Chapter 17
LINDSAY
The night was clear when Jaxon and I walked out of our bungalow after cleaning up and having a drink together on our patio. Stars glittered in the sky above us, and the scent of a bonfire and grilling meat drifted in the air.
He took my hand when we stepped onto the beach, spotting the festivities just a little ways away and located farther down the private stretch of sand. Although we’d been holding hands a lot, I still felt a tingle whenever he first pressed his skin against mine.
Now that I knew what else he could do with those hands, the tingle was accompanied by a healthy dose of lust. It’d taken everything I had to turn him down this morning, but I knew that he would make good on his promise of keeping me in bed all day and I’d really wanted to go to the spa.
As for turning him down again once we’d gotten there, that’d purely been my inhibitions talking.
The treatment rooms were private in terms of the fact that one was shielded from view of the occupants of the neighboring rooms, but they were definitely not soundproofed.
We’d heard other couples laughing and talking while on our balcony, and I knew there was no way they wouldn’t hear us if we did anything on ours.
I wasn’t a prude. I just really didn’t want to have to look people in the eye after if he made me scream and moan the way he had last night. And none of those noises had been fake or exaggerated.
Jaxon squeezed my hand, peering down at me as we walked along the moonlit beach with the waves crashing gently to the shore. “What’s got your mind all busy?”
“Nothing much.” I bit my lip, averting my gaze to stare at the luminous, glowing white ball as it hung just above the horizon. “Just about how this trip has turned out really differently from what I’d expected.”
“You’re starting to realize meeting me was a happy accident, aren’t you?” He didn’t smirk. His expression was filled with genuine warmth as he walked beside me.
I nodded. “Maybe I am, but the same can be said about you meeting me.”
“True, but I never thought otherwise.” He bumped his side gently into mine. “I realized what a happy accident meeting you was as soon as I saw you laughing into my shoulder when I threatened the manager.”
“Jeez. I can’t believe that was only days ago. It feels like I’ve known you for years.” It was true, even though it was a truth that scared me a little.
“What can I say? I’m an easy guy to get to know.
” He licked his lips, his eyes narrowing as he brought our joined hands up to drape his arm over my shoulders again without letting go of my hand.
“Actually, that’s a lie. I’m really not that easy to get to know.
I feel the same way about you, though. It seems almost impossible that it’s been less than a week. ”
“Well, I suppose we’re already living together,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood. “If you count the cumulative amount of hours we’ve spent together so far, I think it’ll probably be the equivalent to having dated for at least a couple of months back in the real world.”
“How do you figure?”
“Think about the average length of dates and how many times a week you see that person.” I got comfortable in the crook of his shoulder and pressed a kiss to the top of his arm. “We’ve barely left each other’s sight in—what is it now—probably just over a hundred hours?”
“What do you think the average length of a date is?” he asked. “About three or four hours?”
“If it’s going well, yes. It’s probably around there somewhere.” I rocked my head from side to side while I thought. “That’s either thirty-three or twenty-five dates worth of time we’ve spent together.”
“How many times a week do you think regular couples go on dates?” He grinned down at me. “Two or three nights a week?”
I shrugged. “Seems fair enough. We’d have to look it up to be sure.”
“I don’t really give a fuck, but let’s accept for the sake of argument that we’re right. That means we’ve spent as much time together as people who have been dating for anywhere between two to four months.”
“Wow.” I blinked back my surprise. “A lot of people who’ve been dating for that length of time are either engaged or married for real.”
“See, baby bear?” He gave me another of the fake, dopey looks he seemed to love so much. “We’re meant to be.”
I checked his hip with my own but couldn’t hide my smile. “Yeah, it’s got to be that. You’re actually becoming less annoying with time. I haven’t found one of your socks in the bathroom in all this time.”
“Does that mean I can start leaving my socks in the bathroom now?”
I shook my head and punched his side gently. “Don’t you dare. The fact that you fold up your clothes and pack them away so neatly is one of the most endearing things about you.”
