Chapter Fourteen #2
Her head pokes over the rock, and before I can make sense of what she’s doing, her ass is in the sand, and she’s tugging her boots off, launching them over her shoulder. The socks come next, and my brain fumbles as I try to flit my gaze between the incoming bulldog and Mia’s painted toes.
“Get naked. Now,” she whisper-shouts.
“Naked?” I hiss at a much louder volume than I should.
“Come on.”
The whole reason we’re here right now is because Richard got naked on a beach.
I know the likelihood of a seagull nipping at my cock is probably low, but who would take that chance?
Seagulls certainly have a propensity for Richard and I don’t want to get in the crossfire—especially since he’s currently screaming death to all of them.
The dog is surprisingly agile and jumps onto the rock, barking at such a volume that Richard halts his tirade of genocidal promises on the avian population.
“Fuck it, just take your shoes off and run.”
Mia’s parker is off, her jumper and T-shirt too, leaving her skinny jeans, bare toes and a black lace balcony bra that cradles her soft pillowy breasts.
I want to look away but how could I? My employee who is the most strikingly beautiful woman on the planet is leaning back into the sand, desperately trying to tug off her skin-tight jeans as if we’re about to fuck right here in the sand.
“Who’s there?” Richard calls out.
I yank my shoes off, and Mia pulls me up and tugs me toward the sea. She never did get her jeans off.
Oh my God. We can’t be doing this. We’re going to die in the Pacific Ocean in February.
We’ve not even had a hint of spring yet, and Mia is charging toward the thankfully calm ocean.
Without fear of stepping onto anything sharp or spiky, she launches herself into the water, presumably because her jeans are too tight for her to keep running.
I follow suit, because what else can I do? Stand at the edge of the shore and risk another beating from another patient?
She paddles out far enough that it's hard to make out our faces. Geraldine, barking at us until Richard stands by her side.
“Fuck, it’s fucking f-freezing,” she whispers.
I pull her against me, feeling the pebbled skin beneath my fingertips.
Richard needs to fuck off ASAP so we can get out and I can get her warm.
“Is everything okay there?” Richard calls out.
“Just fancied a skinny dip,” Mia calls out.
He pauses for a moment, likely debating whether to warn us about getting naked at the beach.
“Don’t stay too long. It’s too cold.”
“We’ll get out as soon as you l-leave,” she chatters.
“Alrighty, come on Geraldine,” he says, turning around before muttering, “fucking lunatics” just loud enough for me to hear.
My breathing is barely under control. My body is fighting desperately against the cold, and the short, sharp breaths I manage to get in make me fear my lungs are close to collapsing.
I take Mia’s hand in mine as I swim back to shore, scared that if I lose my grip on her, she may just float away.
We pull ourselves out, the water cascading off us as we fight our muscles to gather our things.
“Take off your jeans. I’ll help you.”
“I’ll just leave them on.”
“Mia, please,” I beg. “You’re going to get hypothermia if you don’t get out of the wet clothes. Just take off the jeans. Put your T-shirt and jumper back on and we’ll head to mine to dry everything, okay?”
“I sh-should just go home.”
“Mia, I’m not leaving you alone right now. No arguments.”
My jaw aches from clenching as it fights the chatter of my teeth.
I grab her things, helping them over her head. They’re going to be drenched by the time I get her to my house, but I’ll find her some clothes whilst we wait.
She ceases her arguing and leans against the rock to pull her jeans off.
Sand is everywhere, over her, me and all our clothes.
I remove my T-shirt and watch as her eyes jump down to my chest, lingering until they dip low to my stomach.
Yeah, I fucking work out. Not that any of that will matter if we don’t get warm in the next five minutes.
“Come on.”
◆◆◆
Thank God my house is only fifteen minutes from Coral Cove.
Forty minutes after we dragged ourselves out of the water like some slime-riddled sea creatures, we were almost warm.
Mia is sitting near my wood-burning stove in one of my cable knit sweaters and a pair of my sweatpants.
They swamp her completely, but she somehow makes it work. At least her lips are no longer blue.
“Here.” I pass her a mug of hot chocolate and a pair of thick socks.
She takes the socks, untucking her legs and ungracefully tugging them onto her feet before taking the hot chocolate and cradling the mug with both hands.
“Can you come sit with me?”
“I was going to get some food ready for us.”
“Just for a minute. Aren’t you cold too?”
