“How is Amy able to afford a trip to New Zealand?”
“You’re too damn smart,” I mutter. “No one’s supposed to know about that.”
“About what?” she presses.
“I might be paying for it,” I mumble, low and smooshed in hopes she misses the words and drops the topic.
One rule of our arrangement was that no one knew IlentAmy the money to go on the trip. She didn’t even ask, only mentioned she wished she could go with them but couldn’t afford it. I offered. She accepted with terms.
There’s no term in which I have to accept the repayment.
I have no plan to let her pay me back for the trip.
“Why?”
“Amy deserves the experience. I could give that to her, so I did. What’s the point of having money if you can’t do things with it that make a difference to someone you love? I have too much for any one person.”
She pauses, taken by surprise, and then she’s dragging me down by my collar into a kiss. There’s a question in the action, one I don’t know how to answer, and she pulls me closer, nipping at my lower lip and deepening the connection.
Eventually, we break apart, and I’m as light as air.
“You’ll never let her pay you back,” she says.
It’s not a question, but I answer anyway. “No.”
She kisses me again, then says, “I was thinking I could maybe stay here tonight. If you wanted.”
I tip her jaw up. “I need to get some work done,” I start, and I don’t miss the flash of disappointment, but I carry on, “so as long as you’re okay with listening to the same loop of audio a million times, then I’d love for you to stay.”
“We can work together,” she offers, playing with the hem of my shirt. “I-I could run a timer, and we could take breaks. I read it can help with focusing.”
I roll my lips to hide my smile. “Sounds like a grand plan.”
One more kiss before I force myself to work. It’s the most mundane, boring, wonderful night of my life. All because it’s spent with her.
Chapter 23
sofía
“That’s all wrong,” Jett says, and I pause my thumb in the middle of cutting a video clip.
I’m going to whack him with my water bottle from overstimulation.
Potholes litter the road we’re traveling down, each one rattling my patience. Our friends have left Cairns, on their way to Sydney for their own adventures.
The driver hits another bump, and I lift from my seat.
A deep breath is not enough to calm my jittery nerves or quell the overfiring of my neurons. His cologne lingers on my skin, a reminder of last night and this morning. I had expected sex; instead, it was three hours of working in silence, only pausing when Jett decided he had earned a kiss.
I’ve experienced nothing like it.
He sees far more than I want and hits all the soft spots I try to hide. Only, it isn’t a strike that leaves a bruise. Rather, it’s like massaging a sore muscle. It’s awful and raw, but the next day, it hurts less. And when you press into the tissue again, the pain isn’t as sharp as before.
“What’s wrong about it?” I grit out.
We’re smooshed together in a small van, full to the brim with other tourists. While we’re taking a private tour the rest of the day, we have to meet our guide farther north of Cairns, and he arranged for us to hitch a ride with another tour group. I’ve yet to decide whether this lowers the rating he was going to receive, but the bus is air-conditioned, which earns him some brownie points.
Jett takes my phone, his knee grazing mine as he leans in so we have an equal view of the screen. He’s generous with his physical affection, and I’m starting to think it’s a love language for him. Touch of some variety.