“Here I thought it was my good looks and my banging body.”
“Banging body?” I laughed as I rolled my head back on his arm to look into his eyes. “You just gave away your age, buddy.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but we’d reached the party. The smell of the fire and the roasting meat was even stronger there, and I also caught a whiff of the sweet-smelling, tropical flowers decorating the tables.
The event looked very much like what I imagined a luau did, with tables laden with food, local music being played by a live band, and fires everywhere. People danced to the sultry sounds of the guitars, and a singer was swaying with her eyes closed on the makeshift stage.
Jaxon grinned when he saw Big Mac ambling up with his arms open and a flowery necklace in each meaty hand. “Welcome, my friends. I’m so happy to see a real couple decided to join us. I can’t stand all these touristy, fake, ‘I love you’ couples.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly super aware of the real status of my relationship with Jaxon. Even though it was starting to feel real, it wasn’t. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
Big Mac shrugged a dark shoulder, the skin revealed since the shirt he was wearing had no sleeves. It was like a vest that had started out as a T-shirt, and the print of the front was faded. He draped the flowers around each of our necks while he replied.
“You know what I’m talking about. Those couples who think they need to prove to everyone just how in love they are by constantly kissing and being on each other’s laps.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but Jaxon beat me to it. “Thank you for recognizing the depth of our relationship.”
He glanced down at me with another simperingly sweet look on his face, and I rolled my eyes at him. “Sure. Yeah. That’s what it’s all about.”
One corner of his mouth twitched up at my response, and he buried his face in my hair to hide his laughter.
“Come and meet everyone,” Big Mac said when my fake husband had regained his composure. “I’ve been telling them all about the only couple on the island I can stand being around.”
“Why do you work at a resort catering mostly to honeymooners if you can’t stand the couples?” I asked curiously as we fell into step beside him.
He grinned and shared a look with Jaxon over the top of my head. “The pay, the perks, and the bikinis. In case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of barely clothed people around here.”
Jaxon laughed, tucking me closer to his side.
Warmth bloomed inside me at the possessive gesture.
There was no way he could be threatened by Big Mac, whether the man had checked me out in my bikini or not, but it was like these things came instinctively to him.
Like he just couldn’t help himself because he didn’t even always realize he was doing it.
Back home and in my career, I was no shrinking violet. I was the head of my department and dealt with a bunch of egotistical jerks all the time. Being a ball-buster was only one of the ways in which I’d progressed as fast and as far as I had.
Will had known me that way, and he’d been perfectly happy to let me wear the proverbial pants. If there was a problem at a restaurant, I was the one to have to sort it out. When he caught another man making eyes at me, he’d trusted me to deal with it.
While I was more than capable of handling everything myself, I couldn’t deny that I enjoyed the whole dominant, possessive thing Jaxon had going on. Alpha-male bad boys had never really been my thing, but now I was starting to wonder why.
Not that he was a bad boy—at least not to me—but he definitely gave off that vibe with other people. And the way he had sex? Well, he definitely wasn’t a good boy. That’s for sure.
On the other hand, he wasn’t a boy at all. There was nothing even remotely boyish about him. He was a man, and a pretty darn sexy one to boot. It wasn’t just his body or his looks that made him sexy. He just was.
While I didn’t need the white knight galloping in on his horse to save me, it was nice to know someone really had my back for a change.
That I didn’t always have to do everything myself.
In the short time I’d known him, he’d made me feel more like a part of a team than always having to be the one leading from the front.
“Where do you keep disappearing off to?” He whispered into my ear as we walked, his lips moving against the shell and his warm breath fanning across my cheek.
Turning my head into him to be able to speak without being overheard, I decided to take another risk. “I was just having a girly moment and thinking about how sexy my new husband is.”
He squeezed my hip and lowered his head, a lock of his light brown hair that shone almost gold in the firelight falling across his forehead as heat crept into his eyes. He brushed his lips against mine in the faintest of kisses but it still managed to feel like it held so many promises.