Chapter 12
Twelve
ATLAS
By the time my legs regained enough strength to walk with my cane, it was well past sunset, and I was too worn-out to go out for dinner. Ryan didn’t seem to give a shit. In fact, he looked kind of thrilled that we didn’t have to trudge down to the restaurant.
I ordered off the special suites menu for a nice little spread of picky foods, which came on a large tray, and we took it outside to our shared patio and ate on loungers with a small table between us.
Every time our fingers met, I felt a jolt up my arm.
I wanted more, but strangely, I was also content with this. These small touches and shared smiles were heaven. The pointless conversation and the soft laughter that meant everything and nothing at all felt like oxygen.
With him, it was easy to forget the rest of the world was outside waiting for us.
It was easy to forget that I still had a life to recover, and a brother to appease after ghosting him, and my independence to demand once I got home.
It was easy to forget that this wasn’t our forever.
“We should get in the hot tub,” Ryan said after we’d finished the last bit of cheese on the tray.
My brows lifted. “You think that’s a good idea? I thought you didn’t want germs up your pee hole.”
He burst into laughter. “Well, chlorine will help with that. So long as you don’t want to fuck me in there. And as long as you think they’ve cleaned out the come that came before us.”
I covered my mouth, hiding my giggle. “Oh my god, I’m pretty sure they did.”
“You’d be surprised. I’ve seen some gross-ass documentaries about what hotels skimp on disinfectants.”
“Let’s pretend the amount of money we paid for these rooms means a come-free hot tub, yeah?”
He grinned at me. “Deal.”
Fuck, I wanted to kiss him. In fact, I realized, there was nothing stopping me.
I stood up, legs still a little wobbly, and walked around the table, dropping to his lounger.
He stared at me with a soft “Oh,” but welcomed me as I slid up his body and squeezed us both onto the chair that was definitely not meant for two grown men.
“Hi,” I whispered.
He leaned close enough to rub his nose along mine. “Hello.”
“I wanted to kiss you.”
“And I want to be kissed,” he murmured.
I cupped his cheek and pressed our lips together, soft at first, a little chaste, but as I began to taste him, the kiss deepened. His tongue was sweet like the jam and brie he’d eaten, and warm as it danced with mine.
God, I could do this forever.
I wanted to do this forever. I just wasn’t sure I was brave enough to tell him that.
We broke apart long, lush moments later, and he groaned, dropping his head against my shoulder. “Would it be going against vacation protocol to do just this for the week?”
I laughed. “No. We get to make the rules.”
“Ooh, I like that. I don’t get a lot of that in my life.
” When he pulled back, I raised a brow, and he rolled his eyes.
“I work at a prep school. Amazing pay, but a whole board of directors that are basically just the rich parents of entitled students who plan to buy their way into Ivy League education.”
“Hmm. Gross.”
He laughed. “Yeah, tell me about it.” He dipped his fingers under my linen shirt and traced a touch around my ribs, smiling when I jumped. “Did you, ah…did you finish school?”
I sighed as I leaned back, lost in the feeling of his hand on me. “Barely. I think I graduated with a 2.9? I think half those last Cs were pity grades, but it was fine. We’d already gotten signed by the end of my senior year.”
“And your…your ex?” Ryan asked carefully.
“He didn’t finish. He dropped out and was acting as the band manager for the last year before we got representation. I’ll give him credit,” I said, not even feeling bitter about it anymore, “he was good at it. Being a narcissistic control freak did the band some favors in those early days.”
“Do you miss it?”
I looked at him, at the earnestness in his eyes. He wasn’t asking because he wanted the scoop or to be the first person to post about it on socials. He was asking because he cared. “The band or being onstage?”
“Either? Both?”
“I think I miss the band dynamic sometimes. I’m happy to be solo, but there was something about the energy we shared with each other. Even when Raleigh was an absolute fucking monster to me, when we were in front of the crowd for that little while, it didn’t matter.”
“I’m sorry you lost that,” he murmured.
I leaned in and took another kiss. “I’m not. It was always worse when the show was over and real life set back in. He was always so angry at me whenever I got attention.”
“He sounds like a real douche.”
I burst into a fit of laughter. “Yeah. He was a real fucking douche.” I dragged my fingers through my hair, pushing it back away from my forehead. Maybe I should cut it. But then I thought about the way it felt when Ryan twisted his fingers and held me in place with it, and yeah…maybe I’d keep it.
