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I feel like I’ve been fighting the tide for as long as I can remember, swimming against the surf. Found a family that you enjoy being a part of? Can’t have that, we have to rip her away. Made a friend after starting school later than everyone else? Time to move and find a new school. You see the light of adulthood just around the corner and dare to hope? Enjoy this last placement with a vile waste of human space.
Living with Rhea, I’d learned to stop fighting the current and just float. It was stupid to think that I could float forever. Maybe I need to stop trying to swim against the waves that are always stronger than me, stop floating aimlessly, and start learning to surf the waves instead.
My skin tingles with the sensation of being watched. It snaps me quickly back to reality, though I’ve missed a large part of whatever conversation just transpired. It’s not Remy or Wes who is sending the prickling over my flesh, though I do notice they’re both looking at me.
“Hmm?” I murmur, refusing to admit that I zoned out and missed something.
“Where do you go, Claire?” Rhea laughs. “Cause you may be sitting here looking all fierce as fuck in that dress, but I can tell you’re spacing.”
“You’re right.” I laugh. “Sorry, I just started thinking about how when we get home, I may take up a new hobby.”
“Oh?” I’ve piqued her interest. “And what hobby is that?”
“Surfing.” I lift the bottle of prosecco to my lips and let the bubbles explode against my tongue. When I set it back on the table, I see that Rhea is staring at me in shock. “You know how much I love the water.”
“That’s so random.” She shakes her head. “But you should do it. I don’t know if the surf is good, or whatever the kids say, but Laguna Beach is the perfect road trip distance.”
I didn’t even realize Elaine had left the table until she sets a fresh glass next to me, which I ignore, and then refills a few of the wine glasses scattered around the table. Michael refuses her politely while Dimitri takes it but then sets it aside immediately.
Elaine doesn’t offer Remy one, and I don’t peg him as a wine drinker, but he stands and takes the one that his bodyguards or employees discarded.
I’m enamored, watching him lift it to his lips and take a perfunctory sip, his tanned arms thick and strong against his rolled-up sleeves. I want to feel those arms wrap around me, feel his warmth. When he sets the glass down again, his eyes find mine. “Start now.”
I’m not sure if he thinks I really have any interest in surfing or if he is somehow in my head, knowing what I’m thinking. But it doesn’t matter, because when Rhea asks, “Start what?”, he grins.
“Start surfing now. I can teach you.”
Chapter seventeen
Remy
“You surf?” Rhea scoffs. She’s had a fair amount of wine, which is why I decide not to take offense to her disbelieving tone.
“Rhea,” I laugh. “We grew up on the beach. I live on the water. Of course, I learned to surf.”
Claire laughs too, commanding my attention. She looks transformed… not like the girl I brought into my home, and also not like the girl I pulled out of the warehouse a few days ago. It’s somewhere between comforting to see her recovering and also unsettling that the innocent girl who came here on my plane seems to be gone. This Claire, I decide, is most similar to the woman who threw herself at me with fire in her eyes. This is the woman who I painted with the blood of her living nightmare, the woman who I fucked fast and hard, but who deserved for me to take my time.
God, I want a redo. I want to lay her down and explore every inch of her body, both the parts that I covered with blood and the ones that I didn’t. I want to taste her on my tongue again, feel her hair wrapped around my fist, learn the noises she makes when she’s about to detonate. I want to consume her. This Claire is fucking divine, and I want to worship her the way gods deserve.
“Are you doubting me?” I smirk.
“No,” Claire laughs. “It’s just… I’m trying to imagine you outside of… this.” She gestures to me as if that single word is capable of explaining whatever is in her head.
“This?”
“Yes, this. Imagining you outside of this ‘all business’ persona.”
“I think,” Wes pipes up, “that she is saying she is having a hard time imagining you without a stick up your ass.”
Cocky motherfucker.
I deliberately ignore him, which isn’t too hard as I’d forgotten he was there anyway, looking morose between my two men. “You’ve seen me without all this.”
It’s a bold admission, considering my sister has explicitly warned me not to mess with her best friend. It says enough without saying too much, while also being rife with innuendo. I also don’t know if Claire will be angry at me for exposing that information, though the color that rushes to her cheeks doesn’t look like it’s put there entirely by embarrassment. She holds my gaze.
My cock twitches, restless with the memory of being inside her—a memory I wholly intend to recreate.
“Wow, Claire,” Wes demands our attention again. I was capable of disregarding him when he addressed me, but hearing her name on his tongue sends rage rippling down my spine. I hate that he’s even here, breathing her air, let alone looking at her.
