I take a mirror photo for Whit.
Tristan
Think this is what women like?
Whit
A little lower, Tris. Don’t think she can see your dick.
I laugh again and jog down the stairs and out into the misty morning. Not wearing a shirt may have been a mistake. My skin prickles in the air as my feet slap the path that will take me to catering first, then Katie’s second.
I’ll beat her to the workout and I’ll have a coffee for her when she opens the door.
I don’t know if I can make her happy, but I know I can provide for her. And I know we’re compatible.
Hell, we’re more than compatible.
I’ve never felt like that with any woman before—that connected, that urgent, like if she didn’t have me inside her right then, she’d die, and if I didn’t have my mouth on her, I’d stop breathing.
Beyond that, I felt—new. I turn the feeling over in my head, add it to the list of ones I don’t really understand but know when I recognize them. The warm-hug feeling I get when I see Emory with Aiden, the champagne-lightning feeling I get when I’m on stage. And now, the feeling that my organs are too big for my body. No, that’s not right. It’s the feeling that my body is too small to contain me. When I’m with Katie, I feel like I own the world.
I grin to myself as I approach the catering building.They’ve been here since five a.m., and when I knock on the door, Alexis herself answers.
She runs a critical eye over my chest before she passes me two coffees. “I got you something.”
“Yeah?”
“If you say it was me, I’ll deny it.” Her gaze flicks to the side before she dips her hand into the pocket of her chef’s jacket and pulls out a bottle of coffee creamer with a homemade label that I recognize.
My eyes widen. “Where did you get this?”
“My friend is the manager at Beans ’N Brew. She gave me a bottle. It’s the proprietary summer recipe. Tastes like fresh sweet cream with a hint of orange blossom.” She shrugs, but she’s fighting a smile.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen her smile. “Why?” I ask as I take the bottle and dump an unhealthy amount into Katie’s coffee.
“Because she deserves good things,” Alexis says simply. “And you? With her? I’ve never seen anything better.”
I’m still fighting against the tightness of my throat when she plucks the bottle out of my hands and shuts the door in my face.
49
KATIE
How often do you think about me naked? Please circle one.
All the time
Constantly
As much as I think about you
“Here?” I kick my feet and squint at the water. We’re fifty yards away from one of the islands in the bay, but I can’t see the bottom.
“Yep.” Tristan settles next to me on the platform at the stern of the Targa. She’s forty feet of wood and chrome and pristine white siding, with a massive platform for sunbathing and a sunken seating area. We’re perched in the sun, side by side at the edge. “We have to anchor out here. If we bring the boat too close, we risk getting trapped when the tide goes out.”
Our toes skim the water. He’s in a pair of neon orange swim trunks and a faded white t-shirt that says Prince in block capitals. I’m in my most athletic bikini. It’s a perfectlate June day—one of those days where the sunshine feels physical and my hair is already searing the back of my neck.
“Are we staying that long?”