Fucking freezing, actually. But I’m more concerned about her right now.
“I’ve warmed up; come here.”
I take a seat next to her, and lift my arm so she can settle in against my chest. The tip of her nose is an icicle as she snuggles into the crook of my neck.
We sit quietly for a few minutes, but as I shift to move, she murmurs, her lips brushing against my skin. “Can’t we just order a pizza? You’re like a hot water bottle.”
I smile, inhaling the smell of my shampoo in her hair. It’s not nearly as nice as the one she usually uses, but the smell of me on her, plus wearing my clothes, makes all blood rush south.
“Yeah, love. I’ll order a pizza for us.”
I keep a tight hold of her as I use my free hand to pull out my phone, making the order.
“What’s the story with your hometown?” I ask.
She inhales sharply, her back stiffening beneath my palm as she tries to pull away. She looks up at me for a moment, her face flushed from the warmth of the room. She turns from hurt to annoyed to neutral in a matter of seconds.
“No story,” she says, attempting to increase the space between us.
“Mia…you don’t have to tell me what happened, but don’t lie to me. There’s a story there.”
I have no right to demand any answers from her, but part of me hopes she trusts me enough to tell me, regardless.
“It was when I was in high school,” she sighs, leaning back against the arm of the couch and unfolding her legs until she places them over my lap. I grab a blanket to cover us, and she continues.
“I dated someone older, someone I shouldn’t have been with at all. It didn’t end very well.”
“How old were you?” I ask.
“Seventeen.”
“How old was he?”
“Thirty-two.” She smiles sadly.
Every psychologist has their neutral face they use during sessions. I was trying to channel mine now, but the thought of a grown-ass man touching teenage Mia, so young and na?ve, made my blood boil uncontrollably. I wanted to find him and punish him for the pain he’s caused her.
“How did you know him?”
“He was one of my teachers. And, honestly, I can’t believe I’m about to tell you this.
” Her eyes glisten in the low light as she looks up at my ceiling, blinking rapidly.
“His wife was also a teacher at my school. I didn’t have classes with her, but I knew of her.
My high school wasn’t that big, so everyone kind of knew everyone.
” She takes a long sip of her hot chocolate, and I reach out and pull her hand into mine, intertwining our fingers.
I stay quiet, giving her time to tell me more.
“I thought we were in love. I thought…I thought that he saw me as an equal. But it wasn’t like that at all. His wife found out, and it turns out I wasn’t the first student he’d been with. They’d moved to our town because he had done it before.”
She shifts, wiggling herself down so she’s more lying down than sitting. I rub my thumb along the inside of her calf, kneading the muscle.
“When she found out, he’d sworn that I had been the instigator.
That I had thrown myself at him, essentially forcing myself on him, when in reality it was the total opposite.
He told me how beautiful I was, how clever, how I could be anything I wanted and that he was going to take care of me.
His sweet girl. He used to get me to dress up in schoolgirl outfits, cheerleading costumes even though I wasn’t one.
He said he liked how innocent I was. How he was the only person I’d been with, the only person I’d even kissed. ”
She pauses for a moment to catch her breath and I temper the fury behind my eyes.
This is why Mia had freaked out when I called her sweet girl at Lottie’s.
She could barely breathe, barely hold it together as I tried to wrack my brain as to what I had done wrong.
It turns out Mia was thinking about a predator that had her running from her hometown.
Thank god I picked up on it at the time.
“He used to…used to spank me. I hated it even then, but I was so desperate to make him happy, I would have done anything. And then when his wife found out, she was furious of course. She printed fliers with my face on them and spread them around town. It had ‘whore’ and ‘slut’ written across my face. My whole family knew, my friends, literally the entire town. I was just grateful that I only had a few months until graduation, and then I got a late admission to Seattle University, and I moved here. I left my family to deal with the fallout, and that’s why I hardly go home anymore.
And when I do, we rarely go into town because people still stare and whisper about me. ”
“The waitress. That’s why she said the thing about you liking older men.”
Mia nods, a single tear falling down her cheek. She pulls her hand from mine, roughly brushing the tear away. “It's fine. It’s fine. I’m mostly over it. I just feel so stupid sometimes, like I can’t believe I thought he loved me and we were meant to be together.”
“Mia…” I take her hand back, covering it with mine.
“It took me so long to trust my own judgment again, and with men, I just…it takes me so long. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully trust anyone again.”