THAT GIRL WAS SOMETHING.
I smiled as she turned to leave. I waited for her to turn back and catch one last glimpse of me. I wouldn’t have minded one last look at her too.
Sleek and well-packaged woman that she was, her body would drive any man insane with her long legs, tiny waist, and curves in all the right places. I wanted her to turn so I could see her face and the smooth, soft skin right where her jaw and neck met, the place I now knew drove her fucking crazy when I bit at it.
I wanted to see those honey-colored eyes burning with resentment and fight in them. She bled confidence when someone cut her. Surprisingly, I found that blood attracted me.
I prided myself on not caring about the women I brushed off. I never gave them a promise, just like I hadn’t given Vick one. Yet, she targeted the jugular by calling me on my flaws and leaving me to think about them.
Normally, women knew what a one-night stand looked like.
A shiny outlook on the future blinded her to all we had last night. I wasn’t the one at fault, but there I was questioning myself.
She was the best I’d had in a long time. I practically got hard just watching her walk away. My body wanted her in a way I didn’t want a lot of other women, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew I could find someone to fill her shoes any day of the week. There were billions of women in the world and she was only one of them.
She was only one, and yet, when she didn’t look back at me, I almost went after her.
Almost.
She flipped her long blonde hair like it was waving goodbye and good riddance. I had wrapped that hair around my hand and owned her last night. Saying goodbye shouldn’t have been that easy for her. To most of the women I slept with, it wasn’t.
I shook off our encounter and got to work. Businesses had to grow. Money had to be invested. I had to focus. The world my family built had to run and run well. People depended on that. I wasn’t in Kauai to play around.
I took breaks here and there.
Jax and Jaydon would have killed me if I didn’t.
But I wanted to take my own life when I found out that day one of our excursions was a paddleboard lesson on a private beach across the island. We sat in a large van, piled on top of one another. And our driver looked completely incompetent.
I surveyed the van. “Put your seatbelt on, Jaydon.”
He smirked, “Sure, Dad.”
Everyone else complied without me pushing further. If I had to be the one with the stick up my ass so that everyone would live, so be it.
Somehow, Vick ended up next to me. We didn’t talk because, thankfully, I’d brought my laptop so I could catch up on emails.
I lost my patience after watching cars take turns to cross a one lane bridge though.
“Who booked this?”
Vick jolted a little at my tone, and Brey answered meekly from behind me, “I did. I didn’t know there would be so much traffic or that there was only one lane.”
Jax’s hand was on her thigh and he smiled like we had all the time in the world. “It’s fine, Peaches.”
Vick wiggled next to me like excitement was about to burst out of her. “We get to take in so much of the island. Look out that window!” She pointed as she practically shouted, “The fog hugs those mountains like a cocoon around a caterpillar. I love this! I could spend days doing this.”
I grunted. “No one has days to spend bouncing around a damn island.”
The tension in the van thickened. No one responded to my lashing out at Vick, and the woman just looked down at her phone as if she hadn’t heard me.
Suddenly, from her phone, I heard an excited weedy voice, “Vicky! You FaceTimed me finally.”
Her face lit up like a firefly in the middle of a warm summer night. “Steven,” she breathed and held her phone just far enough away from her face that he got a damn good angle of her neckline. The neckline I had ravaged the night before. “Kauai is gorgeous.”
“I told you it would be. How was the wedding? Brey and Jax with you?”
“Everyone’s here!” She swung her phone around to showcase all of us. Then she practically dangled her phone out the window. “And we are enjoying the freaking fantastic views. Isn’t it absolutely breathtaking?”
His low hum came out as a squeak over the phone’s speakers. “Vicky, I really wish I could have come with you. My apologies to you all. I’m sure the wedding was amazing.” Then he cleared his throat and said in a voice I am sure he hoped was casual, “And I see even Jett’s taking a break from work to sightsee.”
She angled the phone so we were both in the frame for Steven to see. “Jett’s still working. Laptop came along for the ride.”
Steven chuckled, but it was strained. “I see. Well, good to meet you through the phone, Jett.” He didn’t really think that. Anxiety bled out of his smile. “I know we may do business together soon.”
“Right. My lawyers and the financial team are reviewing some details before we reach out. I know you’ve been working closely with them and my investment reps. I’ll be sure to personally take a look before we make our final decision.” Because I hadn’t looked at all. I didn’t scope out every company we absorbed. I trusted my team to do that.
He looked relieved as he sighed into the phone. Then, his eyes shifted over, and I knew from the smile that stretched across his face, he was looking at Vick. “Well, that makes me so happy, Jett. Vicky, you are always influential and indispensable, I swear.”
Her friend Katie grumbled behind us about him calling her Vicky, but she ignored it and said, “I’m excited to get back to work. I’ll look over the contracts you sent me tomorrow morning.”
“Perfect. Call me once you do.”
“Sounds good. Talk soon.”
He smiled and then the video chat ended.
“Seriously,” Katie piped up from behind her. “Can he stop calling you Vicky? You hate that nickname, and I do too. It’s fucking gross.”
“It is not gross,” Vick retorted. “He doesn’t mean any harm.”
“Harm? Ha! He’s practically pissing on you by calling you something no one else does. He wants to bone you.”
Vick didn’t deny it. She smiled like she hoped that was the consensus. “I hope you’re right. We’ve been friends for a few years, but I think he’s starting to really make an effort. Brey was there last time we all went out for drinks and he totally looked like he was into me, right?”
Brey smiled and rested her head on Jax’s shoulder. “He seemed thrilled to see you.”
