BONUS CHAPTER
CHAPTER 30: Dom
Olivia and I are clearing the table on the lanai while Juju’s high-pitched giggle echoes out of Rex’s side of the patio door. It cuts straight through the glass every few minutes, causing Liv to stare in my direction each time. She might not realize it, but I’m silently willing Juju to keep laughing like that, just so Liv will keep staring at me, her cobalt-blue eyes sending me deeper and deeper beneath the spell I’ve been under since I first saw her standing outside her door — cheeks burning as red as the panties she’d been wearing.
The four of us just finished dinner, meaning Rex is no longer a part of our evening plans — which is exactly the way I was hoping this evening might end.
And, in my opinion, not soon enough. Watching your ex fawn all over a new woman would wipe anyone out but I can tell from watching Liv all night that she likely doesn’t realize how strong she is. She’s gotten herself through it, and now she might be thinking of collapsing into her own bed, earplugs in place, ready to pass the fuck out. But I’d rather be the one to remind her how amazing she is before she goes to bed feeling drained from all this.
She smiles at me when I grab a few more plates off the table. Our arms brush when I pass by and she pauses what she’s doing to continue gazing up at me.
I stop long enough to smile down at her, hoping the look on my face says so much more.
Mission accomplished tonight, beautiful. If Rex isn’t across the wall pining after you right now, then he’s even more stupid than I thought.
She keeps her eyes locked in mine, both of us frozen in the warm breeze outside. It’s taking everything in me not to drop these dishes and press her up against the balcony right there — any audience on the other side of that window be damned.
Wouldn’t be the first time they’d seen it.
Because right now, that look in her eyes is identical to the one she gave me, right before I laid her down on the hot sand, lips pressed into mine, making me wonder if she’d remembered about the idiot we were supposedly showing off for. I swear to God, she’d forgotten they were sitting behind us just as much as I had by the time I started kissing her beneath the setting sun. Personally, I’d totally lost track of the fact that we were strewn out across a public beach, with her ex watching just a few yards away. The feeling of her lips hungry for mine had made me lose all sense of logic. Hell, I’d have taken her right then and there if she’d let me.
I’m suddenly desperate to get her behind closed doors.
“I got this,” I tell her, nudging her toward the side of the lanai where her sliding door is. She looks grateful.
“You don’t have to do this,” she says, trying to take some of the plates back, but I don’t let her. No fucking way. Instead, I spin around and bump her forward, pushing her gently toward the warm glow of the kitchen, anxious to get the blinds closed and both of us away from Rex’s prying eyes.
When I set the plates near the sink, I notice the smell of plumeria blossoms coming from a tiny wilted pile of them resting near the coffee pot. I smile to myself when I see it. Liv can never get enough of those — always stopping to pick one up off the sand or from the pathway around the side of the house beneath the trees. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched her absentmindedly stop walking so she can stoop mid-sentence to grab another yellowed flower off the ground, as if she can’t bear to leave one behind.
She pours two glasses of wine without a word, and I take the one closest to me, thankful she doesn’t see the night as over quite yet.
I pull the window blinds closed, thankful for the privacy.
Finally.
Then I turn, eyeing her as I pull a blanket off the back of the couch and start arranging a makeshift bed. Praying to God that she’ll correct me and just lead me over to the bedroom instead.
She stops shuffling around the kitchen to watch what I’m doing, eyes wide.
The look on her face makes me wonder if I’ve misread the situation.
“You’re actually planning to stay here?” She bites down on her lip, like she’s barely able to hide some newfound amusement at the thought of me staying on this tiny sofa.
“It’s already late,” I mutter, glancing at the clock over the stove before grabbing the biggest throw pillow off the couch to toss in the spot I’ll likely be laying my head tonight.
Liv comes around the side of the couch and snatches the pillow off the seat cushion, pushing it back into my chest. Suddenly standing so close, I can see the navy flecks in her eyes when they flash up at me. She wets her bottom lip with one lingering swipe of her tongue, and as much as I’m captivated by her mouth, remembering exactly the way her lips taste after a day spent in the heat of the sun, still salted from the surf, she seems to be at a loss for words.
