“Yeah, I suppose so.”
It’s good that Ash isn’t all over Leo. I haven’t decided what the future holds for us all, as a unit—I like to keep people in neatly divided boxes, always knowing their place—and if he’s not attached to her, so much the better.
“Come on then, Mr. Underwood.” She tugs on the arm I still have wrapped around her waist. “I want to see what a water villa looks like inside.”
The interior of our cabin is a perfect canvas: white and mahogany, cream and pine. A hap-hazard melding of different woods and pale colors, rugged and rustic and expensive all at once. A huge four-poster bed, its posts carved like vines, dominates one side of the room; the other side is home to a nest of couches and tables. Pink and yellow blossoms float on water in glass bowls, the air conditioning blasts cool air down in chunks, and a platform out back leads to our own personal outdoor bath and shower.
I could get used to this, which is exactly why I mustn’t.
“I found the mini bar,” Leo calls from her kneeling position beside a billowing white curtain. “I have a taste for champagne all of a sudden, and I blame you.”
“Drinking away your troubles?”
“Drinking away my post-flight nerves.” She pulls out a huge green bottle with gold embellishment, and begins rooting around for glasses. “The troubles, to use an old cliché, suddenly seem far away.”
“But first…” I come up behind her again, tugging on her loose ponytail and thinking about the way she bent over, all bare and inviting, back in the jet cabin. My cock, restless as ever, begins to swell. “Come try out the shower with me.”
She puts the bottle down beside a bowl of flowers and turns, her fingers darting to straighten my collar. “Isn’t it…ah. Won’t everyone see?”
“We’re a thousand miles from civilization, and you’re still worried about being watched.” I tut. “Sweetheart. Lighten up.”
“We both know what you’re going to do to me in that shower, and I hardly think Ash needs to witness it.”
“There are walls, you dumb little pickle. There’s just no ceiling.”
“Oh.” She walks her fingers to my mouth. Teases her thumb across my bottom lip, frowning in concentration. “We are kinda dirty after that flight, huh?”
“Very dirty.” I have the biggest shit-eating grin.
A knock on the door makes Leo jump.
I peel her thumb from my lips to plant a kiss on its smooth tip. “That’ll be the luggage. Clean clothes.”
“Sounds good to me.”
I stumble over to the door, still grinning to myself and wafting the hem of my polo shirt about to usher cool air over my belly. When I pull it open, there are no suitcases. Only Gwen.
She holds up a couple print outs, her mouth pulled into an apologetic line. “You wanted to know what the damage was.”
I can almost feel myself scowling. I changed my mind. If half the world is digging through my dirty laundry, this is the perfect place to pretend it isn’t happening; all I want is to spread Leo across that perfect white bed, watch her nipples get hard in the air conditioning, carve patterns in strange codes across the undersides of her breasts and then watch the crimson rivulets drip down between her legs as she stands beneath the outdoor shower. Is that so much to ask?
Is it?
“Come in.” I sigh, stepping aside to usher Gwen into the villa.
She glances about the place, taking in the arrangement of pink petals on the bed and the bottle of champagne. “You got the honeymoon suite, huh?”
“Something like that.” I follow her down to the sofas, and gesture for Leo to join us. “Gwen’s brought some good news and some bad news.”
Leo wanders over. “What’s the good news?”
“There is no good news,” Gwen says bluntly. “But there’s plenty enough bad to go around.”