She shook her head like none of it mattered and her wavy locks flew back and forth. “It’s more than functional. It’s perfect! And now, I get to make you coffee. What would you like?”
I groaned, knowing I was never going to get a good cold smoothie now. “Can you just make me a shake today?” Hopefully that would cool the fire starting inside me.
She sighed and combed her fingernails through her dark hair. “No. That’s not what’s for sale today. Check the board.” She pointed with her brows lifted as if to say isn’t it so new and shiny? It was. They’d installed a larger chalkboard for her to write menu items on. “We can brew coffee, tea, even make a mocha.”
“We live in a warm climate, ragazza,” I said softly, trying to break the news to her, but enjoying the fire growing in her eyes.
“Yeah, and you’re on a beach with a girl who will only make you coffee.” She crossed her arms. The black bikini she wore dipped low, showing off her generous cleavage. “You want it iced? I can do that.”
“This isn’t the way to run a business.”
Someone came up behind me and peered around me, whooping when he saw Morina. “You’re back, baby!”
“Marco! I am! Get up here.”
The man didn’t even glance my way. He just skipped me and pulled Morina in for a hug through the window. Jesus, she was selling something here and it wasn’t just her fucking shakes. The men loved her and it pissed me the hell off.
“I thought the life of a celebrity was going to take you away from us.”
“Oh, shut up,” she threw back and laughed.
“I saw your face on a magazine cover one day and thought to myself, no shit. Your face might belong there, but it belongs here first.”
She rolled her eyes and I wondered if he knew her husband stood right behind him.
“Anyway, Marco, I’m selling coffee today.”
He groaned like he only wanted the same thing as me: a damn shake. “Can’t I just have a smoothie today?”
“Fuck off, Marco. Coffee or nothing.”
He chuckled like this was completely acceptable. They were all waiting to talk to her. “Mo’s in a mood today, huh?” he grumbled to me.
He didn’t get out of line, just paid for the coffee he hadn’t even asked for.
He meandered away, telling her to come to the tiki bar soon.
Once he was gone, she placed her elbows on the window frame, cupped her hands under her chin and stared down at me, her eyes bluer than ever and her lips the color of cherries.
I found myself leaning in to hear exactly what she was going to say.
“It’s my business. I run it how I want to.” She licked her plump lips.
“Give me a damn iced coffee then.”
She bit that lower lip, dragged her teeth over it and looked me up and down. My dick jumped. How could it not when she’d been kissing me just moments before? Then she spun and tinkered for a minute before returning with my coffee.
I moved to pay her but she rolled her eyes, glanced at the security guy by the door, and before I could stop her, she hoisted herself out the window.
“Jesus. There’s a damn door there.” But my hands were at her waist immediately as I caught her and set her on the ground.
“What’s a door good for when I got you to take care of me?” She winked and pointed to the security guy. “Plus, he goes out that way and makes a big scene about checking every angle. Now, we don’t need to.”
“Are you done for the day?”
“I’m taking you surfing again, Bastian, because it’s the only way I know how to repay you for the food truck. That, or I’ll fuck you right here in the sand but someone might get that on camera and we can’t have them saying the hippie lost her mind, right?”
Her mind went ten different directions at all times and I found myself chuckling as she fetched two boards off the truck.
The beads on her bracelet banged together, all different colors and materials around her arm. That along with her bikini was a bold sign, one that said she wanted the world to know that she was free to wear and do whatever she wanted.
It made me wonder if she would be that way in a few months, if I honestly wanted her to be.
“Hey?” I yelled to my guy behind her. “Close down and lock it up. We got other eyes. You can go.”
We got to the water and I grumbled about using Bradley’s board again.
“If you want, buy yourself one, but you’re not out here enough to spend that much.” She shrugged, combing her hands through her hair and threading it into a loose braid.
She didn't realize coming out here once was enough for me to purchase a board. I wouldn’t continue riding another man’s things.
“He doesn’t ever use this one anyway,” she added.
That wasn’t the point at all.
We entered the cool water and she explained how I should snap up as the wave rushed toward us. I listened and tried again and again halfheartedly. I was more concerned that Morina was surfing with only a bikini like last time. This time, I wanted her wrapped up more.
Honestly, I didn’t think it was possible to surf with a bikini on. Sure, they did it in movies and during competitions, but those people were the best in the world.
Morina wasn’t the best in the world.
She was supposed to be an average girl on a board that had grown up around water.
How the fuck she even got on the board after I tried and failed so many times was baffling to me. How she did that and kept the scraps of material covering her tits was a goddamn miracle.
Why the hell I was out here torturing myself in the first place was an even bigger mystery.
“Mo, I’m done.” I bobbed up and down in the water next to my board after another failed attempt at standing up.
“What?” She jumped off her surfboard as she rode past. When she surfaced, she shook her head. “No! You’re almost there.”
Her smile was infectious. It stretched across her face in a way I’d never seen before. There weren’t any frown lines when she looked at me and the smile raised her cheeks even more than usual. The sun glowed on her smooth skin and the water glistened on her nearly bare chest like a mesmerizing game of where not to look.
Fuck, she was pretty out here.
Now, more than ever, I wasn’t immune to her. She radiated a light I wasn’t used to. All my life, I’d been around darkness, business, pain.
My father bred me to take his place and I was damn good at that.
How to handle a woman so genuinely naive of that darkness was baffling, intoxicating.
She vibrated with energy as she swam to my board and wrapped an arm around it. “You almost got this. I’ll give you anything to master it today.”
“You’ll what?” I cocked my head. “Today? You’re kidding me. People don’t get up on a board for weeks after they start trying.”
It pained me to admit I’d researched it after the first time.
“But you’re so close and I’ve never taught anyone to get on it and ride in less than a week of lessons. And I don’t teach often but come on! This could be epic for me.”
“For you?” I pointed at her. “You realize this is supposed to be about me, the student.”