She shifts on her feet and I fight back a grin, finding myself so distracted by what I’d rather be doing with that mouth of hers that I barely hear what comes out of it next.
“You did me a favor by coming tonight. At the very least, you can have the bed,” she says, then steps aside to let me pass through to the bedroom. Like I’d actually take it from her. The thought is adorable, but even more than that, it’s never going to happen. Not unless she’s in there with me.
“You actually think I’d take the bed from you?” I ask. Then I almost add, I’d rather you just share it with me , but instead I say, “What kind of gentleman would I be?”
If I had my way, no one would be getting any sleep tonight. Not even our neighbors.
I watch her eyes darken, like she’s just read my mind — a surge building beneath the surface of the sea, but her lips spread wider, as if a joke’s tugging at the corners of each side with a string. She tilts her head then peers up at me like a new challenge has just been formulated.
I shouldn’t, but I do — I imagine her holding my stare while slowly sinking down to her knees right here in front of me.
The thought of it is enough to nearly bend me in half.
Before I can dive too much into that vision, she maneuvers around me and hops up onto the couch, sprawling her legs across the length of it, gripping the backrest above her head — like I couldn’t drag her away in an instant if I wanted.
I try not to laugh, knowing there’s no way she’s going to sleep there tonight. Not unless it’s right on top of me.
“I insist you take the bed,” she announces firmly. A challenge to remove her, no doubt.
I finally laugh, but relent, pulling her legs up before sitting my ass down where I’d just been making a bed, happy to have her in it for now, then drape her ankles down across my lap, smiling sideways in her direction.
“I don’t think our little show is actually over yet,” I admit, resting my wrists across her ankles.
She opens her mouth to reply, but stops, her breath quickening instead when I shift my palms down, pressing them gently against the smooth skin between her calves and ankles.
She manages to collect herself and I nod absently as she reminds me that we’ve already sent a strong message to Rex tonight, swiftly raking her fingers through her hair while glancing over at their shared wall.
A long strand of hair falls across her eye and she reaches her hand up to brush it away, but I get there first — tucking it gently behind her ear, the gesture slowly turning her gaze back to mine.
The rosy hue in her cheeks from the sun glows brighter as her lips press together.
“And now we’re shut up in here with them on the opposite side of that wall,” I say. She swallows hard, blinking across the small space between us. “It’s too good of an opportunity to miss.”
She clears her throat, the start of a funny grin forming before she swiftly wipes it away.
“You want to, um—” she stops pointedly but I wait for her to finish. I want to hear her say the words. Because if she says what I think we’re both thinking right now, I’d finally have my opening to say that nothing happening between us has been fake. Not for me.
Instead, she raises a brow so I can silently fill in the blanks for her.
Then she bites her fucking lip once more, as if her barely hinting at us reenacting fake sex behind a wall right now isn’t enough to get my blood pumping.
“So you weren’t kidding about reenacting the whole When Harry Met Sally scene?” she asks, nudging my stomach with her foot.
The corners of my mouth curl skyward in a wicked grin. I’d give anything to hear her moan like Meg Ryan in that scene, fake or not.
I fill the silence that follows with my own desires, hoping she can see what I’m imagining flash across my eyes. What it might be like to pull her feet down fast enough that her back falls into the cushions, giving me space to flip myself over her, finally holding that face between my hands without the audience of her ex-boyfriend there to watch everything I want to do to her. It all plays out in my mind while I let my eyes wander in hers.
I can tell she’s right there with me until she has the unfathomable audacity to tell me that she’s not very good at faking anything, adding, “So, as much as I love this idea, pulling it off is another story entirely.”
I nearly choke on the thoughts running through me as they screech to a halt.
“You could have fooled me,” I tell her, narrowing my eyes. She rests the side of her head into her hand, propped against the back of the couch, studying me.
Liv has got to be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, but this? Her long, bare legs stretched out across my lap with the utter mischievousness of tonight laced in her every grin is my new favorite side of her.
Only to be outdone by where I hope this whole thing is going . . .
