Chapter 28 #2
"Can I walk you to your room?" Her voice is pleasant, but she has lost the saccharine tone, the manufactured smile she used on us. In its place is something deeper. Less eager, more sultry.
If Duke notices, he doesn't make it known.
They go off, and now it is just me and Dom. "Pool?" he asks.
I nod, and we make our way back to our casita. He sits on the bed while I take my bathing suit into the bathroom, and when I'm out, he takes a turn. For someone I claim to loathe, we get along well.
At the pool, Dom swims laps while I lounge in a chair and thumb through emails.
Or, at least that's what I am pretending to do.
It's hard to focus on emails when Dom's cutting through the water, powerful arms producing rhythmic strokes.
His head is down, and I am free to stare without fear of being caught.
Is it healthy for a male to be this attractive?
Shouldn't there be a physical fatal flaw somewhere?
I'd settle for a nubbin, but no. Dom is flawless.
He surfaces, hair slicked back, and my attention snaps down to my phone.
Paisley told me she'll try to keep her emails to me at a minimum, but I know there's no way I can be totally off-grid when it comes to work.
There are some accounts for which I am the only contact, and even though Paloma has said she'll monitor my email to make sure there isn't anything I might be missing, I don't want to depend solely on her.
Technically, I'm not taking vacation time for this road trip, and since it was sprung on us with very little time to prepare, I wasn't able to manage projects like I would have had I known I would be gone for three weeks.
"Working?" Dom asks, settling himself on the lounge chair beside me.
"Mm-hmm," I answer, not because I'm busy, but because he looks so good in those bright blue swim trunks it should be criminal.
He hasn't dried off, and rivulets of water stream down his toned torso.
My lady boner is peeking her head up from dormancy, but thanks to my anatomy, hiding it isn't a problem.
"How about you?" I ask, hoping work talk will be the equivalent of a cold shower. "Have you had to work yet?"
Dom checks the time on his phone. "There's a three-hour time difference. Or is it two right now?"
"Two," I answer. "Daylight savings was last weekend. You missed the turn of the clock."
Dom tosses his phone at the bottom of his chair, near his feet. "I didn't notice. It's nice not having to change a clock."
"One of the perks of living in Arizona," I say, setting my phone down as well. "The extreme summer heat in the lower half of the state isn't awesome, but in exchange our time is consistent."
"Very true." Dom nods. A bead of pool water slides off his shoulder, traveling down his arm.
I will not watch that water travel any further south.
"Do you miss living here?" I ask, desperate for a distraction.
Dom wraps his hands behind his head, tipping his face to the cloudless sky. "Yes, and no."
When he doesn't say anything more, I prod him. "Care to elaborate?"
"I loved the energy of the city when I first got there. I moved for college, and never left. But lately"—he shrugs—"I've lost that lovin' feeling."
I smile at the old-timey song reference. "What are you working on right now?"
"Klein is working on the idea for his second book.
And I've signed an author who's writing a tell-all about her years working in the restaurant industry.
I think it'll be successful." Dom runs his hands through his hair.
"I love my career. It means a lot to me.
The authors I work with, the new ones at least, they have stars in their eyes.
A dream in their heart. I'm part of making it come true.
" His eyes flicker to me. "Like you, I suppose.
Your marketing plans help business owners' dreams come true. "
"That's the goal. But don't try to switch the focus to me. You do that a lot."
His eyebrows raise. "Do I?"
"Mm-hmm. Keep going. Why have you lost that lovin' feeling?"
"I don't know that I have a real grasp on the way I feel yet. All I really know is that when I walk into the office, when I sit down in my office chair and look at my desk and my computer, I don't feel the thrill I used to."
My heart twists. A person trades a good portion of their lives for time spent nurturing a career.
For so many, it's how they measure themselves.
For better or worse, it can be how a person defines their existence.
When someone asks, What do you do? they mean What do you do for work?
They're not asking if you topped your toast with butter or jam that morning.
"What do you think would give you that thrill?"
"I'm not sure," he says, grabbing for the towel folded at the end of his chair. He runs it over his head, drying, then drags his free hand through his mop of gently sloping curls.
Oh. My. Watching someone you're physically attracted to drag their hands through their hair is highly underrated.
He continues, unaware of my invisible physical response. "I know I'm not disenfranchised with the work, so I guess I'll have to determine if it's the company, or the city, or something else entirely."
"That must be tough," I say sympathetically. "Wrestling with something like that."
Dom gestures around. "On the bright side, I'm currently poolside on a perfect seventy-five degree day." He grins, and it's like the sun chasing away mildly threatening clouds. "With my wife."
I wait for the customary annoyance at the reminder, but it doesn't arrive. Hmm, that's odd. There's probably a traffic jam inside me, caused by the rousing of my nether regions.
Dom closes his eyes, tipping his head back against the plastic chair. "There's a siesta in my immediate future."
I wake up my phone and return to my emails. "I'll make sure to punch you if you start snoring."
"I don't snore."
"That remains to be seen."