Chapter 26
jett
“You know,” I start, unlocking the door to my room, “the soursop ice cream might be my new favorite flavor.”
The tart, sweet, citrusy ice cream reminded me of a creamier sorbet, and I’m already making plans to find a grocery store in LA that sells the flavor. It might take some exploration, but I will find a retailer.
Sofía drags herself over the threshold, dropping her sneakers in the corner before slipping into the bathroom. “I liked the wattleseed,” she replies, unraveling her braid.
I lean against the doorframe to observe her routine, to mentally record these quiet moments with her. All of her skincare bottles stand in order on the counter, from the first step down to the last. The red-light mask sits beside it, surrounded by the rest of her supplies.
A humorous snort escapes when I spot my few things in the chaos, thrown in with hers like they belong there.
She slips a headband on and gets to work, methodical in every step.
God, she’s beautiful.
“Are you going to watch me?” she asks with a bemused smile as she pats serum onto her cheeks.
“That’s my plan.”
I could do this every day and never grow bored of it—of her.
She huffs and finishes her routine with the red-light mask. A finger points in my direction before it’s powered on. “Don’t you dare laugh.”
I slide behind her, my arms bracketing her in, and rest my chin on her shoulder.
“Laugh at you?” I mumble, kissing the column of her neck. “Never. I’ll only ever laugh with you, Sofía.”
“Give me a couple minutes?” she asks, lifting her hand to touch my jaw.
I press a kiss to her shoulder and step back. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be here.”
Always, I want to add. I’ll always be here. Next week. Five years from now. Thirty years down the road.
If she calls, I’ll be there.
The silence in the room suffocates me, my thoughts moving a mile a minute. I throw myself into my work, trying to redirect the energy into something productive—trying to steer my mind away from what’s becoming clearer by the minute.
I am falling in love with Sofía.
I’m halfway through the footage of the cassowary, making notes of where voice-overs should be and where I need to make additional edits, when the bathroom door clicks open, and all hope of getting any work done dies a brutal death at the sight of her lacy pajamas, a silky dark-green set that hugs her curves.
She struts over and presses my laptop shut, discarding it to the nightstand before dragging me out of the desk chair.
“You owe me a pair of panties,” she says, her head tilted back, lips pursed to hide a smile.
I steal a kiss, my hands finding her waist as she walks me backward until my legs hit the edge of the mattress. Her palm splays against the center of my chest, and she pushes me onto the bed.
“I did say you could convince me to give them back,” I counter, knowing damn well all she has to do is ask, and it’s hers. Anything she ever wants. If she utters the words, I would make it happen, even if I had to move the damn mountain myself.
Those brown eyes sparkle. She trails a hand along my jaw, leaving a wake of energy on my skin.
My heart pounds in my chest as she straddles me, drowning out the flurry of unwelcome thoughts.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she declares, fingering my waistband. “You can keep them.”
“Oh?”
It’s the only response I can offer her. My brain is short-circuiting while she plays with the ties of my shorts, never tugging hard enough to unravel the knot.
“For a trade, of course.”
“A trade?”
“You keep the panties if you do that thing with your tongue again.”
Smug pride slams into me. “Been thinking about that, have you?”
“Do we have a deal?”
I lean in close until we’re millimeters apart. “I’ll do the tongue thing whenever you’d like.”
Her pupils blow. “Even in the bushes?”
“Uh, what?”
“Never mind,” she mutters, gripping the front of my shirt and pulling me into a kiss.
The motions are slow, unhurried, exploratory, as if she’s mapping the slopes and curves of my lips the same way I’m memorizing every breathy moan and sigh she releases.
All I want to do is learn about her.
That’s my concern. My fear is this will be the final push, the last thing that’s stopping me from fully falling for her. I don’t know that I can separate the emotions I have from the physical element of sex. Not with her.
She presses a soft kiss to my jawbone.
My cock twitches beneath my zipper, the pressure glorious and also not enough.
