Chapter 7
SEVEN
Vida
“Holy shit. Those were the more incredible mussels I’ve ever had.
” I’m walking beside Tripp on the beach, trying not to stare too hard at his regal profile in the moonlight.
Even with a dumbfounded expression on his face, he is handsome in a way that defies description.
“I mean, I’ve eaten in the best restaurants this world has to offer and that was somehow my best meal in years? I feel like I’ve been lied to.”
I bite my lip to trap a giggle. “Tell the truth. You were skeptical when you saw how it looked from the outside.”
“I’d prepared myself for food poisoning.”
I give him a playful shove, but he turns the tables by snagging my wrist and sweeping me off my feet, carrying me several feet in a bear hug with my legs dangling above the sand.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover next time, rich boy,” I squeal.
“I won’t,” he growls into my neck. “Just keep feeding me mussels.”
“You have to leave some for the rest of us.”
“No.”
I’m not sure how I ended up here, laughing in the moonlight with Tripp Sterling, but I’m having so much fun, my face hurts from smiling.
He’s nothing I would assume a man like him would be.
On paper, I would sum him up as a stuffy, out-of-touch trust fund brat.
But he’s nothing like that. He’s open to new experiences.
He’s funny. Curious. Asks interesting questions.
He was kind to the waitstaff at the restaurant and insisted on leaving a tip that will probably pay the waiter’s rent for the month.
“You’re different outside Reserve,” he says to me, stopping at the edge of the lapping ocean. He settles me down onto my feet, keeping his much larger body curved around mine from behind, his hold warm and secure. “Free and relaxed. I like it.”
“I like it, too.” I lean my head back into the valley between his pecs. “It’s not the kind of job where you can let your guard down.”
A ribbon of tension moves through his frame. “I’m sorry again. About what happened in my room.”
“I know you’re sorry, Tripp, and I forgive you,” I say, squeezing the forearm he’s settling on top of my breasts.
“I wasn’t referring to that. It’s more a sense of…
powerlessness.” I think of the man who asked me to give his kid a swimming lesson that afternoon.
How he leered at me. “Our livelihood could disappear if there’s one complaint.
And some of the guests don’t really see us as human beings.
We’re ghosts until they want something.”
Slowly, he props his chin on my head. “I hate knowing that.”
“I’m more than just a maid.”
“I know you are, angel.” He turns me around in his arms, gathering my hair in his fist to keep it from blowing into my face. “Start at the beginning. I want to know everything that happened since the day you were born.”
That startles a laugh out of me. “That might take a while. Why don’t we start with high school graduation a couple of weeks ago?”
“Fuck. I had a feeling you were only eighteen.” He closes his eyes and sighs through a pained smile. “I suppose it’s a good thing I caught you before college when a million dudes will want to scoop you right up.”
“I doubt that,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“Are you crazy? It’s going to be a feeding frenzy on day one.” His frown is thunderous. “Where are you going in the fall, by the way? I’m suddenly feeling the need to be at your orientation.”
Tripp is speaking as though we’re going to be a couple come the beginning of the school year, but of course, I’m not taking him seriously.
In what world would that be realistic? No, he’s just being romantic in the moonlight.
On a quest to get me into bed. Whatever this is will run its course by the end of the week.
For him, at least. I’m not sure I’ll be able to forget him any time soon. He’s too charismatic. Poignant. Magnetic.
“Dartmouth,” I say, smiling up at him.
He does a double take. “Dartmouth? That’s a great school.”
“Surprised?”
“No,” he admits, honestly. “I’m not. What are you studying?”
I tilt my head back a little further and sigh over the beauty of the stars. “Astronomy.”
“What?” he half laughs, half breathes. “You’re full of surprises, Vida. Why astronomy?”
When I talk, it’s like he’s trying to memorize my words, he’s so focused.
“My aunt brought me to the planetarium in Boston when I was nine and I got really fascinated by the Milky Way. Why were all those stars bunched together like that?” I reach up and trace the Little Dipper with my fingertips.
“The answer is, all those stars are held together by dark matter. It’s like a glue that stops all the space dust and debris and stars from scattering apart.
” I lower my hand to his shoulder again.
“Both my parents passed in a car accident when I was ten and on the days when I wanted to break apart, I imagined the dark matter holding me together. That’s the part of space I want to study. ”
I can hear his heavy swallow over the rushing surf. “I’m sorry about your parents, angel.”
