43. West
CHAPTER 43
WEST
The darkness around the villa is complete. It swallows it up whole and sets off the blue lighting in the pool outside. The air is humid and thick with the scent of greenery and ocean.
It’s a beautiful country. And I can’t help but resent the other guys, men I consider family, for being here when it could just be Nora and me. For constantly standing in the way. Rafe handed me a beer earlier, and I had to bite out a thank you.
There’s a pool table in the villa, and we’ve been playing since we got back from the bar. Nora joined in for some of it, winning two straight games before declaring she’s going for a late-night swim. Alex dipped off to join her, and I’ve been watching as the two of them swim outside beneath a starry sky.
She looks happy and light, far away from the stalker and the worries of New York. I want to join them, but I can’t take off my damn shirt without showing off where some rock grazed me and lose a point.
Rafe and James want to keep playing pool. So I stay and watch her through the windows. She wears nothing but a bikini and a smile.
My entire body aches from the day I’ve had. From touching her and not getting to keep touching her. She was so damn fine against my fingers. Soft, and sensitive, and getting wetter with each circle of my finger. Her face was so expressive too, those long eye-lashed eyes locked on me when I touched her. Pushed a finger inside and heard her sweet gasp.
If you won’t be the one to take my virginity, I’ll have to find someone who will.
“West.” Across the pool table, Rafe is leaning against his cue. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” I refocus on the table. Shit. It’s my turn.
“You’re out of it.”
I line up my shot and pocket the ball in the far-right corner. “Even out of it, I can still beat you.”
James is leaning against the wall behind Rafe, a cigar in his right hand. He long ago stopped smoking. Cigars are reserved for trips like this. “He’s thinking about how he’ll be a husband in less than three months.”
“How long is your mother’s list of potential new Mrs. Calloways?” Rafe chimes in.
I walk past them both and turn to face the table. I could aim for the far left one… and hit a bank shot. “I won’t marry someone my mother chooses.”
“No grand wedding,” James drawls. “What a disappointment.”
I line up the shot and hit it. The ball rolls perfectly into the second pocket, and I straighten. “Let’s not talk too much about it around Nora.”
“Why not?” Rafe walks past me and reaches for his own glass of whiskey. It’s MacKenzie ’64, the best vintage from Alex’s family brand. Smoky and amber-colored.
Yes, why not?
“She doesn’t know. I don’t want her to think there’s a time limit,” I say. “On staying at Fairhaven, being under my protection.”
Both James and Rafe look at me. One gaze steely gray and amused, another green and narrowed. “If it came to that, she’d be back under mine,” Rafe says.
“I know. Just don’t want her to worry, that’s all.” It’s a thin excuse. I walk around the table, looking for a new angle.
I shouldn’t have said something.
Shouldn’t have agreed to this damn trip at all.
The sliding doors to the terrace open. Alex walks in with a towel slung over his neck. Nora walks in after him. She’s wearing an oversized shirt, the sleeves just a bit too long. It falls right below her ass. In her left hand is a jumble of green fabric.
She’s wearing Alex’s shirt.
She took off her wet bathing suit, and now she’s in Alex’s shirt.
My hand turns into a death-grip on the pool cue. She smiles at him, her hair wet down her side, a big, beautiful smile. An authentic smile. She’s not acting or people-pleasing.
And she’s naked underneath that shirt.
His shirt.
“You were right,” James says in his British drawl. “He is out of it.”
I focus back on the ball and pull my cue back. I hit it too hard, and it misses by a wide margin. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Nora disappearing up the stairs without a second glance back at any of us.
“What a shame”—Rafe grabs his own cue—“that I didn’t bet on this game.”
“You haven’t won yet.”
“No. But I’m close enough.” He walks around the table, analyzing angles. “And look, if you don’t want your mom to pick a woman out, do it yourself.” Rafe looks over with a shrug. “It could even be fun. Host auditions.”
I drain the last of my whiskey. It does nothing to stop the burn down my spine. Alex walks up to us, still wet from the pool, and I have to look away from him.
“What are you playing for?” he asks.
“A gentleman’s honor,” James says.
Alex chuckles. “How terrible, then, because none of us have any.” His Scottish accent is always stronger when he’s been drinking.
“Speak for yourself,” Rafe says, lining up his shot. The ball rolls smoothly into the pocket. “I’ll have you know my honor is intact.”
“Is that what you tell all the girls?” James drawls, taking a drag of his cigar.
“Don’t be jealous,” Rafe tells him. “I’m sure you could still have fun. If you tried really, really hard.”
Alex grabs a cue and leans against the wall, watching us play. I can feel his eyes on me, and it takes everything I have not to look back at him. To not tell him to put on a fucking shirt. “James doesn’t do fun,” he says with a wide grin. “It’s not noble.”
“Shut up,” James says. He has never liked when any of us bring up his title, which is why none of us will ever stop.
For all of his manners, he bites.
“Did I hit a nerve? I apologize, your grace.”