“You can touch me now.” There’s a teasing lilt in her voice as she places my hands on her hips. “It’s so much more fun if you touch me.”
Her hand covers mine, lifting it from her hip and dragging it along her bone until I’m at the apex of her thighs. The elastic of her pajama bottoms shifts as she slides our hands lower, brushing along her clit. “Slow circles,” she demands, releasing a breathy moan when I do as instructed.
My body is on fire, heat and pleasure melting my veins as she pants. I’ve never felt anything like this before, the sharp, aching need. She exposes the column of her neck, head tipped back, and I kiss a path along the skin, down to her collarbone.
Hooking my arms around her legs, I flip our positions, dropping her on the bed. Sofía lifts the soft fabric of her pajamas over her head, tossing it on the floor. Her shorts follow, and she lies bare before me, a blush spreading down her chest the longer I stare.
My throat dries as I track the rise and fall of her breaths. An ache forms at the center of my chest. None of this was a good idea. The sex. The fake dating for publicity. Spending so much time with her.
It won’t be cut and dry when it’s over for me—not the way it will be for her.
I’m not practical in the way she can be, but I know I’m not strong enough to stop this, either. I’d rather have these moments with her than nothing at all.
“You’re stunning.” I have the thought so often that sometimes it slips out.
“Thank you,” she replies, but it’s not genuine. It’s a robotic response, like she expects the compliment but doesn’t always believe the statement.
“No, Sofía. You’re…” I pause, searching for the right word, but I can’t find only one.
“Do you remember the sunset we watched from the beach in Airlie?” She nods.
“You’re like that. And the small purple flowers on the path leading to the beach.
So many different versions of beautiful, not even a painter could capture it all. ”
Her lips part, and pride balloons in my chest. I stunned her to silence. I love when I manage to pull it off.
Trailing a hand along her inner thigh, I drop to my knees, pressing my lips to her skin.
Her muscles twitch as I settle in and fulfill my half of our little trade.
The gasp she releases when I finally kiss her clit is music to my ears, and I chase every breathy sound she offers while I swirl my tongue around her clit, slowly enough it’s teasing but nothing more.
“Oh, fuck,” she mutters, gripping the strands of my hair as I suck and nip and lap, giving her what she needs to teeter on the edge.
I pause, kissing up the inside of her thigh, then across her stomach, and she releases a grumbled “Jett,” with her hands trying to pull my head back down to where she wants me. She tugs, and I relent, giving her exactly what she wants, splaying her open and feasting on her as if she’s my last meal.
Her breathing turns labored, and she abandons my hair to clench the sheets, her thighs threatening to crush me. It would be a magnificent way to go.
“Fuck, you’re good at this,” she moans.
“So generous with the praise,” I say against her skin. “I’ve earned it now, huh?”
Her breath hitches when I slide a finger inside her. “Mm-hmm.”
I’ve barely had a taste of her, and it’s not enough. Whatever happens in Australia will never be enough. A few weeks won’t do. I want a lifetime of this.
“Condom,” she demands. “My bag.”
I release her, snatching her purse and digging for the seashell pouch.
My enemy is now my friend.
In a single movement, I strip my clothing, my erection pressed against my abdomen, so hard it borders on painful.
She takes the foil square from me, tearing open the wrapper. I hiss when her fingers wrap around me, squeezing before she slides the latex on.
People spend a lifetime searching for something half as good as this, and as Sofía lies back, hair fanning out beneath her, I know I’ll never have anything like this again.
A connection as special as this is something worth fighting for, right?
Our eye contact never breaks when she lines me up to her entrance. Doesn’t falter when I shift forward inch by glorious inch until I’m fully seated and we both release groans of pleasure. Doesn’t snap when she clenches around me.
Fear flashes over her face, and I drag her down into a kiss to banish whatever thought flickered in her mind. Does she feel it, too? The tether between us? There’s nothing casual about what we’re doing, and as I meet every roll of her hips with a thrust, that cloud of emotion grows between us.
