Somewhere in the middle, I guess? I’ll figure it out when I get there.
I shove the door to our shared room open, already bracing for her sharp tongue and sharper glare, and that intoxicating apple shampoo scent of hers.
But the room is dark.
My gut twists, a vicious lurch, because the air in here feels wrong without her filling it.
I check my phone. 11:07 p.m.
The event wrapped hours ago. She should be here doing her Ivy routines: auditing my toiletries, acting as the shoe police, or folding my underwear.
Where is she?
Daniel.
The name slithers in, unwanted, and I shove it back out. No. I’m not doing that. I don’t even know why I care. That’s the part that’s messing with me. Not Daniel, not things he said to make her smile, but the fact that I noticed at all. The fact that I’ve been lying in a hospital bed thinking about Ivy Ellison instead of, I don’t know, my own mortality.
I just had a near-death experience, and somehow Ivy is the only thing stuck in my head. It doesn’t make any sense, but there it is.
Ivy. Ivy. Ivy.
My thoughts keep circling her name. I need to find her. To fix whatever this is.
So where the hell is she?
The production office, obviously. She’s always three moves ahead, always working with no pause button. My bag hits the floor with a thud, and I whirl toward the door, ready to hunt her down. But my hand hovers over the handle.
Wait, you know her better than that. She’s not working, she’s thinking.
“Pool,” I mutter, backtracking into the hallway. I jab the elevator button and my pulse kicks up into something I don’t have a name for yet.
I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what I’m going to say. I just know that she’s somewhere in this hotel and—
I need her.
The elevator opens. I step in.
***
The pool deck is dimly lit with Edison lights. Dark shadows to encourage dirty behavior. A sliver of amber speckles the surface—the kind of lighting that makes bad decisions feel inevitable. The ocean beyond the railing is hidden tonight, nothing but sound. Rolling dark, with the occasional crash of a wave breaking.
The hot tub is at full capacity. Drinks hovering in the steam. An intimate tangle of shoulders and laughter. A leg that definitely belongs to a different body than the one it’s draped over. Flipper & Flirt is in full effect.Good for them.If you’re gonna let your ass hang out, better to do it in a hot tub full of strangers than a hospital gown.
But the pool?
Empty. Well, almost.
She’s here.
Watching her thighs piston through the water is a thing of beauty and a direct assault on my senses. She’s doing what she does: being powerful and passionate. She has no idea I’m standing here, gawking like a teenage boy. My skin is on fire, and my mind is a mess.
She hits the wall, flips in a blur of precision, and my self-control waivers.
Fuck waiting. Fuck hesitation. If she’s gonna destroy me, I might as well dive headfirst into it.
I toe off my shoes, strip my shirt over my head, and kick my pants off like they’re on fire.
Boxers only.
