reflexively, I reach out and stroke the side of her bare thigh. Her skin is soft and glorious.
She stops and stares down at me, her jaw loose, her chest rising and falling.
My phone vibrates again. “They’re coming up with the food.”
“I’ll get the door.” Slowly, Sienna steps away.
I pour us coffees and place the half-and-half next to hers. She butters the toast and adds a dollop of strawberry jam. “How often do you visit home?” It’s the kind of question she asks whenever we sit down to eat.
“Once a year. Thanksgiving or Christmas.” I tell her about Megan and Josh and the kids. She laughs when I talk about how nervous Josh was during his first Thanksgiving with the family, and how my brother Ethan recruited him for a flag football game.
Some dude nailed Josh in the eye, and he ended up in urgent care for a scratched cornea.
Then he couldn’t wear his contact lenses and he’d forgotten his glasses.
One of his eyes was bandaged, and the other was basically useless.
He had no idea what he was eating or drinking or where he was, but, still, he tried to impress us.
I’m in awe at the sight of Sienna laughing so hard she has to wipe tears from her eyes. “I can’t take it. That is a mess. But, god, he loves Megan.”
“He does. He’s a good guy.” An achy feeling spreads across my chest. I love Sienna, too. I love being with her and listening to her. I love telling her stupid stories and watching her laugh. I love protecting her. I never want anyone but me protecting her.
She finishes her breakfast, and I rinse off the plates and stack them in the sink for the kitchen concierge. I go into my bedroom and put my Glock and holster into the top dresser drawer.
I return to the main room, and Sienna is watching me from the kitchen doorway. Our eyes meet. It’s time.
I’m a body in motion. I cup her face and take from her gaze all the lust and desire and tension of the past week.
“Sienna.” I hear her name fall from my lips as I lean forward and kiss her perfect mouth. The taste of her skin. Her light exhale. The moaning sounds from her throat. I kiss her again, hungrier and harder. How have I been dying for this closeness every minute of the past week?
This kissing digs into my soul the way it did at Sandbar & Sips and last night at the marina. But it comes without ugly doubts about whether I’m worthy of her and worries because I haven't told her just how inexperienced I am.
She squeezes my shoulders, rising against my front, teasing my hard, high dick. I send out a loud, pained sound at the shot of bliss. I take her ass in both hands and knead her cheeks while I run my dick against her.
My need for her has no bounds. I want every inch of her body. I’ll kiss it. I’ll lick it. I'll give her toe-curling pleasure from the way I take care of her breasts, her pussy, her ass.
“Ollie, I’ve never wanted a man like I want you.”
“Aw, Sienna.” I feel like a man much greater than myself, hearing her say that. “Did you call me Ollie?”
She eases away from the kiss. “Is that okay?”
Looking into her eyes, knowing the capacity for joy and cleverness and affection she has for everyone around her, I won't deny her anything. Even the nickname I hate. “Yes.”
We kiss, spinning round the edge of the room. My shoulder hits the wall. I don’t feel it. As long as Sienna’s not in pain, my life is good.
Her leg edges up the outside of my thigh. I take it up to my hip and turn us so her back’s against the wall. I grind my erection into her soft core.
“Ollie, you’re so ready for this.”
“I’ve been ready for you since I laid eyes on you.” The truth, unfiltered and unashamed, spills out.
I thrust into her center again, dying to get as close as I can.
A tapping from the phone in my pocket breaks through my Sienna daze. It’s the long-short-long rhythm of a code eight-oh-eight message from Sunbreak Security. “Fuck.”
I kiss her one more time before easing away. God, why? I pull the phone from my pocket. Message from Darcy.
Someone shot out the windshield of Sienna’s rental car. Mangroves Club just called. I’m headed there now.
I press the call icon.
“I’m still a good ten minutes away,” Darcy answers the phone.
“Do you think we should come over there?”
“Sienna will need to make a police report. They’re already on the scene. Why don’t you bring her over and have her talk to the police here? Hopefully, this time Blake was generous enough to leave us some evidence.”
I picture his dead, mammalian eyes. The sooner he’s behind bars, the better. “We’ll be right over."