Soft moans and breathy sighs fill the space, and when my name falls from her lips—a plea, a prayer, a promise—I inch closer to oblivion. She tightens around me. And I press my thumb to her clit, replicating the slow circles she demanded earlier, driving her to the edge with me.
“Please,” she begs against my lips, her feet wrapping around me to pull my hips tighter, deepening the angle and ripping a shuddered groan out of me. “I-I’m going to—”
Her words cut off as her head tips back and she tightens around me, her orgasm slamming into her. It sparks my own, and the ball of pleasure at the base of my spine explodes, so strong my vision darkens around the edges with tiny bursts of light.
Sofía’s eyes crack open, and she gifts me a shaky smile as I thrust into her one last time, spilling into the condom. She caresses my cheek as I pull out of her, kissing her palm and slipping into the bathroom to clean up.
I yelp when I realize she’s following me, focused on my ass. “I need to use the bathroom,” she says, voice husky.
Once I’m done, I give her space, taking a few minutes to reorganize my spinning thoughts. How am I supposed to give this up?
She returns and slips into bed beside me, resting her head on my chest, the warmth of her skin melting into mine.
“That was…fun,” she whispers.
There are so many words I would use, but fun isn’t one of them. Revolutionary, maybe.
“Yeah.” I play with a strand of her hair, twirling it around my finger. “It was fun.”
Her brow crinkles, only momentarily, before it smooths away.
“Your dream partner,” she says after a while, her fingernails dragging up and down my torso. “Tell me about them.”
My chest tightens.
I wonder if she can sense the erratic nature of my pulse, the subtle increase in the temperature of my skin.
I’ve spent a lot of time asking myself this question.
For a while, that perfect person was an undefined blob.
A figment of a person, molded and formed by the types of love I was surrounded by.
Then Grace took the form of my dream, but I think I projected some of that onto her.
Now I know she never quite fit in the lines because they weren’t shaped for her.
“Well, she has to be smart.” Sofía stiffens beside me, her movement pausing. “And organized to manage my chaos. Kind. Funny. A little particular about her routine.”
Unlike before, that blob now has a definition. It’s taken shape as a short, opinionated, high-maintenance, so-far-out-of-my-league woman with long brown hair and gorgeous, soft eyes. She hates the word ointment and has a million bags inside her purse. She quiets my mind when I’m with her.
“She sounds…nice.”
It’s you, I think to myself, wishing I was bold enough to say the words out loud. My dream girl is you.
I pick up a strand of her hair, curling it around my finger. This is the kind of silence that used to leave me on edge—one where my thoughts would wander and spiral and overwhelm. Now it’s the moment in the day I crave the most because it’s time I get to spend with her.
Her body molds against me, her legs weaved between mine to ward off the chill of the air-conditioning.
What if life were like this every day? Busy days followed by quiet nights together?
I don’t want flashy or loud. I want her. That would be enough.
“She’s incredible,” I say finally. “And your dream guy?”
Her breath tickles my skin. I shouldn’t have asked, but I need to know if any part of who I am could fit what she’s looking for.
“I’d like for him to be intelligent. A good communicator. Kind to others. Funny without being mean. A good friend. Pushes me to be better. Those were all things that were lacking in my last relationships.”
I’d like to think I can make others laugh, but am I all of those things? I don’t know.
“You’ll find him,” I say, trying to force confidence into my voice.
She’ll find him, and I’ll be happy for her. Happy for her, and sad for the loss of something great.
“You seem sure,” she murmurs.
“I am.”
I fold an arm under my head, staring up at the ceiling. Her eyes bore a hole in the side of my head, but I can’t turn to look at her. Not right now. Not when she’s touching me, but this isn’t real in the way I want it to be. Not when she is the only thing in my life that matters.
Eventually, her breathing evens out and her hand falls limp on my chest, but my mind never quiets. Restless thoughts keeping me awake far later than usual—at least since Sofía started sleeping in my room.
One thought chases me until I finally fall into a pitiful sleep: When we return home in a few days, would she be open to something more?