“I’m good at faking some things. On the other hand, you’re practically a pro, Dom. You’ve all but convinced me this whole time,” she says, her voice somehow lighter than it was just a moment ago.
I swallow all my words away instead of letting myself blurt out that there was never any faking in this little charade between us. Not for me. I’ve wanted her since the second I saw her standing on the porch in that red pair of panties that she wanted me to believe was a swimsuit. Same cut, same material, but somehow so much better.
“Which parts?” I ask, throwing the ball back to her.
It’s her turn to throw some skin in the game. A slight smile creeps across her face, and if I had to guess, I’d say she’s remembering our kiss out there on the beach. It’s all here, playing out in her expression as she runs the soft pad of her index finger back and forth across her lips before dropping her hand back down to her lap, blushing pink as she does.
“Need a refresher to pick them out?” I ask. “I can give you a rundown of the bases we’ve covered so far.” Then, as if the mai tais have made me drunk, I add, “And maybe some we haven’t.”
She tucks her bottom lip up behind her teeth and her tongue darts over it. Wetting it. Preparing it, if I’m lucky, for me to do the exact same thing.
Then she rolls her eyes and starts to pull her legs back to her chest, but I’m already holding both her ankles in one hand, keeping her draped over the top of me.
I challenge her again. “You say you’ve been fooled. By which parts?”
“That,” she tells me, pointing to my thumb rubbing across the delicate gold chain she’s had wrapped around her ankle since her first afternoon here. Tiny goosebumps appear down each of her calves and I wonder what it might taste like to run my tongue over the top of them, like fingertips tracing over braille, from her ankle all the way up to the soft curve of her thighs.
“What about this?” I ask, sliding a hand up over her knee and down again, leaving a trail of heat across her skin. She clenches her bottom lip with her teeth, sucking oxygen in between her lips while watching my hand work her legs.
Then she grins up at me from beneath that thick fringe of lashes, a flash of ocean blue while my hand takes another trip up toward the apex of her knee.
“Yes.” She smiles wider. “Very convincing.”
I want to tell her that there’s no one here to convince. No one around to fool. This is only for me and her, and if she wants this to go any further, then she’s going to have to show me that she wants this as much as I do.
Her head tilts back slightly while I trace my palm back up her leg, her skin deeply tanned from our afternoon on the boards and slick with whatever lotion she applied after. I stop again at her knee. But she doesn’t pull away.
Instead, she smiles.
“You have very convincing hands.” She sounds out of breath. The last word nearly stuck in her chest as my hand crosses over the top of her knee into new, uncharted territory. The fullness of her thigh filling my hand.
She clears her throat, grinning wider.
I drop my eyes to see her body respond, watching for the smallest indication that she doesn’t want me to go any higher. If she pulls away — even in the slightest — I won’t take this an inch higher. No matter how much I want her, I know she’s been through enough in the last few months and the last thing she needs is me forcing down any walls that aren’t ready to give way.
I’d never do that to her.
I’ll play this game as long as she needs to play it. Until it’s no longer a game for either of us.
I can hear the pace of her breath quicken, the silence of the room practically deafening in my ears as I watch her knees drop, opening herself up to me ever so slightly.
I slow my hands against her flesh, feeling the smallest tremble run through her.
Her eyes stay cast down toward my hands as she grins, mumbling, “I want to make sure we’re on top of our game.”
Then she catches my eye.
I lean in closer, wondering if her heart is hammering out of her chest like mine is right now. My eyes lower down to the thin fabric of her dress, wondering what it might sound like beneath it — to hear her heart thrumming away while I touch her where I know she’ll like it for the very first time.
My God, just the memory of that bikini top shifting off to the side the other day, exposing the soft, blushing peak of skin.
I swallow, lifting my eyes back up to meet hers.
My fingertips graze her thigh, and the air between us becomes just a sliver of heat, searing the distance between our mouths, parting ever so slightly.
Her eyes flutter up to mine, huge with desire, and it’s all I need to close the space, pressing my lips into hers. Tasting the moan that escapes her throat as her knees hinge to give me even more.
It isn’t the first time we’ve kissed, but it’s the first time we’ve kissed without anyone else watching.
And that?
That means everything .