“Now, now, children.” Rafe lines up another shot, his dark hair falling over his forehead. “Do play nice.”
I lose the game.
“Don’t take it too hard,” Rafe tells me afterward. He slaps me on my good shoulder. “You’re a victor in so many other ways.”
I push him away, and his grin widens. “Patronize me one more time.”
I watch the others play a game before I call it. I’m tired, and all that, and ignore the insults they throw my way. My bedroom is at the far end, and Nora’s is on the other side. Just like back home.
On opposite sides of a corridor that always seems to be too long.
I make sure my bedroom lights are off and the door closed before walking over to hers. I knock twice.
She opens the door, and she’s still in that fucking shirt. Her wet hair is in a low ponytail, and she smells like shampoo and soap. “West?”
“The deal you offered me earlier.” I step inside and close her door behind me. “I’ll take it.”
Nora pulls me into her room, into the bathroom. “ Finally ,” she says, and pushes me toward the edge of her bathtub. “Sit.”
“You’re annoyed with me.” I look at the shirt she’s wearing. The hemline kisses the tops of her thighs. Just like earlier today, she’s probably bare beneath it.
Her brother is downstairs. I might have to marry to save my estate. She just wants us to practice for when she goes forth and dates men she actually likes.
But none of that matters, because here I can pretend she’s mine.
“You’re hurt.” Nora undoes the buttons of my shirt. “It happened hours ago, and you’ve just been drinking and relaxing like you’re fine.”
“It’s just a scratch.”
“It’s not. Look at this! You bled through the shirt. Good thing it was navy, or you’d have lost your precious chip. That rule, by the way, is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s supposed to stop us from getting hurt. Alex was very good at taking things to the extreme.” I pause for a moment. “It was James’s idea. Not the worst one he’s ever had.”
She pushes the fabric off my shoulders. “I want this off.”
“When did you become a nurse?”
“When I found myself surrounded by idiots,” she says. “You can’t go on and on about my safety when you ignore your own like this.”
Her hands on my shoulders feel good. There’s a pattern of freckles on her left thigh, like a constellation of stars. I want to trace them with my lips. “That’s different,” I say.
“No, it’s not.”
“Your safety and mine aren’t the same.”
“And why not? This needs disinfecting… And maybe stitches. But I’m not good enough for that.”
“You know how to sew.”
“Yes. With fabric. Not… God.” She reaches for something out of a cabinet, and I watch her long, bare legs. Wonder what they would feel like wrapped around my waist. “Here’s disinfectant and some gauze. You will sit perfectly still.”
My lip curves. “You’re bossy. I like it.”
She returns between my legs, and this time, I can’t help but grip her hips. She feels good beneath my hands. Firm curves, a steady thing to hold.
“I hope this stings,” she tells me. There’s something sharp against my shoulder, and I grit my teeth.
It smells like chlorine.
My hands grip the fabric on her hip. “What are you wearing?”
“A shirt.”
“I can see that. But it’s Alex’s shirt.”
“Yes. He lent it to me, but maybe I should go downstairs and give it back.” She leans back a little. “He said it was okay. Do you think he minded?”
“If he minded?” I reach for the hem. “I don’t give a fuck about him. I mind.”
She dabs at my shoulder. It stings like a motherfucker, but it’s nothing like the thread of jealousy that has my chest tight. Thinking about her with someone else, her with the bartender, her with Alex, her with future nameless men who won’t appreciate her the right way.
“I’m going to put some gauze on it and use some of the medical tape. But you need to get it looked at when we get back home.”
I pull the hem upward. “I will. If you take off this shirt.”
“You’re impossible.” She stretches her hands up and lets me pull it clean off her body. Fuck. She’s not naked beneath it, but almost. Nothing but a pair of navy blue panties. They’re lace, and they have that little pearl at the front elastic. Just like the ones she modeled.
I toss the shirt away. “Don’t wear his shirt.”
Nora runs a hand along the edge of my jaw. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re jealous. And I’d say you were jealous earlier too.”
“Maybe I am.” I lean forward to brush my mouth over her ribcage. Between her perfect tits. “Maybe I don’t like the idea of you using our lessons with someone else.”
She bandages my shoulder as I kiss her, tease her nipple with my teeth, slide my hand down to tease the seam of her pussy through her panties.
“Not fair,” she says. Her breathing has sped up. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
“I was promised a reward for letting you patch me up.”
“You’ll get there quicker if you let me work,” she says, and there’s logic to it, but she’s growing damp through her panties and there’s no way I’ll stop. “There. You’re all done.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m still annoyed with you,” she says. “But I also want my part of the deal, and that means an orgasm.”
That makes my lip curve. “That’s my girl. Ask for what you want.”
“I want you to make me come using the vibrator I packed.” She tilts her head a little, and her cheeks are a beautiful warm pink. “It would be good for me to know that I can handle something that big before I…” She takes a deep breath. “Well. Before I have sex with a man for the first time.”