“He could press charges for this,” Adrian calls after us.
“He could, but how would he explain to the judge what he was doing in the managerial office? Why you brought someone like him there. How would you explain? What would our father think about all of this?”
There it is again. Our father. What the hell is going on? The hallway seems ten degrees cooler than the office, but the cooler air does nothing to stop my beating heart.
I stare up at Cruise, confused, a little scared. I’ve seen plenty of fistfights. I’ve never witnessed anything like that. I’m convinced that Cruise could have killed that guy with just a few more well-placed punches.
His jaw is set in a way that indicates murder. I’m not sure whether he wants to be left alone, or if the fact that he’s still holding my arm means that he wants my company.
“What the hell is going on?” I demand.
“Let’s go for a run,” he says.
“What? Cruise – ”
“Meet me on the beach in ten minutes.” His voice gets lower, and there’s a slight hint of vulnerability in his tone. “Please, Maya. I need this. And maybe a swim. Wear that bikini?”
The tension is coming off him in waves, and before I can answer him, he pulls me to him and kisses me. If it was our first kiss, it would terrify me, because his lips are unforgiving, his mouth is hard and the kiss does more than take my breath away, it steals something from me.
I’m in his arms, and the kiss is escalating, and then he lets me go, and we stand, both gasping for breath, staring at one another.
He could take me, right here in the hallway, and I wouldn’t resist.
He sees my willingness, and flushes.
“I won’t use you like that.” His voice is tight. He wants to.
I step back into his arms.
“What if I asked you to? What if I begged?”
I kiss him. A gentler kiss, but with the same insistence. “My room is just down the hall.”
He groans.
“We can run afterwards.”
“I wanted to tell you,” he says between kisses. “You have to wonder about what Adrian was saying.”
“I want to know everything because I care about you. But it doesn’t make any difference as far as…” I swallow nervously. “As far as this… is concerned.” And it’s true. I don’t care if he’s Adrian’s brother. I don’t care that he didn’t tell me. I don’t care about anything except for him, at least for right now.
The look he gives me is a mix of disbelief, and an overwhelming desire to believe. Whatever he’s been through, he hasn’t had enough people who cared about him unconditionally.
“I want to hear everything, but not until after we finish what we started.”
“It won’t be the way we started. I want to please you, again, and again, but now—” He’s so tense. “Now I’ve lost my ability for that kind of attention to detail.”
“I don’t need attention to detail,” I tell him, “I just need you.”
“Come for a run with me,” he insists. “I need to get out of this place and I need that release before I take you…I don’t… Jesus, Maya, I can’t…”
“Okay,” I say. “Okay.”
He wants me. He needs me. It may not last, but for the moment, it’s enough.
Chapter 11
Wearing my running shoes, the paint splattered shorts, and a tank top over my bikini, I join Cruise on the beach.
When he sees me approaching he takes off at an easy run, allowing me to catch him just as we reach the water’s edge.
“You aren’t used to running on sand,” he observes, as I struggle with my feet sinking into the powder of the beach. “Stick to the wet part, and it’ll be easier,” and he takes off, his feet pounding against the sand, in a pace I can barely keep up with.
We cross the beach, running together, though I’m struggling to keep up with him, and turn a curve that leads us out from beneath the hotel, and into a straight stretch of beach. A few houses overlook the bluffs, but it’s mostly just sand, leading up into the trees.
Seeing how out of breath I am, Cruise stops, pretending to stretch while I get some air in my lungs.
“That asshole, Patrick, wants to cut all the trees down and build condos here,” Cruise tells me. “Luckily the guy the owns it won’t let him. But in a few years, well, he’s an old man. His kids will be thrilled to take Patrick’s money. In the end, Seascape Village will be a few banks, a Walmart, and some condos.
“Sometimes it seems like you care about this town,” I say.
He watches me. “Caring about things is dangerous.” And he takes off running again, leaving me with the impression that on top of everything else, he’s afraid of caring about me. But maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.
The beach curves again, and we find ourselves beneath a wide stretch of gleaming white sand, overlooked by a modern house with wide windows.