‘And he sounded sincere when he said he wished he could have made it right?’
Brey nodded.
I went back to typing and cut their conversation short. ‘Is this ride ever going to end?’
My tone must have come off rude because Jaydon kicked my chair from behind. “Loosen up, you prick. We’re not working.”
“You’re not working,” I grumbled.
The conversation in the van went on without me. Rome, another one of the newlywed’s friends who’d flown in for the wedding, bothered Katie by continually calling her Kate-Bait. Jaydon complained that he should have been able to invite a few girls. Jax kept telling him to fuck off while Brey kept my two brothers from coming to blows.
I worked.
At one point, Vick leaned right over my lap to take a picture of the view. “You want to trade seats since you’re so intent on capturing every damn thing on your phone?” I asked quietly so we were the only ones privy to our conversation.
“We’ll never get a better view than this,” she whisper-shouted back at me.
“Then put your phone down and look at it.”
She glared at me, but clicked off her phone’s camera. “Fine. Trade seats with me.”
I slid my laptop into the case at my feet and unbuckled my belt. She started to stand but there was enough space for me to just grab her by the hips and lift her. I held her as I slid into her seat and set her in mine. Her eyes widened and stayed on me the whole time.
“What?”
“Don’t grab me like that in front of everyone,” she whispered so discreetly I could barely hear her.
“Why?”
“Because it looks like you … we’ve … well, you know.”
I smirked. “Maybe I don’t. Care to enlighten me?”
She rolled her eyes and looked out the window. “Don’t be a jerk and don’t grab me like you know my body intimately.”
I looked her up and down. Then I reached past her to pull her seatbelt down across her chest. I took my time, and I felt her chest heave in a breath, hold it. A little bubble, one I didn’t want to exist formed around us. I snapped the seatbelt into place and popped our moment. “But I do know your body just that way, Victoria.”
She scoffed, “No one knows about our night, and I want it to stay that way.”
“Why?”
“Because!” she said loudly and some of her friends looked over. I was finding she had a hard time keeping her voice down.
“Are you ashamed, Pix?”
She smiled at everyone and they lost interest quickly. “I’m not ashamed. I just don’t think it was memorable enough to share.”
I hummed low. “Okay. I’ll let you have that one.”
She pursed her lips like she wanted to say more but knew it wasn’t in her best interest. Her honey-colored eyes followed my movements as I reached back into my bag to grab my laptop.
“What are you working on that is so much better than all this, anyway?” She leaned in a little as I opened my laptop, and her blonde hair slid from her shoulder onto mine.
She was so damn close I could have turned and bit the bottom lip I’d spent so much time nibbling the other night. It tasted like a sweet strawberry, and I could smell that she was probably wearing that same lip gloss.
My body reacted, and I was surprised to find I could barely focus on the email I pulled up. “Just business as always. I may need to research that little company of Mr. Stevie’s too. Huh?”
She recoiled. “His name’s Steven. Or Mr. Samson. And I highly doubt Steven will think your company buying out ours is a good idea, not after our conversation about you not giving a damn about employees.”
Her defensive tone tempted me to push her more. “Honey, for the right price, every man thinks my ideas are fan-fucking-tastic.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Not Steven.”
The bus driver announced that we’d arrived and everyone cheered.
I let Vick’s comment go. She could live in her bubble forever. She probably would too, because I wouldn’t pay an arm and a leg for a company that wasn’t willing to bend to my will. If Mr. Stevie wanted to keep Samson and Sons, he could.
We paddle boarded on the private beach for much longer than I would have liked to. Fortunately, Rome was also one of the clients I personally invested for. We discussed how his clubs and bars were doing and where we could put extra money. It was close enough to a business meeting that I didn’t feel I’d completely wasted my day.
When Katie, Brey, and Vick approached us, I figured I could succumb to a little play. They all goaded Rome into going out to paddleboard. Katie and Brey didn’t bother with me, as if they knew my answer would be a withering look.
They practically dragged Rome out, but Vick lingered behind, eyeing me in my black swim trunks. “You dressed to get into the ocean. Are you planning to?”
I looked at the bikini she filled out. “I don’t think you’re dressed for paddleboarding at all.”
She crossed her arms. “Jett, I’m wearing a swimsuit. Of course, I dressed for it.”
“You barely kept it on with that last fall.”
“So, your attention wasn’t just on your work this whole time,” she remarked, hands falling to her hips.
“If you’re insinuating that I was paying attention to you, I can admit to that. Every guy is paying attention to you. The paddleboard instructor can’t look away. He’s too damn nervous he’ll miss when the strings you call a bikini top inevitably come loose.” I wasn’t kidding either. He was still staring at her even while she talked to me.
I understood though. Vick drew eyes wherever she went, I was starting to realize. She dressed for attention and she got it. She had chosen to wear a bubblegum-pink bikini top and thong today and the color popped against her tan. Her blonde hair was down and slicked back by the ocean water. With her long legs and loud personality, she drew every eye on that private beach.
She put her hands on her hips and leaned in closer. “Jett Stonewood, stop trying to insult me and get your workaholic ass into that beautiful water. No one should be sitting here working, not even you.”
I stared at her for maybe a moment too long. She surprised me by not fighting back when I insulted her. Most everyone would have been defensive, would have retaliated in some way. She, instead, wanted me to have an enjoyable time.
Before I realized what I was doing, my laptop was back in its case and I was standing up. She backed up a step, and her eyes widened as I loomed up to her. She didn’t shrink away. Instead, she blatantly looked when I took my shirt off.
“Careful, Pix, someone might think you had an unmemorable night with me.”