“Come on,” Ryan said after a moment. “Let’s get in the hot tub and boil like lobsters.”
It didn’t take us long to strip down to swim shorts and climb into the steamy water.
I was a little more sensitive to temperature since my accident, so Ryan kept the temperature lower and the bubbles high.
The massage feature felt like heaven on my back, but when Ryan put his hands on me, it was euphoric.
He moved me into his lap, his warm chest pressed against my back, his arms loose around me. I had never been so content in my life.
“Can we just stay here forever?”
I laughed. “I’ve never been more tempted in my life. But also…hurricanes.”
I could feel his grimace against the side of my face as he leaned in to smudge a kiss along my jaw. “It’s annoying when you’re reasonable.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why you—” I stopped myself before I made one giant mistake and swallowed back the four-letter word. The way he stiffened though, he understood what I hadn’t said. I cleared my throat. “Anyway, I hope this week crawls by.”
His fingers danced down my arm. “Me too.”
We didn’t need to speak after that. We sat and watched the stars winking in and out of existence, listening to the waves, the occasional splash of something neither of us could see and I was too afraid to ask about. But I didn’t feel anything other than safe in his arms.
And when he started to touch my chest, I groaned and leaned further back into him.
“You like that?” he asked against my ear.
I nodded, humming. He could tell how desperate I was to feel tender touches like this. “Yeah.”
“And this?” He pinched a nipple, and my cock thickened in my shorts. He could also tell how much I wanted the sharper ones. Shifting restlessly against him, I could feel him getting hard too.
“Yeah.” My desire not to fuck in a hot tub was dwindling with each pass of his strong hands.
“This?” He trailed his touch lower—lower—until he was toying with the elastic on my waistband.
I sucked in my stomach, and his fingers dipped beneath the fabric, going further still until…
“Oh fuck. Oh shit. I am so sorry! Jesus, I thought you were dead, asshole! Not fucking in a hot tub. Christ, Tarik. Avert your eyes!”
My body went cold at the sound of my brother’s voice, and it took everything in me—every ounce of control—not to tumble over the edge of the hot tub and strangle him to death. Ryan went completely stiff, his breathing stuttered in his chest.
There was only one thing I could do in this moment, so I turned and set my arm on the side of the plastic. “Tollin. Tarik. Nice to see you. Is there a reason you decided to show up and ruin my sexcation?”
My brother and my so-called best friend gave us a few minutes to climb out and compose ourselves. Ryan was trembling with shock and nerves as we toweled off, and he didn’t start breathing normally until I cornered him against the wooden beam of the cabana and kissed him soundly.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
His eyes went a little hazy. “Sweetheart?”
“Sorry. I—”
“No. I like it. I really like it. I’m just a little freaked-out right now.”
I got freshly pissed off all over again. “Trust me, so am I. I cannot believe that asshole stalked me here.”
Ryan bit his lip. “Should I go back to my place, or—”
“No!” Okay, that was maybe a little too harsh.
I softened my tone and took his hand. “Sweetheart. If you want to escape to your room, I fully support that. This is way over the fucking line, and Tollin and I are going to be having some serious words. But…” I hesitated.
I had no idea if there was a future for us off this island, but I realized in that moment, it didn’t matter.
“I want you to meet him. And I want him and Tarik to meet you.”
His face softened, and some of the tension drained from his shoulders. “Okay. I get it. If it was Gracie and Hasan, I’d be pretty angry too, but I’d also want them to meet you.”
The name Gracie sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. It was a reminder of how much Ryan and I still didn’t know each other that the people closest to him were still strangers to me.
“We’ll make nice for long enough to find out why the fuck they’re here, then I might have to go off on them both. I hope you’re okay with that.”
Ryan smiled and leaned in, stealing a kiss. “I love the idea of you getting mean and bossy.”
I shuddered—a single spark of pleasure racing up my spine as I took his hand and leaned on him for support as we made our way back up to the room.
The lights in my suite were on. I had no idea how—or if—they’d gotten a key to the room, but I could see Tarik pacing and Tollin lounging on the couch like he had no better place to be in the world but here, fucking up my week.
I breathed through another rush of anger as Ryan and I stepped through the back door and then walked into the suite’s living room. The adjoining door was sitting open still, so Ryan could escape if he needed to.
“Well,” Tollin said. “If it isn’t the lovebirds. Atlas and what? Some guy you met on the fucking internet?”