Chapter 13
Thirteen
CLARA
A s I threw my bridesmaid dress onto the bed, I realised two things.
One, after that plane took off, I didn’t feel like I was on the brink of a panic attack at all. Something that had not happened since I was pre-pubescent.
Two, I had sub-consciously packed the ‘fuck me’ bikini.
The bikini wasn’t mine. Or at least, it wasn’t originally. It was a Rachel purchase that she made on a whim simply because she loved leopard print. By the time she realised it didn’t suit her stylistically, she gave it to me because I was the only one it would fit.
When I had tried it on, Rachel uttered the words ‘fuck me’ and it became forever known as such. It accentuated and teased exactly what it needed to. And I’d buried it, unworn, in a corner of a drawer only to be unearthed should I ever move out of my flat.
Except there it was in my suitcase.
Innocent in the grand scheme of things. It’s good to have options for swimwear when you’re spending a week with ample swimwear opportunities.
But choosing this one, wearing this one couldn’t be seen as anything but a statement of intent. As I tied the halter neck and secured it at the top of my spine, double-checking that both my nipples were covered and the hem of the bottoms was sitting in the right place, I had to accept that on some level, I wanted something with the man on the other side of the door.
It made stepping back into the room that we were now sharing for a week feel different. Heavier.
I wanted his eyes on me. I wanted to know that he was looking at the ways this bikini did my body the greatest of solids in highlighting the best parts of me. And as I walked over to my suitcase to discard my travel clothes, I got what I wanted.
I could feel the heat of his eyes running up my legs and the curves and dips of my torso until it reached the bikini top. I felt the way the intensity of his stare lessened when I threw on the black kaftan—that had found its way to the top of my hastily unpacked suitcase—and covered up.
And when I finally turned to look at him, I could see the way his neck was flushed. A stark contrast to the white shirt he had thrown on and was holding closed with crossed arms. A position that made his shoulders look broader. It made his arms look bigger. Sturdier. The only thing more obscene than his arms were his thighs in a pair of swim shorts that were too short. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Jesse loved a short inseam, but it felt worse when they were swim trunks.
By the time I finished drinking in the sight of him and raised my eyes to look at him, I could feel the way I was breathing a little shallower. I could see the way his chest was moving quicker.
“You’re here!”
Whatever spell we had been under was broken at the sound of Rachel’s voice as she appeared in the doorway of our room, bouncing her eyes between the two of us.
“We’re here,” I said as Rachel walked in and came straight in for a hug. I could tell by the smirk on her face and the way her eyes bounced around my bikini-clad self that her hug had an ulterior motive.
“The ‘fuck me’ bikini?” she whispered, a teasing lilt to her voice.
“It’s just a bikini,” I whispered back.
We both knew it was a lie, but Rachel mercifully let me have it as she walked over to Jesse.
“Hello to you too, Jesse,” she said. Her hand came down onto one of his biceps, and I saw her squeeze it gently.
I huffed out a breath, and the smirk returned to Rachel’s face.
“I will see you by the pool. Don’t forget sunscreen,” she said as she walked back out of the room.
“She likes doing that, doesn’t she?” Jesse asked as he uncrossed his arms.
I knew he had asked me a question, but I got distracted when his shirt fell open, and I was confronted with a view of Jesse I had never seen before. His torso was all quiet angles, the pendant of his chain resting in between his pecs. He had three tattoos that I could partially see, black ink working in complete contrast to his pale skin. One by his hip of a castle that I knew was on the cover of his debut book. The other two, I couldn’t see completely. They peeked out from against his ribcage. One on each side. My fingers were itching to push the shirt off his shoulders and run my hands over his chest. I wanted to follow the hidden lines of ink and see if they led to his back. I wanted to follow the trail of dark hair down his stomach into his waistband…
“Clara?” Jesse’s voice brought me back to reality.
“Hmm?”
“You okay?” There was a gentle smile on his face as his hands slipped into the pockets of his trunks and stretched the material over his thighs.
“Yeah, fine. We should head out,” I said as I walked past him and out of the room.
“You’re forgetting sunscreen,” he called out after me.
I turned on my heels.
“Shit, right. Yeah.” I walked back past him to a toiletry bag that was now on one of the armchairs and pulled my sunscreen out. I waved it triumphantly in his direction.
“Now we can go,” I said, rushing out of the room.
* * *
“Holy shit!” Becky called as Jesse and I rounded the corner towards the pool.
I don’t know what Rachel had told them, but I did know that I was never going to hear the end of it.
I still couldn’t quite bring myself to regret putting the bikini on, though.