I blink back the moisture in my eyes. “Thank you.”
Tripp shakes his head. “Christ, I’ve never met anyone like you, Vida.
” He stoops down and bands an arm around the backs of my thighs, lifting me off the ground, my legs wrapping eagerly around his waist. Wanting to feel him.
Our mouths seek one another, rubbing wetly.
“You’re going to be someone’s dark matter someday.
The glue that holds some poor fuck together.
” A line forms between his brows. “I think I’m going to need it to be me. ”
Again, I know he’s just being sweet in this achingly romantic setting, but I’m eating it right up, enjoying him while I can.
We consume each other as he walks us up the beach, his tongue urgent inside my mouth.
I spear my fingers into his abundance of hair and pour every ounce of feeling into our kiss, mewling when he draws up the rear hem of my dress and molds my bare ass cheeks roughly.
“Mmm.”
“You like that, angel?”
“Yes,” I manage, marveling over the skill of his hands.
“You don’t know it yet…” He slaps my left cheek with just enough bite to make me feel hot and anxious. “…but you’ve got an ass that begs to be taken from behind.”
Does he mean…the position I’ve overheard men call doggy style? “I do?”
He gives another pained laugh. “Goddammit, yes.”
“Why does that make you upset?”
“I’m not upset, Vida. I’m horny.” We arrive at the lifeguard tower, and he sets me down, groaning as I slide down the front of his body, encountering his protruding sex on the way, the full length of it dragging inch by inch against the seam of my flesh.
“Fuuuuuck,” he says, voice guttural. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. ”
“You’re not what I expected my sex education teacher to look like.” It comes out breathy.
He flashes me a grin, even while attacking my neck with noisy kisses. “Oh, am I hotter? More suave, perhaps, than you were expecting?”
I wiggle away from his advances, dancing my way beneath the lifeguard tower. “Definitely more arrogant.”
He follows me onto the cool sand under the tower, chuckling at me when I leap up and curl my hands around the metal bar overhead.
I hang there for a few seconds, enjoying the way his gaze runs down the front of my body, and I’m glad I wore this dress, even though I’d worried it was too short.
He definitely appreciates the brief hemline because his eyes darken drastically as I hang from the bar.
Whereas a moment ago, he was playful, he’s losing that charming and flirtatious demeanor.
His expression reminds me of our first encounter.
When he incorrectly assumed I was a call girl and asked me to run away.
There’s a strain appearing around his mouth, his body tense. Muscles coiled.
His hands are shaking as he dries sweaty palms on his thighs.
Is there something about my position that’s turning him on?
Even more than he already was?
“Do you like me like this?” I ask quietly, my voice carried gently on the breeze.
“You don’t want to know what I’m thinking, Vida,” he says, darkly. “Please come down.”
It’s then that I notice the jutting angle of his fly. He’s even harder than he was before. I analyze my position, and my curiosity grows.
“Do you like that my hands aren’t free?”
His chest starts to lift and fall faster. “Vida…”
“I already know your secret, Tripp.” I kick my legs gently, and his eyes are drawn there, to my sandy feet, his expression darkening further. “Just tell me.”
He shakes his head. “I’m going to scare you.”
“You won’t make me do anything I don’t want to do. You’ve proven that.”
There’s a flash of gratitude on his face before he goes back to looking…deeply starved.
“I was thinking if I belted your wrists to that bar, I could do anything I wanted to that little body.”
A fog of heat settles into my lower body, moist and heavy.
Curious.
“What would you do?”
His breath escapes in a rush, and he drops a hand to the bulge in his pants, rubbing at the painful-looking swell.
“I fucking hate myself for this, angel, but I think…” He swallows heavily. “I think watching you struggle naked would make me come.”
The fierce rush of damp between my thighs makes me gasp.
Do I like this, too?
Do I want to be held captive?
There’s only one way to find out—and I trust him. He stopped yesterday on a dime. If I’m uncomfortable, he’ll drop everything to make it better. Somehow, I know that.
“Do it.”
His chin jerks up. “What?”
I bite my lip. “Belt my wrists.”
“No, angel.”
“Please?” I pout, kicking my legs in that way that inspires a wave of lust on his face.